Democrat wins Va. House seat in recount by single vote; creating 50-50 tie in legislature

[u/slaysia]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/democrat-wins-va-house-seat-in-recount-by-single-vote-creating-50-50-tie-in-legislature/2017/12/19/3ff227ae-e43e-11e7-ab50-621fe0588340_story.html?utm_term=.82f2b85b50fa

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Especially in local elections when only a thousand or so people are voting. It boggles my mind that some people are dutiful in their votes for president, but don't bother to show up for the local elections where their vote carries so much more weight.

[u/MRiley84 → u/[deleted]]

That's because it's a pain in the neck to find out who is running and what the election actually is. Whenever I get the card in the mail it just says where to go and "General Election". To date I've found nothing about local candidates or what it is about at all, online. As someone with social anxiety, I'm not going to walk into a building with that many unknowns.

[u/CatBecameHungry → u/MRiley84]

You don't receive a voter's guide?

I know it's apples to oranges since Oregon does vote-by-mail, but we also get mailed a voter's guide which gives information about all candidates and ballot measures, along with statements of support for each and who has endorsed them. If you know which groups you agree with, this makes it really easy to figure out your position.

[u/TbonerT → u/CatBecameHungry]

In my state, you’re on your own learning about the candidates. One had a website where he listed his issues. They included things like the economy, police, taxes, the military, but no position on any of these issues. It was utterly useless.

[u/sonyka → u/TbonerT]

In my state, you’re on your own learning about the candidates.

Wait what? But what do you… how are you supposed to…

What the fuck?

 
I'm legit stunned. We get a fairly thick voter guide for every state election. Candidate statements, independent analysis of proposed ballot measures, the whole shebang. I had no idea there was variation in this. Never even considered it.

Wow. What the fuck.

[u/StarOriole → u/sonyka]

Heck, in my state I don't even get a mailer saying that there is an election, much less which offices are up for election, much less the names of the people running for them. I'm in fact shocked that there are states that provide voter guides and it took me a while to puzzle out how they could be created in an unbiased way, because being freely given information about an election is so foreign to me.

It is entirely up to me to think, "Oh, hey, it's getting warm out. I should Google to see if there's an election next month." If I didn't actively strive to vote, I would never know.

[u/TbonerT → u/sonyka]

I'd never seriously considered voting until 2016 and I was shocked. I had no idea who some of these people were and no way to find out.

[u/sonyka → u/TbonerT]

The shock is wearing off now and underneath it… I'm pretty pissed! That's just complete bullshit. It's passive voter suppression, basically. Gross.

[u/nolan1971 → u/TbonerT]

Usually the local papers cover the candidates fairly well, if briefly.

[u/19Kilo → u/CatBecameHungry]

You don't receive a voter's guide?

These are surprisingly unpopular with the powers that be in a lot of states.

[u/[deleted] → u/19Kilo]

These are surprisingly unpopular with the powers that be in a lot of Republican states.

ftfy

[u/gravescd → u/[deleted]]

Leaders with a victim complex... of course they're afraid someone's going to write unfair pro-liberal descriptions of ballot measures. I'm really tired of Rs pretending that political "discrimination" is worse than actual discrimination and poverty.

[u/puppet_up → u/19Kilo]

This is why candidates like to push single issues so much. They know that if people were to actually read up on all of their other positions, they might change their minds so they spend most of their time and effort (i.e. money) on figuring out a few of the hot button issues in their area and campaign only on that.

[u/famous_unicorn → u/19Kilo]

That's really unfortunate. In NYC, they send them via mail and they include the candidates and their positions on matters of interest. They are also written in several languages. I <3 NY.

[u/MRiley84 → u/CatBecameHungry]

No voter's guide. It might be mentioned in the local news, but I don't watch TV and there's never anything on the news' websites. There's nothing ever on the county's and state's website either. I live in a low income city in Upstate New York though, so that could be why.

[u/TheBitterSeason → u/MRiley84]

Have you tried the websites of your county Democratic and Republican Parties? They usually publish voter guides if they're even remotely on the ball. Though I've heard of some particularly poorly-run county parties not doing so, forcing people to just go to the opposing local party website and vote for the opposite of whoever they recommend.

[u/SecretScorekeeper → u/TheBitterSeason]

Or you can find an organization that supports a cause you really believe in and follow their endorsements. Your labor union, the Audubon Society, League of Women Voters; a lot of organizations recognize the importance of politics. (Including churches who should lose their tax exempt status for politicking now that we're rewriting the tax laws, but that was a non-starter with this boob, wasn't it.)

[u/nooniewhite → u/MRiley84]

I live in a small city (50,000?) in Minnesota and I come across the same problem. For major elections (house, senate) I know how to find my information, but the smaller ones- city council, judges, etc I have zero idea how to educate myself. Looks like I need to learn how to learn about this!

[u/clockwerkman → u/CatBecameHungry]

As a native virginian, I have never even heard of a voters guide.

[u/stfupcakes → u/CatBecameHungry]

Here in Missouri a voter’s guide is called a church.

[u/steals_fluffy_dogs → u/CatBecameHungry]

WA voters get guides too! It's very convenient.

[u/ab3ju → u/MRiley84]

My city website had bios for all of the city council candidates this year. They also sent out a mailer detailing the reasoning for one of the referendum questions (which was to borrow funds to repair a dam).

[u/Everto24 → u/MRiley84]

https://ballotpedia.org/Elections_calendar

It's not perfect, but it's what I use to familiarize myself with candidates before I vote. It's obviously better for state and national elections, but it has information for local elections.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

f

[u/Grenshen4px → u/[deleted]]

Motto for the future:

EVERY VOTE FUCKING COUNTS

[u/[deleted] → u/Grenshen4px]

Yup, because of a single vote, the GOP lost control of the House of Delegates for the whole state. I'm going to have to look up how they're going to function with no majority. Odd numbers people! Use them.

[u/Grenshen4px → u/[deleted]]

I'm going to have to look up how they're going to function with no majority.

They still have the senate had the senate been up this year it would probably had flipped blue. Since they last had elections in 2015 for the state senate its going to be two years until then.

[u/[deleted] → u/Grenshen4px]

Right, but the House of Delegates has no provision for breaking ties. So it's possible they'll deadlock a lot and be unable to pass things at all.

[u/SuperCool101 → u/[deleted]]

Or maybe they'll be forced to work in, gasp, a bipartisan manner!

[u/[deleted] → u/SuperCool101]

That's theoretically why we've allowed the Filibusterer for so long in the Senate. It's not exactly been working out for us :(.

[u/foxden_racing → u/[deleted]]

Eh. The filibuster is fine, the problem is that they all decided that actually filibustering was hard work, and decided to change the rules to give every single senator veto power.

The Filibuster, as designed, is one of those things that's supposed to be so serious you stake your career on it because making the news for shutting down the legislature over something has a very strong chance of pissing off the people able to vote on you. It's you saying "This matter is so goddamned important that it's worth grinding the entire legislature to a halt over", and you believe so strongly in it that you're willing to take a stand that forgoes food, sleep, even toilet breaks until one of three things happens: You back down, they back down, or you annoy so many senators that they collectively make you back down (via a Cloture Motion, which requires a 2/3rds majority).

The problem is, it's also hard work. To actually Filibuster, you have to be granted the floor and then refuse to return it when your allotted time is up. If you leave the floor, stop talking for more than a certain period of time, etc...game over. The floor gets returned, and business continues as usual.

So, during GW's term, a bunch of powerful senators got together and decided to change the rules. That's too much like work, so instead now all a senator has to do is declare their "intention" to filibuster, they skip actually seizing the floor/etc and go straight to a Cloture motion. If that can't pass, the measure dies immediately.

It theoretically saves everyone a ton of time, but it also has three side effects: one, Filibusters become trivial, something that requires no skin in the game, no risk, and no effort. Two, it means that a Filibuster can't be busted by the person doing it giving up.

Three, and most importantly, it effectively gives every single senator the power to unilaterally kill an order of business, be it a bill, a nomination, whatever. While not technically identical, it's close enough for government work ^(HA!) to call it the same as senators having veto power...a power that's supposed to be reserved for the POTUS. Getting 67 votes in the senate on anything is effectively impossible given how deeply partisan it's become, so in practice "I intend to filibuster" is no different from "I veto this bill".

That's the bullshit that needs to go, but don't ever expect a body able to change its rules in its own self-interest to ever make things harder on themselves.

[u/Tank3875 → u/[deleted]]

That's only because they lowered the number of votes to break it recently from a supermajority to a simple majority.

Edit: I was thinking about them doing it in cases of nominations. Oopsie Daisy. Still don't understand why it isn't used, though.

[u/xiaodown → u/Tank3875]

No; if you're thinking about the health care plan and the tax bill, where the magic number was 50, it is a senate rule that says that if the bill is still in the reconcilliation process, it only needs 50 votes.

With the health care repeal bill and tax bill, this was done by first attaching an amendment that contained reconcilliation instructions to the 2017 budget, IIRC. There are rules as to what can be a reconcilliation bill, and the byrd rule is also in effect. But, tl;dr: they're using the existing rules that are intended to fix up little things here and there to instead pass massive legislation while claiming that it's budget-neutral so as not to trigger Byrd.

They did invoke the Nuclear Option (setting the cloture motion threshold at a simple majority instead of a 3/5ths majority, i.e. 50 instead of 60) in order to put Gorsich on the supreme court.

[u/blue_2501 → u/xiaodown]

This is Harry Reid's biggest failing: being scared shitless to change or remove the filibuster while his enemies are unafraid to do so the moment they can push something through.

Thanks, Harry, for fucking up Congress to a perpetual filibuster stall while you had a Democrat in the White House.

[u/DrKronin → u/[deleted]]

I think it might work better if the geriatric millionaires actually had to stand up and talk the entire time rather than just threatening to.

[u/aquarain → u/SuperCool101]

That boat has sailed.

[u/Who_Decided → u/SuperCool101]

I would absolutely hope they wouldn't, since the GOP has essentially been the party of Disney villains this entire year. Working with evil is not a quality I want in my representatives.

[u/KallistiTMP → u/Who_Decided]

connect familiar dependent encourage abundant glorious violet sharp sheet vast

[u/Who_Decided → u/KallistiTMP]

I agree. Conservatives are 100% necessary. Fortunately neoliberals exist. Now if only we had progressives.

[u/socialistbob → u/[deleted]]

Only if everything is straight party line votes. There will probably be a lot of people crossing party lines to get better deals. Both the Republicans and the Democrats are probably making lists right now and trying to get members of the other party to switch caucuses. Ralph Northam was actually targeted by the Republicans when he was in the VA Senate trying to get him to switch parties.

[u/KuriboShoeMario → u/socialistbob]

Anyone leaving the left in Virginia in the current climate is asking to not be re-elected. The people of Virginia just spent an off-year telling the GOP to eat a sack of dicks, they will utterly shred anyone who bolts for them now.

[u/socialistbob → u/KuriboShoeMario]

I don't see any Democrats switching parties at the moment but I could see some of them voting with the Republicans on some issues. Redistricting won't occur until post 2020 and these delegates are up for reelection in 2019 often times in very conservative districts.

That said Republicans who narrowly won reelection are going to know that they will be targets in 2019 and the Republican senators will see the Dems winning big in their districts. I wouldn't be surprised if a Republican senator or two decides to either caucus with the Dems or take a nice cushy job in the Northam administration thus triggering a special election.

[u/TheBitterSeason → u/socialistbob]

I'm sure he's fucking glad he didn't take that offer.

[u/snowflakelib → u/[deleted]]

The Lt. Gov has the tie breaking vote in the state senate, but there is not a mechanism for ties in the House of Delegates, so the legislation does not proceed.

[u/showmeurknuckleball → u/[deleted]]

Hm you're right, this is America so compromise and collaboration are not options.

[u/bluejams → u/[deleted]]

By negotiation, also known as "the way it was supposed to be"

[u/MrZAP17 → u/bluejams]

I mean, it’s hard to negotiate if it means “Sure we’ll throw women under the bus if it means you’ll spend some money on schools.”

[u/Sororita → u/[deleted]]

Remember, to be #1 you have to be odd.

[u/[deleted] → u/Sororita]

I kind of like that. Alternative /r/getmotivated.

[u/ShartsAndMinds → u/[deleted]]

Considering how they've been functioning with a majority, it doesn't bode well for them.

[u/meltvariant → u/[deleted]]

Especially when Dems had 54% of the aggregate vote.

[u/FirstSonOfGwyn → u/[deleted]]

thanks southpark

[u/[deleted] → u/FirstSonOfGwyn]

VOTE or DIE!

[u/Evil_Skip_Bayless → u/[deleted]]

I can see the dems bring this out in 2018 but in a very real way. Can't hurt.

[u/PM_ME_YOUR_HOT_DISH → u/[deleted]]

Mother fucker!

[u/MosesKarada → u/PM_ME_YOUR_HOT_DISH]

Democracy is founded on one simple rule.

[u/vteckickedin → u/MosesKarada]

That men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.

[u/Changoleo → u/vteckickedin]

Savage.

[u/TurbulentJuice → u/MosesKarada]

Get out there and vote or I will motherfucking kill you

[u/Shilalasar → u/[deleted]]

Given the currnet and coming legislation that is actually true...

[u/MaximumEffort433 → u/FirstSonOfGwyn]

thanks southpark

Rant

One of the most frustrating things I kept running into during the election was the both sides argument.

"Both sides are the same, we're just choosing between a Giant Douche and a Turd Sandwich!"

For years I've heard that shit, and goddamn if it doesn't piss me off every time. I love South Park, and while I don't always agree with them, I have to admit that the show does a decent job of exploring current events and politics through a satirical lens. Yeah, I'm liberal as fuck, and they're libertarian as fuck, but by and large Stone and Parker are good about presenting both sides of an issue.

So imagine what folks who feel similarly about South Park think when they see this show that they like, created by writers that they respect, runs an entire episode about how voting doesn't matter because nothing ever changes. The viewers take that seriously, as a thoughtful criticism of our political system, an accurate reflection of reality seen through a funhouse mirror.

(And yes, I've heard many times that: "But they said that the Giant Douche was the good one, because douches are useful and Turd Sandwiches aren't!" If that was the moral that viewers had taken away from the episode we wouldn't be having this discussion, but that's not the moral they took away.)

I love Jon Stewart, I respect his opinion and his thoughtfulness, if he came out and told me that Democrats and Republicans were identical, were the same, I probably would have reevaluated how I think about politics. But there's a reason Stewart never did that, because he knows it's bullshit.

"Giant Douche and Turd Sandwich" I feel has done real harm to our political discussion. It's a pithy little throw away phrase that people can use to kill a conversation in its tracks, a thoughtless and contextless placeholder for considered opinions founded on facts and evidence, a social virus of the mind. It's a meme, and a fuckin' shitty one at that.

I love South Park, it's funny, it's smart, it's thoughtful. If one could be said to respect a cartoon show that started off with an alien shoving an entire spy satellite up Cartman's ass, then I respect the show; and the show has a responsibility to its audience to live up to that respect. Giant Douche and Turd Sandwich are so far divorced from modern politics that we might as well be talking about the whigs and the bull moose party. Douche and Turd is like having this great girlfriend, she's funny and smart, but there was that one time she wrote an op-ed about how we should burn the homeless as fuel that just never sat right with me.

---

Edit: Objections.

I'm seeing two main objections in the comments, and I'd like to address them.

"The episode was written in 2004, it was a different time, the parties were the same back then!"
No. Al Gore and George Bush are not the same. John Kerry and George Bush are not the same.

"But it's true, South Park was right, the parties are the same!"
No, the party that just let Net Neutrality die is not the same as the party trying to save it.
No, the party that has been trying to privatize Medicare for the past half decade is not the same as the party flirting with Medicare For All.
No, the party that immediately set to detoothing and neutering the Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform Bill is not the same as the party that passed it.
No, the party that held the middle class hostage to defend Bush era tax cuts is not the same as the party that begged to raise taxes on the top 1%.
No, the party that included a provision in tax reform to raise taxes on college students is not the same as the party trying to make college debt free.
No, the party that is trying to pass a $1,500,000,000,000.00 ($1.5tn) tax cut for millionaires and billionaires is not the same as the party opposing it.
No, the party that has spent the past eight years doing everything in their power to destroy the Affordable Care Act is not the same as the party protecting it.
No, the party that regularly and loudly speak out against the very existence of a minimum wage is not the same as the party trying to raise it to $12-$15 per hour.
No, the party that fear mongered about "What happens if a woman gets her period during a firefight!?" is not the same as the party working to give women equal roles in combat.
No, the party passing trap laws and requiring Doctors to perform medically unnecessary transvaginal ultrasounds is not the same as the party fighting for a woman's right to choose.
No, the party that wants to pass a constitutional amendment defining marriage as being between one man and one woman is not the same as the party fighting to protect gay rights.
No, the party that is going out of their way at the state and federal level to make voting harder to do is not the same as the party fighting for more polling places and longer early voting.
No, the party that believes "Climate change is a Chinese hoax" and "God promised Noah he would never flood the earth again" and "Look, I have a snowball" is not the same as the party that believes in science.

Still don't believe me that the parties aren't the same? Okay, riddle me this, do you know which party is which in the examples I listed above? Because unless you think that Democrats have been fighting to overturn Roe vs Wade, and Republicans are trying to raise the minimum wage, then you have no excuse for believing the "they're the same!" talking point. I didn't mention one single party name in that list, but you, dear reader, you knew exactly who I was talking about.

Yeah, there is some shit that the parties line up on, policies that both parties support like CHIP (Until this year, when Republicans let it die) or the Violence Against Women Act (Until Republicans almost let it lapse during the Obama years), or raising the debt ceiling (Until tea party Republicans almost didn't raise it), but those commonalities are father and father between, and hardly reflect the reality of modern American politics. No, the parties aren't the same.

[u/YNot1989 → u/MaximumEffort433]

No one ever stopped and said, "Wait a minute, Matt and Trey are both libertarians, no wonder they think there's no point to voting, nobody likes candidate preaching their social-Darwinist beliefs."

[u/ruffus4life → u/YNot1989]

rich libertarians. they didn't have any political views for a long time.

[u/puckerings → u/ruffus4life]

It's easy to be libertarian when you don't have to worry about whether you'll be able to feed your family next week.

[u/Cultjam → u/puckerings]

It’s easy to be libertarian if you don’t know what lack of government regulation is like. Look into why savings & loan institutions don’t exist anymore.

[u/cookie-cutter → u/Cultjam]

Any one who believes in a hands-off government missed the finer points of Aliens and RoboCop

[u/Cultjam → u/cookie-cutter]

Oh yeah, Avatar too.

[u/Lord_Blathoxi → u/Cultjam]

Look at Somalia and that’s what a Libertarian Paradise would be.

[u/preprandial_joint → u/Lord_Blathoxi]

Ironically, Matt and Trey addressed this in a roundabout way with the pirate episode. All the kids want to be pirates, I presume because Pirates of the Caribean came out around that time, so they go off to where real pirates are, Somalia. When they get there they realize pretty quickly that it fucking sucks being a pirate in a country with virtually no government.

[u/Cronyx → u/Lord_Blathoxi]

Blood in the street, gated communities and private security companies.

[u/Occamslaser → u/ruffus4life]

It is amazing how many wealthy people suddenly become libertarian.

[u/DJSaltyNutz → u/Occamslaser]

Fuck you, i got mine

Lol its so stupid and selfish

[u/lashfield → u/ruffus4life]

It’s not a good sign if you’re getting your political beliefs from a cartoon, in any case.

[u/ruffus4life → u/lashfield]

you can get ideas from anywhere. the jon stewart daily show was basically politician says this. then them show a clip for 2 months ago saying the exact opposite. but the giant douche/turd sandwich is a talking point crutch for people unwilling to put in the effort.

[u/[deleted] → u/ruffus4life]

Democrats need to up their meme game. I'm totally serious.

[u/[deleted] → u/lashfield]

There's nothing inherently ignorant about an animation. I think any medium of communication has the potential to teach real concepts in a thoughtful way.

[u/AryaStarkRavingMad → u/lashfield]

I mean, political cartoons have been a thing for over a century; while South Park is obviously an entirely different beast, it's still media capable of presenting ideas in a way that other media can't. There should be no limit to where ideas can come from, as long as you keep having them.

[u/TheReasonsWhy → u/lashfield]

True, however, if something within a cartoon sparks imaginative thought or an internal dialogue that makes you question your values, then that should definitely be honored.

[u/theth1rdchild → u/TheReasonsWhy]

South Park is such bottom barrel radical centrism that you may be better off never caring if South Park is what inspired you.

[u/tonytalent → u/lashfield]

But people definitely are, so we should probably consider what that means.

[u/hbgoddard → u/lashfield]

The medium shouldn't discredit good ideas

[u/reverendcat → u/lashfield]

I dunno, man. Political cartoons have a LONG history across modern civilizations.

[u/LGRW_16 → u/lashfield]

Idk some dr Seuss books promote pretty solid international relations.

[u/schistkicker → u/ruffus4life]

My libertarian high-school friends on FB (more acquaintances, really, we don't have that much in common anymore) have been posting about how excited they are about how they'll be able to file taxes on a postcard. Nothing about the economics (they're middle-class, have a kid or two, some have health issues), just that filing taxes will be easier. It's so Pollyanna-ish.

[u/HybridVigor → u/schistkicker]

They'd probably support Newspeak as well. I mean, there are a lot of words I don't understand, anyway. Why not make language simpler, right?

[u/waiv → u/YNot1989]

Getting your politics from Climate change skeptics is probably not the best idea.

[u/[deleted] → u/YNot1989]

The narrative is always "South Park doesn't take sides, they make fun of everyone". Has South Park ever mocked libertarians?

[u/GregBahm → u/[deleted]]

Very early in the history of South Park, Trey and Matt thought it would be a good idea to play a prank on their own audience by doing the Terrance and Phillip episode instead of revealing who Cartman's mom was.

Their audience didn't take the joke well. Trey and Matt said in multiple interviews that they learned their lesson from this: that it's okay to make fun of everyone except their own audience, because their audience couldn't handle being made fun of. The World of Warcraft episode, ten years later, was the first episode where they risked making fun of their audience again, and they are on record saying they thought it was going to be a disaster.

Even though it wasn't, I think they still know there's a thinned skinned region of their audience that they dare not offend, which is why they took the actual Donald Trump out of their 2016 election episodes and replaced him with a sympathetic Mr. Garrison against an unsympathetic Hillary Clinton.

[u/YNot1989 → u/[deleted]]

This show isn’t racist/homophobic/transphobic/antisemetic/ableist! It makes fun of everyone! Except libertarian white men.

[u/[deleted] → u/YNot1989]

just say libertarians, because they make fun of white men more than anyone

[u/Vio_ → u/YNot1989]

They've also been in the "South Park" bubble with zero hardship or exploration of anything that pushes their views for 20 years now. It's easy to be a libertarian when you can afford everything and have "safe" drug dealers and not have to worry about tainted product. It's easy to claim that both sides are equal when you're well enough to never be affected by the decisions and policies enacted by those sides.

[u/mnmkdc → u/Vio_]

What did the safe drug dealers thing have to do with it?

[u/[deleted] → u/MaximumEffort433]

I’ve honestly turned on South Park for a lot of reasons. One of the biggest was their tendency to rely on the middle ground. When I was younger I thought it was brilliant until I realized that acting like both sides are the same is bullshit. Just because neither side is perfect doesn’t mean that one side is not objectively worse.

[u/pheliam → u/MaximumEffort433]

I feel the exact same way about George Carlin's old standup bits, esp. his one about "the owners" of this country and that you have no choice.

I love Carlin's work but telling millions of fans "don't vote" and "fuck hope" and all that is damaging to citizen participation on the side who generally does not want war or misogyny.

His dystopic vision has almost come to be realized, however it's not here yet. We still have the vote. It is everything.

[u/IMAVINCEMCMAHONGUY → u/pheliam]

I didn’t agree with Carlin either. Especially when he use to say that people who don’t vote have the right to bitch because they didn’t elect these politicians. One of the very few things I disagreed with him on.

[u/Jeezylike2Smoke → u/IMAVINCEMCMAHONGUY]

True....his bit on republicans is spot on though

[u/IMAVINCEMCMAHONGUY → u/Jeezylike2Smoke]

Lol, yes it is.

https://youtu.be/_Y5-jhDBV2w

[u/Dubsland12 → u/IMAVINCEMCMAHONGUY]

He got pretty bitter after his wife lost a tough cancer battle.

[u/Oak_Redstart → u/pheliam]

Carlins line about the environment "the earth will be fine it's just a big rock" seems to come up a lot an annoys me. The following "its the people who are fucked" makes the apathy nihilistic.

[u/MaximumEffort433 → u/[deleted]]

Oh shit, I didn't even think of that! :(

[u/[deleted] → u/MaximumEffort433]

You're 100% right though. In my experience, South Park appeals to two separate demographics: one that is clever enough to get that they are lampooning a certain subset of individuals who take things at face value, and ones that take things at face value who just come for the low-rent poo jokes. The first subset seems to watch as a cathartic way of dealing with the Cartmans of the world. The second subset are the cartmans of the world and unfortunately seem to only get further entrenched in their notion that they're better than everyone else, and being a dick/racist/lumping all politicians together is ok.

[u/Atario → u/[deleted]]

they are lampooning a certain subset of individuals who take things at face value

They really seem to waver on this, though. Cartman is supposed to be the asshole who's always wrong, but they sure do seem to talk through him a lot to make what seem to be their actual points.

[u/cseckshun → u/Atario]

wipe gold one literate placid school oatmeal disarm repeat cows

[u/pali1d → u/[deleted]]

I'd definitely been referred to as a ginger, but the soulless bit was a new one.

[u/tony_orlando → u/[deleted]]

I lost all my friends in middle school for being Canadian. The anti Canada jokes spiraled into genuine xenophobia. It felt so stupid and frustrating.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Hope you're not Canadian.

[u/CopyX → u/[deleted]]

I had never even thought about that. What the fuck.

[u/kilar277 → u/MaximumEffort433]

This honestly speaks to a much larger issue with the show. So much of my generation (mid twenties and younger) has been inundated with this cynical "if you have an opinion you're morally compromised" bullshit from South Park since birth.

The show is funny, and smart, and has a lot of very complex ways of getting issues across, along with very not-so-complex ways.

But in terms of indoctrinating people into horrifying hiveminds of cynicism, it's right up there with Rick and Morty. It's just that South Park predates the sort of internet discourse needed to dissect something like this, so it's just a sort of constant variable for most people. South Park, imo, is innately harmful to our culture and political climate.

It's the attitudes like these that gave birth to /b/ and /pol/, and eventually the alt-right, however much it pains me to admit. I do genuinely think that shows like South Park played at least some role in creating literal 21st century nazis.

My generation is not perfect, and instead of the just usual fight upward (that is, the fight of the younger generation against their parents), it seems to be a lateral challenge as well. We're fight ourselves as well as our parents and it's becoming increasingly difficult to do either one.

Edit: spelling

Edit 2: There's actually more I want to say.

[u/MaximumEffort433 → u/kilar277]

Speaking as someone a bit older than you (33) I actually have great faith in your generation and the one coming up. You guys are a hell of a lot more informed and educated than I was, and that gives me a lot of hope. Maybe it's just from my vantage point, and it's different on the ground level, but from here you guys seem pretty cool. :)

[u/dotmatrixhero → u/MaximumEffort433]

I appreciate this write up. It's important to look critically at the shows that we admire. A show can be amazing, but not perfect. And that doesn't mean we have to flip out and hate it, but it doesn't mean we should be complicit and accept everything about it either.

I think satire, by nature, will always fall short. It's much easier to find the flaws in something than it is to suggest improvements.

[u/[deleted] → u/dotmatrixhero]

But many don't see the deficiency. The see criticism and satire as the ANSWER to the problem. Let's hope there are enough of us out there

[u/BEST_RAPPER_ALIVE → u/[deleted]]

What people are forgetting is that with a turd sandwich, you're literally eating shit, but a giant douche can be used for good things: like basting a giant Thanksgiving turkey, or douching your mum's cavernous vagina.

[u/Picnicpanther → u/dotmatrixhero]

It's also extremely unhealthy to get your entire worldview, lock stock and barrel, from one tv show—especially a fictional, satirical cartoon. They can invent situations and bend it into the point they're trying to make, which makes it a lousy way to formulate your own opinions about the world.

Then again, libertarians have been taking fiction as reality since Ayn Rand.

[u/sezit → u/MaximumEffort433]

Dems don't always do good..

Repubs don't EVER do good.

[u/Dudesan → u/sezit]

There's a difference between "trying to do good, and occasionally failing", and "trying to do evil, and occasionally succeeding".

Anybody who can't tell the difference between these two approaches has no business voting.

[u/sezit → u/Dudesan]

well, I don't think Dems are always pure of heart. But I do think Repubs are 100% selfish, and any suffering caused by their cruelty is unimportant to them.

I saw a tweet the other day that sums it up: "I don't know how to convince you that other people matter."

[u/Spartanfox → u/sezit]

I think that's just it though.

The "both sides" crowd takes a binary look at politics. So the Republicans are definitely selfish, and the Democrats are sometimes selfish, so both sides are selfish. Same with corruption (point to the current corruption re: the GOP, someone else points to Chicago for the Democrats..."both sides"), or donors (Koch Brothers for the GOP, Soros for the Democrats, both wealthy billionaires donating to political parties? "Both sides").

It's incredibly simplistic logic that nags at another fault that seems to be pretty prominent, the inability to understand nuance.

[u/yankeesyes → u/MaximumEffort433]

"Giant Douche and Turd Sandwich" I feel has done real harm to our political discussion. It's a pithy little throw away phrase that people can use to kill a conversation in its tracks, a thoughtless and contextless placeholder for considered opinions founded on facts and evidence, a social virus of the mind. It's a meme, and a fuckin' shitty one at that.

I agree. And its smug. It's for people who don't want to take any responsibility for their vote. They just want to appear above those who do.

[u/Pyryara → u/yankeesyes]

Yup. Basically their stance is "let's laugh about all those people who deeply care about any kind of issue".

[u/nope-absolutely-not → u/MaximumEffort433]

"Both parties are the same" is the ultimate thought-terminating cliché.

The term was popularized by psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton in his 1961 book, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of "Brainwashing" in China.[17] Lifton wrote, "The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliché. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis".

No point in critical analysis, as you have done, if you can end it with "both parties are the same!" I'm no psychologist, but I'm willing to bet it's a defense mechanism against having to think about harsh or uncomfortable realities. It's mental hand-waving and dismissal.

[u/drkgodess → u/nope-absolutely-not]

Thought Terminating Cliche - replying to save.

[u/[deleted] → u/MaximumEffort433]

by and large Stone and Parker are good about presenting both sides of an issue.

They really, really aren't. They despise environmentalism and they endlessly and relentlessly mock climate change.

[u/asminaut → u/[deleted]]

South Park tends to take a dim view on most people that seriously care about an issue, no matter how legitimate/illegitimate it is. Which is one of the reasons I feel like I've grown out of it.

[u/Pyryara → u/asminaut]

Yes, this. The political stance of the show has been "lol @ anyone who deeply cares about anything" for a very long time now and it is something that makes sense when you're a rebellious teenager or adolescent, but not as an adult.

[u/[deleted] → u/asminaut]

Dare I say, South Park was the forerunner of modern edgelordery.

[u/[deleted] → u/asminaut]

South Park tends to take a dim view on most people that seriously care about an issue, no matter how legitimate/illegitimate it is. Which is one of the reasons I feel like I've grown out of it.

South Park's ideology: you'll never care about the wrong thing to care about, and never care about something for wrong and stupid reasons, if you never care about anything.

It's actually vaguely nihilistic. And, for all the praise South Park gets for being "edgy", quite a cowardly attitude to have.

[u/OverlordQuasar → u/asminaut]

I used to like it, then I just kinda realized that the message of every episode is either "shut up and accept it, you can't do anything and if you do you'll make it worse" or "caring is for idiots." You can satirize political issues without telling everyone that they're all pointless.

[u/kobitz → u/[deleted]]

Man Bear Pig sure hasent aged well

[u/[deleted] → u/kobitz]

It was just as stupid then as it is now.

[u/opentoinput → u/[deleted]]

Why? Why the fuck would someone do this?

[u/[deleted] → u/opentoinput]

They're libertarians.

[u/Ethiconjnj → u/MaximumEffort433]

To me southpark of is the epitome of why Jon Stewart quit. They don’t actually do anything to solve the issues. They do very very small amounts of education and that’s it.

Jon quit to try and fight for a single issue rather than spend his time whining that others do nothing.

[u/infinitelyexpendable → u/MaximumEffort433]

burn the homeless as fuel

Don't give them any ideas.

[u/dmodmodmo → u/MaximumEffort433]

Username checks out. Well put

[u/GlibTurret → u/MaximumEffort433]

THANK YOU. Seriously, South Park made me so angry during the election. I had been a South Park fan since 1999, but I had to rethink that in light of how badly they framed political discourse this time. This is not a joke. Thousands of people are literally dying due to climate change, mismanagement of resources, lack of health care, pointless wars. One party is perpetrating this mess. The other party isn't perfect, but they're a hell of a lot better.

[u/[deleted] → u/MaximumEffort433]

Absolutely. The problem comes when people watch the show and mistake author critique instead of critically thinking FOR THEMSELVES.

[u/RemingtonSnatch → u/MaximumEffort433]

South Park is often well written, but it is indeed irritating when people act as if Stone/Parker's opinions on everything is gospel. It's got that same stupid hive-mind contingent as Rick and Morty.

Also, notice how you almost NEVER hear people on the mainstream right saying that both sides are the same. They know it isn't true. Those on the left who subscribe to this bullshit are being incredibly useful idiots.

[u/[deleted] → u/MaximumEffort433]

False Equivalence

[u/famous_unicorn → u/MaximumEffort433]

Whenever I hear the "both sides" argument, I say, "If you don't like either candidate for president, then don't vote for them, but for FUCKS SAKE there are other measures and candidates that can affect your life on the ballot, so go inform yourself and vote on those!" They are the same idiots that wonder why their local taxes are so high.

[u/MaximumEffort433 → u/famous_unicorn]

"What's a ballot initiative? What is a Board of Education? Judges?"

Worse, it seems like it's always the Democrats that forget how important primary, local, and midterm elections actually are. /sigh

"I am not a member of any organized political party, I am a Democrat!" -Will Rogers, 1920's

[u/famous_unicorn → u/MaximumEffort433]

I love this!

"I am not a member of any organized political party, I am a Democrat!" -Will Rogers, 1920's

[u/VoltronV → u/MaximumEffort433]

Democrats have also almost unanimously been in support of Net Neutrality (including the FCC, house, and senate) and Republicans almost unanimously against it. It isn’t just Ajit Pai, the commission voted 3 (R) to 2 (D) to repeal. Previous votes when the commission was 3 (D) and 2 (R) also fell down party lines.

A side note, but whenever a Trump supporter/Republican says “but Obama appointed Pai to the commission, it’s all his fault!”, remind them of what I just mentioned, Trump appointed him to the chaiman position, and that Obama was required to seat a Republican at that time, Pai was actually chosen by Mitch McConnell.

[u/terriblehuman → u/MaximumEffort433]

Matt and Trey are full of shit on a lot of things. They’re also big global warming deniers.

[u/LadyLibertea → u/MaximumEffort433]

Thats some delicious maximum effort!

[u/MaximumEffort433 → u/LadyLibertea]

I'm kiwi flavored!

[u/CowardlyDodge → u/MaximumEffort433]

It's this kind of effort-post that give me hope for humanity

[u/iwillfilmyou → u/MaximumEffort433]

Thanks for writing all this out! Really excellent examination

[u/[deleted] → u/MaximumEffort433]

Wow. This comment is incredible and accurately describes how I've felt for awhile. Thank you for writing such a well thought out comment

[u/[deleted] → u/MaximumEffort433]

100% this and just adding to it:

They brought it back in the first episode of the election season. But by the end they had clearly changed their stance and were basically saying "Ok Clinton is an out-of-touch politician but Trump is fucking nuts, do not vote for him."

But half the audience completely missed that point, not even they could make it clear to Trump's base that Trump was a unique threat. I'd bet going back to the /r/southpark episode discussion threads would be interesting.

[u/onioning → u/MaximumEffort433]

The giant irony is that Americans in general agree on most things. Even with gun control, there's overwhelming agreement. Heck, I still think that we're not nearly as divided on abortion as we're led to believe. Purely based on the number of times I've heard "I'm pro-life but I think the choice should be up to the individual." I have no further data to support my conclusion, but it feels true, and that's what matters.

But for real. We generally agree, at least far more often than not. Ya'd never know it based on our political representation.

[u/The-Magic-Sword → u/MaximumEffort433]

This, This right here deserves to be a copypasta- brought up every time someone tries to use it.

[u/MaximumEffort433 → u/The-Magic-Sword]

"What the fuck did you say about me you Giant Turd?"

[u/devilmaydance → u/MaximumEffort433]

South Park has been way off-base about many issues. 'Memba when they equated believing in Climate Change to believing in "ManBearBig", or equated being transgender to wanting to become a dolphin? I 'memba.

[u/x86_64Ubuntu → u/MaximumEffort433]

As everyone else has said, the creators of South Park have the luxury of saying “both parties are the same “. Nonwhites and many others can’t vouch their view in such smug nihilism.

[u/moshslips → u/MaximumEffort433]

My take away from that episode was that even if you have trouble relating or seeing the benefit of any of the candidates in the election, it’s still important to vote because it’s something that will effect your life.

Maybe I just didn’t get it?

[u/MaximumEffort433 → u/moshslips]

Or maybe I didn't. But either way, that's not the message that a lot other people got either.

[u/TheBlackBear → u/MaximumEffort433]

Yeahhh as much as I’ve loved South Park, they really fucked us on this one

[u/DryestDuke → u/MaximumEffort433]

It's a pithy little throw away phrase that people can use to kill a conversation in its tracks, a thoughtless and contextless placeholder for considered opinions founded on facts and evidence, a social virus of the mind. It's a meme, and a fuckin' shitty one at that.

I believe the term is Thought Terminating Cliche.

[u/the_grand_chawhee → u/MaximumEffort433]

You are so well spoken.

[u/MaximumEffort433 → u/the_grand_chawhee]

https://i.imgur.com/GihXaT0.gif

[u/Blondecanary → u/MaximumEffort433]

This was an amazing post. Thank you.

[u/Atario → u/MaximumEffort433]

by and large Stone and Parker are good about presenting both sides of an issue.

Eh. They generally side wholly with the conservative view and issue some token lip service for the liberal one.

And speaking of climate change, their straight-up hatchet job on both Al Gore and the concept itself was pretty sickening.

[u/aspbergerinparadise → u/MaximumEffort433]

Futurama did the same exact thing with the election between John Jackson and Jack Johnson

[u/MaximumEffort433 → u/[deleted]]

No document with DOI "10.1.1.668.8647"
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any document in our repository.

Do you have another link handy?

[u/YOU_SMELL → u/MaximumEffort433]

I thought the same with the Nuke Toronto episode... It normalizes and gives a visual to such a monstrous act

[u/matt552024 → u/MaximumEffort433]

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

[u/Stillnosheep → u/MaximumEffort433]

I wish I could upvote you more; well said. I just can't understand why the Dems can't present these facts to the masses in a continuous and consistent manner.

[u/SanguisFluens → u/MaximumEffort433]

Saving this to use later, thanks

[u/etherpromo → u/MaximumEffort433]

this should be in /bestof

[u/MaximumEffort433 → u/etherpromo]

They don't like my stuff there, they say "Another MaximumEffort433 gish gallop" and downvote it, then I have to go into the thread and defend my opinion because I'm not wrong and everybody gets very mad. :(

Edit: But thank you for the kind words!! :D

[u/Go_Big → u/MaximumEffort433]

I bet if you were a poor Muslim in the middle east with drones circling your village you could find more in common with Democrats and Republicans.

[u/chaosof99 → u/MaximumEffort433]

South Park first came out in america when I was 12. By the time it made it to europe I was 13 to 15 years old, the perfect target for the show. I really enjoyed the "equal opportunity" and "screw you if you don't like us" style of humor, and I still believe Stone and Parker are excellent comedy writers.

However, I kind of grew less and less interested in the show over time and didn't even quite understand myself why. After seeing a thread about the show pop up in a forum I regularly visit I thought about it and realized the reason behind it: I really grew tired of their political message.

On the surface they are in fact equal opportunist and "screw everybody equally", that is true, but when one side of the political spectrum is objectively doing far more harm than the others, condemning both sides equally is actually helping the more harmful side because it paints "both sides" as the same when they are not.

I also understood that the South Park accusation of "if you care about things you suck" also only really serves to help the more harmful side, as it reduces opposition. Sure, there are overzealous types on both sides but one of them is trying to further the good of the community while on the others they only want to further their own goals. On the surface level they are the same but just a layer down they are certainly not, and if you are trying to satirize them you have to understand that there is a big gap between your intentions and your potential results.

I think I just simply grew out of the societal accusation of "you're all phonies" that is so typical for a teenager. I just wish that Parker and Stone at some point did too.

[u/Dear_Occupant → u/MaximumEffort433]

Let's not forget ManBearPig. Fuck Trey and Matt, they've been on my shit list for a long time.

[u/mrbaryonyx → u/MaximumEffort433]

Giant Douche and Turd Sandwich" I feel has done real harm to our political discussion. It's a pithy little throw away phrase that people can use to kill a conversation in its tracks, a thoughtless and contextless placeholder for considered opinions founded on facts and evidence, a social virus of the mind. It's a meme, and a fuckin' shitty one at that.

Throw in "you PC bro?" and "dey took ur jerbs" in there too.

I like South Park a lot, but they do this a ton. The whole point of the show is taking complicated subjects and making them dumb and jokey in order to examine them, but a lot of people, namely impatient dolts who like cartoons with swearing, only stick around for the "dumb and jokey" parts. South Park's attitudes on a subject seldom last as long as whatever dopey meme Matt and Trey came up with does.

EDIT: If you really want to get depressed, think about what effect Cartman's constant anti-semitism and racism had on that sort of audience. Do you think they got the impression that Cartman's a piece of shit? Or do you think they decided he's a hilarious cultural icon and they can act just like him.

[u/FirstSonOfGwyn → u/[deleted]]

I really, really did not like that episode when it aired. and its only worse with age.

IASIP does the same thing. (ass blasted by republicans or ass blasted by the democrats) I understand they are being nihilistic and trying to say nothing really matters.... but it just rings as very lazy and apathetic to me.

The more apathetic the average voter is, the harder they will get ass blasted by those who want to leverage that apathy for their personal gain.

[u/classycatman → u/[deleted]]

I know you kid, but even if someone considered Clinton a turd sandwich, I'd much rather have that than what we have today. Sometimes, a turd is better than a douche.

[u/thabe331 → u/classycatman]

Oddly enough so did trey Parker and Matt stone

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

well, not those over 3 million votes Trump lost by. They didn't count.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Except in POTUS elections where every electoral vote counts. Popular vote is meaningless. In other words, MY vote doesn't count.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Not when republicans actively suppress voters or tamper with voting machines to discount entire ballots in urban areas

[u/Spaceman2901 → u/[deleted]]

Can we set that into a tune from Monty Python? "Every vote is needed in your neighborhood!"

[u/isperfectlycromulent → u/Spaceman2901]

I think it goes more with Sesame Street.

Every vote is needed in your neighborhood!

in your neighborhood!

in your neighborhoooood!

Every vote is needed in your neighborhood! By the people that you meet each day!

[u/Changoleo → u/Spaceman2901]

If a vote is suppressed, dems get quite irate...

[u/Changoleo → u/Changoleo]

if...

Who am I kidding?

If When? Every time?

[u/korelin → u/[deleted]]

This is fantastic. Whenever someone trots out the ol' "vote don't matter" trope, you can just rub this one in their face.

[u/Dregon → u/korelin]

Lots of votes don't matter thanks to the electoral college and first-past-the-post jokes of an electoral system.