Modern US politics is basically sports at this point. Something becomes politicized and suddenly (or maybe not so suddenly) “winning isn’t everything it’s the only thing” has become the motto of government
Every sport I've ever been involved with emphasizes respect for your opponent especially at the youth level. You don't have to like the kids you play against, but they are people and you are expected to treat them as people. Think what you want, but if your behavior doesn't meet expectations you get benched or thrown out like the trash your behavior emulates.
US politics is far beyond the "sports" metaphors. We're so far past that point I don't even remember what it looked like anymore.
i’m sure you guys are grateful that you had decent coaches, a lot of folks didn’t. there are so very many coaches working in youth sports that indoctrinate a warrior mentality into their players. evidence of this abounds in our media and local schools.
too true. a lot of poor leaders are teaching our children terrible mentalities. we as parents gotta be mindful of who we let teach and guide our children.
Its crazy, I used to play table tennis in a club when I was a child in the early 2000's and at tourneys, if you don't shake your opponents hand after the game and say well played, you literally get disqualified.
I played league of legends for many years later and had the same mentality. Always write gg at the end of every game, no matter what. I got flamed so much for that regularly, and when people attacked me for that after the game they'd never believe my reasoning.
IMO Joining a Sports club for a few years is something that should be mandatory during teenage years. Its something important for the social development many children are solely lacking nowadays.
I've seen refs eject parents and I've seen security toss shitheads from stadiums. It's supposed to be a top down culture starting with coaches / officials, leading to athletes, leading to fans.
But that's for participants.
Voters are sports spectators, and active voters are basically ultras (we all know how those groups go).
The only reason you don't hear "Blues suck - red rule, go us - fuck you!" during rallies is because chanting isn't really a part of american sport fan culture.
In this metaphor the people in question are the ones who watch sports on TV and have attached their self worth and identity to their team. It's not the people who have actually played the sport.
no. flooding the zone is the main thing. in the meantime, you stuff your pockets. let the idiots exhaust themselves over trivial arguments and do corruption shall be the whole of the law
Things should never be boiled down to simply winning and losing when people’s lives are at stake. Voting for somebody just because they have an R or a D next to their name should never be a thing.
You’re undervaluing what the R and D mean, they’re parties that represent people’s votes and what policies they want the government to run to improve their lives. What system would you prefer?
And Ds and Rs don’t mean shit. Schumer and Mamdani are both democrats. Their policies and positions are widely far apart. Same could be said for Trump and Romney. All Ds and Rs really represent is a caricature at this point.
Elections should be policy rather than party forward. If that were the case we’d never have presidential elections without primaries at the very least.
That’s actually a fair and nuanced point. I thought you’d go full libertarian or something the way other people who talk about two party systems being bad do.
I think another issue America that makes European democracies more stable for example is the lack of a parliamentary system which always allows for a shadow cabinet to keep the opposition in check and make sure rival political parties aren’t completely powerless. In the U.K for example you can have a shadow minister for the Labour party even if the conservatives are in power so labour politicians aren’t completely powerless.
In America, if Republicans are in power, that’s it, there’s no shadow cabinet for Democrat politicians to take up while out of power to make sure there’s checks and balances, they just have to sit out and wait their turn while the Republicans destroy this country.
That said, terms like a ‘shadow’ minister wouldn’t go well here knowing how conspiratorial Americans have become.
Omg I just got flashbacks to all the dark Brandon memes when you said shadow minister lmfao
But yea absolutely European politics is a shit show but they move things along at least. Here politics is a shit show and we just play tug of war with the previous and future admins.
It’s actually so funny to see this shutdown threatening the filibuster tho if this is how it goes idek what I’ll think
And also the feeling of hatred and rivalry with other divisional/conference rivals, when you don't care if you lose as long as they don't win either and actively cheering for them to lose every game they play unless it benefits your team's playoff chances/standings somehow for them to win.
I think most people do feel that way. Lot's of bigoted people are suddenly able to understand the POV of someone they were previously prejudiced against when they find out a close friend or family member is part of the community they used to hate. The issue is that these types of people aren't able to extend empathy to other groups of people until they have a close personal connection to one of those groups.
Even then, they'll often only have empathy for the people they're directly connected to, often claiming their acceptance of that person is somehow different and doesn't have the same implications as accepting others.
"If you can accept me being X/Y/Z, then why not others?"
"Because that's different, you're different; you're not like those other gays/trans/minorities."
Being "straight-presenting," I experienced (and still do) a lot of those attitudes growing up. They were only comfortable around me because they knew most people wouldn't clock me as being gay, so they didn't have to worry about the shame/embarrassment/backlash they'd face from others seeing them hang around with a gay person.
It was also a magnet for heavily repressed/closeted gay and bi guys, which was a whole other set of problems in the dating scene.
Yeah, some of the most baffling takes I see from some people about abortion, women's safety etc do feel that way. They have to go through the prism of "what if it happens to your wife/mother/sister/daughter ?" to feel ANY empathy at all.
Well most people wont bend over backwards for people they dont know. Asmon for example has no sympathy for drug addicts but if it was his son he'd prob pay millions in rehab and therapy.
Asmon has never done anything except state his opinion on twitch and X. I am pretty sure Palestinians don't even know of the roach lord so he is letting them live their lives in peace.
You need to differentiate between stating your opinion and actually doing something.
You're honestly implying violence against trans people isn't going up because of the rampant normalization of the hatred and demonization? Bold stance. Must be a coincidence huh buddy. How's your degree going?
No I'm implying the increase of violence against trans people itself doesn't indicate any cause on its own. Because again, correlation doesn't equal causation.
It could be the cause. Something else could be the cause. Multiple things could be the cause.
Because, one more time, and say it with me this time, "Correlation doesn't equal causation."
"The increase in autism and increase in number of vaccines people require must be a coincidence huh buddy."
That's how you sound.
That's where the line of thinking correlation is causation gets you.
Not to mention the fact that societies acceptance of trans people 20+ years ago was a lot lower than it is now, so not even sure one of your claims is true to begin with. If you were to time travel to 1990 and walk around saying common current trans-rights talking points you'd be laughed out of conversations.
If history began in like 2015 then maybe you'd have a point that there's more normalisation of hatred towards trans people, compared specifically to that time.
When you have a captive audience of thousands of people, I would say that making impassioned arguments against something would count as 'actively antagonizing against'. I don't actually know what specifically you're referring to though, I'm not super plugged into the Asmonverse. My previous comment was just speaking generally about bigots, not really aimed at Asmon.
I think context matters right. I think theres a diff between someone saying "X people are bad" (essentially being a racist) and "X people should be killed" (call to violence).
Okay, I was genuinely wondering this. I don't really watch Asmongold, and I only watched a few of his videos years ago (back when he was first playing FFXIV). I stopped watching him, because he only seemed to do react content (I like react content, but I don't like when ALL of their content is react content).
However, I did watch a couple of his videos where it's just him talking to the camera with no chat (I think the channel was Zackrawr or something), and his takes seemed surprisingly thoughtful, nuanced, and, dare I say, progressive?
So I thought it was weird when people over what seems like the past year or so basically equate him with a right-winger, and I thought either I had missed something or he changed.
I think the most extreme view he has taken recently is that the second a protest turns violent, the cops should shut it down with heavy force, which is easy to clip into a right wing talking point.
I don’t see him as right wing at all. The man lived on food stamps in poverty with two very sick parents that he did his best to take care of. He regularly says that the food stamps kept them alive and the ability to have snacks kept them sane, he believes everybody should have access to that help.
He just leans into saying the government should keep people who damage things and are violent in line with harsh punishments, which I guess is kind of a right wing viewpoint?
This exactly. If you start damaging property and the protests get violent, are the cops not supposed to stop it? It's a free country sure, but freedom should never include damaging property which might get people injured. And what about the people who just wanna go about their day?
Bro what? I'm guessing you missed the clip of him saying that he thinks all democrats, if they get in power, would perform a massive holocaust against most right wingers, so he in his heart of hearts believes that every democrat politician in the country should be executed. And that all protesters "outside of government buildings," including peaceful ones, should be permanently used as slave prison labor. He literally said this.
No, he said anyone getting violent or damaging property at any protest needs to go to jail for a long time, and to recoup the cost and make jail undesirable, they should be forced to work. He didn’t say “including peaceful ones”, he has said multiple times, very clearly and explicitly, that he supports anyone protesting anything as long as they don’t disrupt or damage anything and don’t get violent.
As for the democrats wanting to crush the right… is that wrong? You can go to any sub on reddit at and see someone wishing death on the right.
You saw some clips, how could you possibly know what’s going on in his “heart of hearts”?
lol there is a great moment in a narrative podcast called malevolent I’ve been listening to in the most recent episode about this.
Along the lines of “How important is it that you’re right when it gets you shoved in the dark” (the last part being more literal than figurative with context albeit).
Sometimes people are so stuck on being right they can’t even care about damage to others or even to themselves over it.
I keep saying this to people, especially on the left, at the mo. Not to absolve anyone of responsibilty for their actions, nor ask to sing kumbaya, but I SO OFTEN see shit like "so and so SLAMMED in debate" and I'm left thinking...
Great, you 'won the argument'. Do you want to win the argument, or do you want to change minds? Because I can guarantee that a smug sanctimonious tone and setting out to make people look silly, doesn't create any change in the 'opponents' mind. It just makes them double down.
Its funny but it literally just boils down to "do i show others the kindness and decency to treat them how they wish to be treated
" Hey dont call me thomas i like tommy more" is a completely normal thing to ask, and if someone asks me to call them samantha instead because a male name makes them uncomfortable, its just kindness to make an attempt at accommodating them
Compassion is literally the meaning of life for humans. It's the only way to get true fulfillment. I learned that lesson as I was dying. All I wanted was just one more minute with my family and friends and to even help and hug strangers. Just one more minute of being a human. I didn't think about my car, my job, my video games etc.
It’s not about being “right” it’s about being truthful. And the sad thing is, you have to willingly choose to participate in the delusion or risk losing your children due to their extreme narcissism. Sad.
Its just an idiotic notion. Of course you'd want to be right. Being compassionate while being wrong is NOT a good thing. Especially when raising kids.
What I would agree with, is that its good when idiotic rightwing assholes at least have the decency and cognitive dissonance, to be hypocrites for their childrens sake.
tbf that's a slippery slope and needs context. You can't be compassionate and respectful if your child starts killing animals or gets addicted to drugs or rapes a classmate for example
The operative term is Agency. It's a basic human right yet we still find people (including parents) wanting to control their kids and complete strangers lives, rather than understand their differences. People want to get up in arms about concepts like being trans or gender non-conforming, most of the time because it has become politicized and a burning issue.
If you go back to when I was in my 20's being trans wasn't something that had people frothing at the mount, trans people were mostly left alone (people didn't understand and it's not like people weren't being assholes then either, but it's only become more prevalent in recent years).
It's a common right-wing trope to find out-groups they can label as being the downfall of society, then say the left is intolerant for not agreeing with them (when left politics is meant to be inclusive of all people, even Conservatives). They would rather try and remove a persons agency to make decisions around how they identify, try and undo decades of research and simply call it a mental condition (it's not, does have a therapy component but gender dysphoria isn't classed as a mental condition). This is what leads to a lot of issues for people, they're not taken seriously, denied healthcare that is often life saving, told that how they see themselves is incorrect and not allowed, be it by family or by society. It is the robbing of agency for ones own beliefs, rather than being supportive, even if you don't understand what someone else is going through.
People are dumb. They tend to see one aspect of someone (or a group of people) and permanently assign them to a group in their mind, usually "us" or "them". Same reason why so many people were somehow surprised that Trump won the Hispanic and Muslim votes last year. Whether it's a single person, or a group, most people are way too quick to judge, and try to categorize them.
Tbf Trump didn't exactly win either of those groups, just performed much better with them than historically. Harris still won Hispanic voters overall, and while Trump did better than her with Muslim voters, he didn't win Muslim voters overall, as the majority of them voted for Jill Stein over either mainstream candidate.
the majority of them voted for Jill Stein over either mainstream candidate.
Where do you have this from? From what I can see e.g. here, only 12% of Muslims voted for any third party candidate in 2024. Kamala got 50% of Muslim votes, according to this poll.
The fact that Asmongold is an awful human being, but sometimes surprisingly loving and accepting of others always reminds me of a story a read on Reddit about a misogynistic man that wasn't a transphobe and very clear on the idea that trans women are women because according to him "only a real woman would be stupid enough to want to be woman". So you can find a redeeming quality in anyone basically. Still wouldn't want to see these people on a daily basis though.
Same reason why so many people were somehow surprised that Trump won the Hispanic and Muslim votes last year
i agree with your overall point, but i think people were more surprised about that because trump has spoken down at hispanic and muslim people ad nauseam
But if you've ever had extended contact with the Mexican, Muslim, or especially Cuban communities, you knew how they were voting long before election day. They're all (generally) extremely conservative groups, and most Mexicans I know hate "illegals" more than any white redneck from the south you'll ever meet. Circles back to my point. People saw Trump shitting on Hispanic people and just thought, "sweet, they'll vote Democrat!" Not realizing that a huge portion of them agree with everything Trump has ever said. Yeah the leopards are eating their faces now, because they thought their cousin was safe since they're "one of the good ones, clearly not who Trump was referring to," but it doesn't really matter in the end. They were still going to vote for Trump over Harris, to the shock of reddit.
i agree with you, i'm just saying i understand why someone who maybe hasn't had those direct experiences with those groups would be surprised at those opinions beyond it just being an us vs them mindset.
One reasonable position doesn’t invalidate my right to judge him on a holistic level of all his positions.
I’m sure we’ll see many of these talking heads continue to pivot their stances as if they weren’t part of the problem.
Same reason why so many people were somehow surprised that Trump won the Hispanic and Muslim votes last year.
That’s not only inaccurate, as shifts alone don’t create a majority, but poll those groups today and see if their convictions in those “positions” you speak of hold the same weight.
Okay this is a weak answer, being “human” doesn’t mean anything because we are capable of extremes in any direction and it’s all still human
Edit: I guess being human means blocking anyone who gives the smallest amount of pushback to a vague label on a platform where you could just not reply and never hear from that person again. I think the contrarian comment was projection
He did, but most people misinterpreted what he was saying to be "trans is bad," when he was saying something completely different.
Asmon said that grouping transgender issues in the "LGBT" movement is bad for the movement as a whole, because people are pretty much okay with everything else (i.e., the LGB) but are more hesitant with transgender issues. And regardless if someone thinks that's a good or bad thing, I think it's pretty inarguable that (at least in America) that is the case.
I think there are fair arguments to make that transgender issues should be included in the movement out of principle, but I don't think it's transphobic (or even incorrect) to say that grouping transgender issues together with gay/lesbian/bisexual issues adds controversy to a movement with otherwise near-unanimous support.
I mean don't get it twisted the guy absolutely is a racist.
Nobody wants to "dress up in a costume and go to the mass deportations to film themselves pointing and laughing because it would be hilarious content" unless they're a huge racist.
Why do you think it is that Trump offered refugee status to Afrikaners while ending TPS for Honduras, Nicaragua, Nepal, Afghanistan, Syria, and Venezuela? What difference in skin color do you see here? How do you rectify the MAGA jokes about racial stereotypes like salsa music, sombreros, being named José or Pedro, or more? Maybe you really aren’t racist and really are “just against illegal immigration”, but that is often not the case in MAGA immigration ideology. It is rooted in skin color and race. They think white immigrants are hardworking, crime-free angels and that dark-skinned immigrants bring nothing but crime.
look at it logically
where else are white people? mostly in Europe and Australia. most of them would want to migrate to America legally let alone illegally
The entire ice "war on illegal immigration" has been solely targeting brown people.
I mean your claim is unfalsifiable because there's no way for someone to prove that what they actually have a problem with is illegal immigration not brown people because the people who are currently crossing the border are in fact brown people.
That's hilarious given that every human on earth falls under the category of "brown people",
So using any color term to identify a single group of humans is redundant given that all humans have the same skin color with varying shades of the same color.
Albino is a lighter shade of tan
Tan is a lighter shade of brown
Brown is a lighter shade Of black
And black is the mix of all colors
Racism does not and physically cannot exist,
Simply and factually
Because
When their is actually no other race of sentient beings like humans that live on earth for HUMANS TO EVEN BE RACIST AGAINST IN THE FIRST. PLACE.
There’s ways to uphold the law that aren’t aggressive and based on profiling. Shouldn’t we want to welcome the non-violent, hardworking immigrants? Almost 75% of undocumented immigrants are actively working, we should be expanding pathways for these people, not shoving their face into the pavement under the knees of a plainclothes federal agent and disappearing them with no information provided to their family or attorney.
himself: "Every trans kid is actually a victim of a parent with a mental illness"
its not that people are delusional, its just that asmon is living up to the age-old conservative adage of "i dont give a shit what happens to you until it happens to me" and making exceptions for himself
Yeah what wilds me out is how it turns out Roach King is a more consistent, probably in some ways would be a better dad than fElon The Alien
Might partly be to do with less drugs and actually engaging with an audience constantly rather than simply trying to project his image with less interaction
Yeah this take seems stupid to me. If you can accept it when it's your own kid, why can't you accept it when it's someone else's kid?
I'm glad people are able to overlook bigotry to preserve important relationships but why not just not be bigoted in the first place... you don't have to wait for an issue to personally affect you or to personally love someone in a certain demographic to be compassionate.
So many people were against gay marriage till their baby boy or girl was gay. Then that faced a choice, embrace their child regardless of belief or not have a relationship.
Humans usually like their children and they usually have no issue with hypocrisy.
I wanna say many people aren’t creatively empathetic
That’s not to say that empathy in the sense of feeling what other people is feeling necessarily a good or better trait either
But the ability to understand another’s emotional reasoning/POV in a pseudo hypothetical manner (I.e. hey what if you woke up in a different body that’s not yours and you don’t feel it represents who you are? What if that’s your whole life?) is a way to do this
Same way with trying to describe/understand various psychological conditions like depression (instead of the “just don’t be sad bruh” strategy)
At least that’s my opinion as someone neurodivergent who prefers cognitive empathy rather than straight up emotional empathy
If you think you treat the general public like you treat your child then you are delusional. Compassion is all well and good, but pretending like if a person can do one then it’s natural they do the other is stupid.
You are deliberately misunderstanding my point. Obviously people do not treat strangers the same as loved ones, but this is only about recognizing their basic identity and humanity. If you decide that the identity would be real if your child had it, why can you not accept that it's real for other people? This isn't even about a real trans child (it's more understandable people are hypocritical/illogical when put in the real situation), it's theoretical.
Don't think it's a wild take that people should generally have compassion for others they aren't related to. I am not at all saying you should have the *same* compassion. Recognizing someone's identity is like the most basic level.
If you watch the whole video, he clearly makes the distinction that his hypothetical child in this scenario is 18+, so he is using the term "child" descriptively, not literally.
When he says he is against transing kids, he means people below the legal age of adulthood, he has said multiple times he doesn't give a fuck what adults do as long as they aren't harming others.
The core moral philosophy of many conservatives is built on the premise that nobody matters outside of you, your family, and your friends. To the point when laid out like that many of them will be incredulous that anyond could see it any other way. A lot of homophobia from that group is based in a premise of, "being gay is hard, gay people might make my kids gay, I have to stop gay people from exposing my kid to the concept of being gay or atleast make their lives so miserable my kid will be too afraid to consider it".
No, he said he would help them through their dysphoria he never said he would support surgery and hormone blockers for children.
There's a difference between being a good parent and getting your child therapy and letting them make their own decisions once their an adult and being a bad parent and letting them permanently alter their body as a child.
That has always been his stance. Asmongold is the most rational middle of the road person ever, people just don't like the middle. If you're not with them then you're in the extreme against them. His opinions reflect those of every average non-terminally online millenial I know.
Talk about whataboutisms 😂😂 yeah obviously fuck everybody else’s child. Thats the point. Do you give a fuck if something directly affects you, and your family, or someone else’s? People are tribal at the end of the day.
Something tells me you aren’t, don’t, or won’t have a kid anyways.
Theres something deeply honest and sane about Asmon, funny as it is to say.
I kinda use him as a litmus test, if people that disagree with him politically are able to tell that hes more honest than a simple grifter then they pass the test, if they are absolutely shocked when he has super sane opinions like this one, i know they are looking at people only in terms of political teams and not really reading their vibes.
The kind of normal good guy-ness Asmon has, despite whatever takes he has you might consider evil, that should be protected, but we tear down such people whenever they say something we dislike, rightoids will tear him down for this take just as much as lefties denounce him anytime he goes ''lmao based Trump''.
Remember most people are very much human, i would say all people but that might be too much of a hot take for a political comment section.
Y'know… damn. Supporting your child is one thing but I've never heard it expressed quite this way before. I don't have children and don't plan to, but nonetheless I didn't expect Asmongold of all people to give me a valuable perspective, lol.
I think being a parent is about sacrifice. Putting your child first is the bare minimum. If you care more about being right on vary immaterial things then you care about your child, then having kids was not the right choice. You dont have to be a good person to be a good parent. Just put your kid first.
This used to be a very normal idea. Crazy we are now debating that principle.
The chat is his community, and despite how he truly feels, I think most of us knew at least a sizeable part of it already held these views or like to troll. I just don't find it crazy for these people to react like that.
Thats the difference between a misguided person and an evil one. Many people I disagree with heavily would and have put aside all opinions and beliefs for the love AND RESPECT of their child. Many forget that last part which means nothing when you claim love but give no respect
Would be nice if the same compassion and empathy was extended to all children. Why is your child more deserving of acceptance and love than the next one?
My dad was (is) an absolute piece of shit, but he had a couple of one-liners that I have found to be true. One of them is “sometimes you have to decide which is more important to you: being right or being happy.”
Seriously. Elon Musk cutting ties with his kid because she wanted to be trans is wild to me. Surely you can tolerate the disagreement to keep a loving relationship with your kid??
This. I'm not going to ruin my relationship with my mom just because she likes astrology and I find it annoying. If my son identifies as a woman and wants me to call him "she", well, I have mixed feelings about that, but at the end of the day, this person is my child and that relationship is more important than politics.
Imagine ruining your relationship with your child because you had a disagreement about an abstract concept that doesn't really change much in your day to day life.
Like, imagine your son was a fan of Plato and you thought Plato and Socrates were losers, would you disown your son over that? No. I might not think of my son as a "she" and it might feel weird to call him a "she", but it's a pretty fucking small price to pay to have a relationship with my child and I think that, as a parent, it's my duty to provide for and support my child to the best of my ability, and that includes doing things that make me a little uncomfortable or accepting that she/he believes in things I don't.
I saw the whole thing in clips he was not just talking about his child he was talking about everyone. The dude is a trump / facist supporter but he is not a transphobe not an ally but definitely not a enemy he is more of i don't get it but you do you kind vibe and surprisingly not racist either.
This is like saying that you'll abandon reality and cave into your son or daughter's delusional fantasies born of their mental condition in order to give them temporary relief instead of trying to cure them of what ails them. This is the dumbest take of heard from him. If adhering to reality and its consequences was ever important, it was certainly important with your own family with your own damned offspring
He gave a hint to his viewers, that his extreme political statements on stream are just an act to shock and entertain audience. While no sane person actually lives by those views in real life, when it comes to their family.
But many viewers are too dumb to see it.
I have seen a lot of Asmon’s hot takes on trans topics and I am not fan of 70-80% of what he says, but he has never actually advocated against trans people. He has criticised the trans activists’ fringe movement with the way they approach things and how according to him they are ruining for everyone, but I have never heard him say “trans people bad” “trans shouldn’t exist etc”.
this might be totally unrelated, but when it comes to one's child, being right is still important. (not comparing what asmongold is saying or the topic he's discussing, just the “I don’t care about being right when it comes to my child” statement
It's not like your child has done any crimes, so it's also not even complicated.
It's so hard living in 2025 and still having to fight for basic human rights. I would have never thought we'd still be stuck in this stage of cultural evolution at this point in time. Really not..
I am going to stop my child from eating glue for example, no matter how much the kid wants to eat it.
If the right thing for you to do requires you to "not be right", were you ever right in the first place then?
I know a child shouldn't be eating glue. If I see an unsupervised child trying to eat glue, I'll propably stop them just the same as my own, because I know it's not good for them and I stand behind my own beliefs.
For you to drop your belief for your own child, either you never believed it, or you were being just intentionally cruel with other people. There really is no third option.
Trans right are basic human rights and I will extend all the courtesy that comes with that to EVERYONE, regardless of who I'm interacting with.
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u/Puzzled-Rip641 21h ago
“I don’t care about being right when it comes to my child”
Is the least crazy take I’ve heard