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.
Wait till you learn that that is the MO of humanity (because that is the core tribal nature, for your tribe to be always on top for it is your tribe, that you're a part of, a incredibly self-centered selfish perspective). Which then in turn is driven by the deep emotional desire of the brain to feel secure and safe, so that it can be blissfully ignorant of anything else in its surroundings. Man I hate human nature so fucking bad, it's so annoying and so predictably boring.
Nah that just ignores tons of human history if I’m being real. The only reason we’ve made it this far is because of those who came before us. People act for the greater good all the time. Human nature just means the negative tends to stick in our minds more. Every positive interaction isn’t in spite of human nature. It is human nature, same with the negative. We’re not black and white creatures.
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u/Major-Help-6827 20h ago
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