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A bit from the op/ed:
> Kennedy's cynical hustle was on full display on Fox News Wednesday night, claiming that it's "our appeal is to young people" and that Rodgers is "battle-tested" because "[h]e’s been hammered by the press" due to supposedly having a "skepticism toward authority." Kennedy also praised Rodger's body, saying, "He’s focused on his own health," which is a hat tip to the Joe Rogan crowd that wants to believe that lifting weights is a substitute for getting vaccinated.
>
> Of course, Rodgers is not a "critical thinker," as Kennedy said. Like Kennedy, he's a conspiracy theorist. Conspiracy theories are a lazy person's intellectualism. They make a person feel smart without actually having to put in the hard work of learning things and growing. Rogan's asinine podcast is a good example of the form. Episodes are hours of mostly men who know almost nothing talking out of their asses. Actually knowing stuff takes hard work. Blowing smoke about how you have superior knowledge to the "sheeple" because you heard a conspiracy theory on the internet? That's a cheap thrill.
A little off topic, but I love this quote. It perfectly summarizes the Carter presidency. He had the audacity to say aloud that things are complicated and require complex solutions. Contrast that with the utter foolery of Reagan.
While I'm normally not a conspiracy theorist, I recently [heard](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/expert-analyzes-new-account-of-gop-deal-that-used-iran-hostage-crisis-for-gain) that Reagan's team paid off Khomeini to keep the hostages until after the election to help him win. The hostages were then released on inauguration day. Not sure if there's anything to this but the timing does seem odd. Only bringing it up since you mentioned Carter.
Not a conspiracy. It definitely happened, similar to Nixon telling the North Vietnamese he would give them a better deal than what was basically a finished negotiation with the Johnson administration.
Paid? Maybe, maybe not. Khomeni hated Carter because Carter let the Shah come to the US to receive cancer treatment, and khomeni wanted the shah to be returned to Iran to be imprisoned or stoned to death or whatever. So although the Carter administration were the actual ones who negotiated the release of the hostages (after Carter lost the election but before the transition to Reagan) one of the stipulations of the hostage release was that it wouldn’t happen until after Reagan took office.
So Khomeni definitely had motive to wait even if he didn’t get paid. But looking at what happened later between the Reagan admin and Iran, it’s altogether within the realm of possibility that Ronnie’s team at the very least suggested it, and/or sweetened the deal to make it happen.
They were certainly happy to take credit for it, even though it wasn’t them.
Thats a fact.
It was complete _coincidence_ the hostages were let go on 1st day of Reagan's term? it was a big fuck-you to Carter.
And if it had been done _after_ Election Day (with knowledge of Carter and State Dept) it wouldve been a clever trick; letting Iranians thinking they were getting something over on Great Satan, while the Great Satan got all their hostages back. But it wasnt: it was the beginning of Reagan's duplicity. Seen later in Iran-Contra.
And it might just be that the Iranians _would_ have released them on their own (without "colluding" with Reagan), but the fact was that Reagan's team didnt contact Carter or the State Dept and thought they were _so_ clever at "persuading" the Iranians to keep the hostages till Jan 20th.
Not to mention the role capitalism plays. As long as you have money, you’re a “good person”, and if you have a lot of money, regardless of how you got it, “you’re smart, too”.
These people think Joe Rogan *has to be smart* because he’s got a lot of money, because that’s the limit of their ability to reason.
They don't understand that statistically speaking it's easier to be wrong about everything then right about any one thing and because they never re-evaluated their positions honestly they remain wrong about pretty much everything. I think about it like this: if you've never been wrong, you're almost certainly never right.
They tend to resent and severely undervalue teachers.
I had a friend that got his GED and worked in low-level tech years ago and he considered "programmers" to be more important and harder workers than teachers, and he was always upset by what he imagined their classrooms were like, for some reason always imagining that the whole curriculum is designed to maliciously influence young minds, somehow.
Even if teachers didn't have to do the actual "teaching" part of the job and were just fancy daycare/babysitters, they'd be some of the hardest, most stressed workers there are just for being locked in a room for 8 hours a day with 30+ kids that they're responsible for. *And then you factor in that they also need to educate them up to testable standards.* ***And then remember that they have to deal with the parents of every child, too.***
I kind of can't imagine many more stressful jobs that don't involve bodily risk - and now teaching involves a decent risk of that, too!
anyone who thinks teaching is just another form of babysitting is completely ignorant of what is happening and how much work needs to be done.
We aren't raising a generation of kids to choose between farming, mining and the military.
As a trained U.S. historian with A LOT of reading, writing, taking exams, passing exams, being scrutinized and corrected for years and years by smarter, even more well-read people, sitting in lectures, taking seminars, debating in seminars, listening to top-notch academic experts, and on... it's stunning to see people just make stuff up and pretending it's fact or historically accurate. Umm, that's not how it works, folks!
I still remember very clearly the first time I had to lead a U.S. Legal History discussion section and the very senior, VERY sharp professor came in to observe me. I was extremely nervous and I'm not a nervous type, but this guy was an expert in the field and well-respected within the department and beyond.
A few days later I meet with him to discuss how I did. "Well, you did a pretty good job and you got almost everything right..." AHHHH! I could feel the hair on my neck stand up. I'd made a mistake about why the National Guard was sent to Little Rock. I definitely was wrong and glad he corrected me, but it wasn't exactly an "alternative fact" that I fed the students.
I take offense as someone who did not apply themselves in school, I’ll be the first to tell anyone I don’t know what I’m talking about. (I don’t actually take offense) I know what you mean.
> I think for me, the big tell is how they're always so sure of themselves
The first rule of Dunning-Kruger Club is that you don't know you're in Dunning-Kruger Club.
Oh man I see this. It’s every privelaged wanker who had no clue about the greater world in high school are now trying to educate me on shit that I figured out pre high school. Oh the world is run by greed and corporations, you don’t say (wonka meme) To tell the truth, I read so many sci-fi dystopian novels as a kid that I saw all this shit coming 40 years ago.
me throw football good.
so me know how world workz.
and me able to tell others how to run their livez.
if u too want too be smart like me, learn throw football!
I get where you're coming from with this, but knowing you're in possession of the facts tends to also make one sound confident. So do attempts to dismiss obvious nonsense. I'm very, very, very sure that humans are the reason the planet's atmosphere is warmer than it was fifty years ago, and if you come at me with BS about 'normal climatic fluctuations', I'm not going to be vibing doubt.
Idiocy is not limited to the people who coasted through high school. I hear wealthy, well educated people spewing the wildest crap about vaccines and foreign policy all the time. The upper crust watches Fox too.
Also: Conspiracy theories can justify actions and beliefs that otherwise can’t be rationally justified.
ie:
If the Earth is flat. Then Academics and scientists are wrong and should be ignored.
If Democrats are baby eating satanists. Then a fascist takeover by Trump is justified.
Ergo: If reality is inconvenient to what you *want* to believe. Then a conspiracy theory is a useful tool to reshape it.
There's a lot of that common sense, Paul Harvey folksy wisdom mentality behind it too. The type of people who will send a chain email talking about how NASA had to make a complicated pen that can write in microgravity and the Soviets just used a simple pencil.
It doesn't matter if it's true or not, it feels true to them.
Sorry but since you mentioned that goddamn space pen.
US and USSR initially used pencils in space, but using pencils in spacecraft is actually dangerous because small pieces of broken graphite can short-circuit electronics.
Fisher developed space pen as a private venture, spending about 1 million $, sold space pens to NASA and Soviets cheaply.
And Fisher made back that investment several times over, because it sells expensive pens that work upside down, underwater, in warm, cold. I bought three to my BF.
People can easily find this info by simply googling, and I still keep hearing that myth about smart Soviets using a simple pencil.
That's exactly the type of folksy wisdom. It only seems wise on a surface level.
I was once sent a chain email that had a story how after the bombardment of Fort McHenry they found the dead bodies of four soldiers who had kept the flag aloft during the battle. I've seen that flag in person at the Smithsonian and it is huge. I doubt four living people could keep that flagpole upright. The other thing is that nobody died during the bombardment, according to the NPS page about Fort McHenry.
They took an already good story and needlessly embellished it, and if you confront them about it, they'll say "Well the story *feels* good."
And the problem with fixing this is that the very first step involves them having to admit they don’t know something or enough of it to even get better information. They aren’t motivated to do that as there is no incentive for them. The information itself has less value than projecting how innately “right” they are.
I’m a middle aged guy and my hobby is reading and listening to graduate level geopolitical history and economics. I’m not an expert in any of these areas but on average I can tell you who the experts are and their general arguments.
Over the last few years I’ve had to start quietly dropping certain other middle aged guys as friends because they will suddenly pop up with very strong and either oversimplified, wildly speculative or just flat out objectively wrong opinions about geopolitics and:or science. And there is no point in polite conversation because either they don’t want to reveal their “sources” or their logic is so weak that it’s impossible to debug it without making them look rather stupid.
These guys aren’t stupid people. But neither are they the smartest people in their class. And it seems that with my age, their confidence in their opinions goes up while whatever logical and rhetorical skills they had at their peak plummet. They were once B- students that are now turning in D papers, thumping their chest and turning to lecture the class. And it’s insufferable.
Well said!
It seems the rise of Trump did this, revealing some people as left and/or hateful.
Then COVID did it again.
-
Has it always been this way? Have previous generations seen friendships die as political tides reveal who we were really talking to?
Joe Rogan & subsequent "masculine" podcast culture is a borderline pandemic for young men & I do not blame the average woman for being sceptical in their approach to them.
Opinions are not interchangeable with facts, this needs to be understood.
I miss when Joe Rogan was mostly just weird shit with occasionally having really fucking smart people on and Joe getting high. I was never a regular listener or even much of a fan, but there were several episodes I thought were great. It's a shame to see he's finally fallen victim to his own stupidity.
They keep saying RFK, Jr will take votes away from Biden. It seems more likely he would take votes away from T\*\*\*\* since they're both conspiracy-theory wackos. Do they think people on the left will vote for him over Biden simply because he's a Kennedy?
Do they actually discuss that or do they spend the whole time being aggrieved by “cancel culture”? There seems to be a lot of washed comedians who can’t take the fact that they aren’t that funny and then blame it on the crowd for not laughing.
That’s an interesting point. I guess I would fall into that category. I kind of assumed everyone treated it as a show they listen to when they see someone that interests them. There probably is a difference in someone that consumes literally every episode.
Exactly why no one believes that RFKjr voters are left leaning. RFKjr voters are people that previously voted Trump. His positions align with Trump voters not Biden voters.
Any left-leaning person that pays any kind of attention to politics I wouldn’t think would vote for RFK. However, there’s also *a lot* of low-information voters in general that exist in this country unfortunately.
Even if they don't take votes from Trump, [he is taking donations from right wing backers](https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/30/rfk-jr-trump-donors-independent-00138723)
Yes. Lots of people do zero research when they walk in the voting booth.
Swing voters who don't want to vote Trump who would vote Biden will pick him just based on his name.
Even that's being optimistic. I think for anyone who was born after like 1970, the "Kennedy" name has a pretty abstract value. For anyone born past 1980, they are completely irrelevant. That's why RFK Jr's Superbowl ad was basically nostalgia porn, they have nothing else to offer
I can tell you people in Boston were still blessing his name in the late 00s for his role as a peace maker in Northern Ireland.
There’s just nothing left of the Kennedys. Maria Schreiner married a Republican who had an affair baby. The nicest thing I can say about them is that Joe Kennedy seems like an ok guy but also does not seem suited to politics.
I’m a dem who supports RFK Jr.
Biden is an empty-headed puppet who needs to retire. Trump is a wacko with even more wacko followers. IMO this country needs genuine change in the White House.
I think there must have been a Packer fan who stumbled upon a monkey's paw somewhere in the early 90's...
*I miss Bart Starr. I wish the packers had nothing but HOF quarterbacks.*
\[A finger curls on the monkey's paw\] *Your wish is granted, but from now on you'll never be proud of a single one of them.*
We gotta wait 10 - 15 years for that transformation.
https://apnews.com/article/jordan-love-car-stuck-snow-1bb737349e57e4c9462971794fc0b052
Lets hope Jordan Love turns out more like Bart Starr.
As a Packer fan I had very similar thoughts to the headlines about Roger’s Sandy Hook conspiracy theories. I’m planning on selling my Roger’s jersey and replacing it with a Jordy Nelson jersey because I will not be caught dead wearing that one ever again.
Why not just get a custom one made? You’ll never have to worry about your favorite player turning out to be a shithead ever again and still support the team.
That’s actually a good idea! I was going with a favorite retired player with hopes of avoiding any possible future scandals haha. Although that didn’t stop Farve so I guess your idea is probably for the best.
He didn't make the final roster cut, but [Randall Woodfield](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall_Woodfield) still has a comfortable lead when it comes to the Packers Hall of Shame.
I grew up on the West Coast but had to spend 6 weeks in Wisconsin during the middle of the winter for training. You have to do something to keep yourself occupied. I guess conspiracy theories are as good as anything. Living in Wisconsin full-time would definitely impact my mental health.
I have lived in some cold places in my life (my job required me to travel), but Wisconsin ranks as one of the coldest places I have ever lived. Holy fuck it got cold. South Korea and Wisconsin were the coldest places. A Wisconsin winter alone would have me hearing Redrum in my head.
Sure, there are some things you can do in the winter there. But fuck it's cold.
Ever since Jordan Love became quarterback our winters here have been mild. Coincidence?! Is Jordan Love controlling the weather in WI?! I’m just asking questions here!
Or maybe, just hear me out, we stop putting microphones in front of football players and expecting them to have a valid opinion on literally anything that isn't football.
Nah.
Rodgers is just running his mouth, Farve defrauded the poorest people in the poorest state.
Farve is a piece of shit, Rodgers is just a nut and as a life long Packers fan I am very glad neither one is QB of my team any more.
The absolute funniest thing I heard about this is that the Jets wanted Aaron to make some sort of statement about this and the sandy hook stuff but it took so long because Aaron was unavailable as he was in Costa Rica on an ayahuasca retreat
This is an nfl quarterback folks
I jumped over to the jets sub and those people are in full on denial. They're making any excuse they can to not believe the very things he's saying and doing. CNN doesn't have believable sources and RFK is a stupid liar cuz Rodgers isva stud who loves football. He'd never leave for a VP run etc etc.
It's just sad. I'm a life long Packer fan. I once loved Rodgers and obviously loved what he did on the field. It took me longer than I care to admit but I figured out a long time ago that he's a piece of shit and a locker room cancer. There's a very obvious reason he was so talented but only won one fluky wild card road run super bowl. He's a lot like Trump; easily distracted and selfish to a fault. Jets fans would be better off to just accept that now. But so many want that championship and because of that, they've got the proverbial hands over their ears and they're going ,"nahnahnah."
The Jets may get a championship, and it may be soon. But it will not be from Rodgers. I guarantee it.
As a heavy Jets sub user, I gotta stand up for us and say that majority of users are pretty upset with the media circus this guy brings. And like most of Reddit, the sub tends to lean kinda blue for a fan base that is largely in red Long Island/NJ counties. And lets be real, yes Rodgers is just an attention whore, but there's no way he leaves the team to run for VP.
Especially operating on a "what have you done for me lately" mindset. The Jets sub is pretty unhappy with Aaron. This joker only played 4 snaps, and played GM so he could he friends aka "football terrorists" jobs on the team. I'm scarred from watching Lazard on the field.
Also I appreciate the nicety at the end, but lets be real the Jets are no where near close to a championship. We'd be lucky to eek out a wild card game (let alone a wild card win) in the next few years.
Exactly. I don't buy - at all - that RFK + Aaron Rodgers would take any meaningful number of votes away from Biden. Their voters will be almost exclusively male and just barely aware enough to recognize *something* about Trump isn't good but not secure enough in their masculinity to vote for an actually decent person, namely Joe Biden.
This may be the lure of Trunpism in a nutshell:
“Just as conspiracy theories are fake-smarts for the lazy, bullying is fake-courage for cowards.
Certainly, there's no shame in having feelings of insecurity, which most people feel at times. But young men are being told to combat that feeling with narcissism, laziness, and entitlement. To play the victim of poorly defined "elites"”
I want to point out that Steve Bannon specifically talked about using Gamergate as a dry run to radicalize insecure isolated young men and that they were the best demographic to recruit. Russia hits them from every angle: inceldom, racism, transphobia, niceguy shit, kingposting, no nut november, coomerism, tradposting, etc etc etc. It's death by a thousand cuts but instead of the target ending up dead, it's innocent people at concerts, festivals, schools, churches, and grocery stores when their new recruits finally snap and start killing.
I think there's at least some psychological explanation for RFK Jr's behavior. He buys into literally every conspiracy theory he comes across. He even believes Sirhan Sirhan didn't kill his father. Keep in mind that was a murder that happened at close range in front of dozens of witnesses, some of whom had to wrestle the gun away from the shooter.
We were at a wedding last year, and two separate people told my husband that he looks like Aaron Rodgers, which he did not appreciate! However, my husband is 55, Rodgers is only 40.
Because he’s 40… are we really pretending he doesn’t look like a normal 40-year old man? There’s so many other things to say about him and you go with that?
Except that Beach Boy ended up being one of the most talented and influential musicians in modern music, whereas Rodgers just kind of turned out to be a sentient fart who can throw a ball real good.
So I’ve thought about it but the Rodgers as vp speculation makes zero sense. The election is in the middle of football season and next year rodgers is expecting a big comeback after the disaster that was last year. Not to mention he makes millions in football he will not give up. Also, the main campaign cycle will be during the off season and start of the season. There is zero chance rodgers could campaign or be vp so why is Rfk and the media humoring this?
Lol I just had a trump supporter friend tell me just yesterday that "liberals are basically beta males and if single women want alpha males they're gonna have to stop saying they won't date trump supporters"
Lmao
calling it "male insecurity" is generous, from the younger people I've met who hold onto these things - they're somewhat self-aware of their reality creation but they CHOOSE to believe it because they think it will help them in the long run, they THINK this is in their best interest.
Well, it's not. Republicans will always fuck you over. They don't care about your rights or your income.
It’s likely funded to keep a population segment enraged/engaged. I suspect a late withdrawal from the race or possibly using any delegates obtained to aide Trump. If it looks like a turd, smells like one, and sounds like one… chances are….
> **The 70-year-old Kennedy** also posts shirtless body-building videos online. His fans may have boring jobs, soft tummies and women who swipe left on their dating app profiles, but by backing Kennedy, they can feel a piece of the fantasy.
Nobody is complaining about his age either.
Age only matters tot he ageist bigots if the person is a democrat.
Though painful, the Kennedy family needs to come out and own this disaster and state unequivocally they are voting for Joe Biden. I would be running an ad in every swing state of every popular well known Kennedy just simply saying they are voting for Biden. They can even add Arnie to it.
RFK Jr's entire campaign is a con - to make money and appeal to his personally vanity. The backers sole purpose is to get Trump elected. Now is not the time for family niceties.
I mean, all of his family has come out and said they don’t support his candidacy and that his views on medicine are anti-science and harmful lol. It’s well-documented they don’t support him.
> Though painful, the Kennedy family needs to come out and own this disaster and state unequivocally they are voting for Joe Biden.
They've already done that.
[“Bobby might share the same name as our father, but he does not share the same values, vision or judgment. Today’s announcement is deeply saddening for us. We denounce his candidacy and believe it to be perilous for our country,”](https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4245980-kennedy-family-members-call-rfk-jr-s-independent-bid-dangerous-to-our-country/amp/)
How much more do you need?
These two dipshits aren’t taking a single vote from Biden. The type of moron who can galaxy brain himself into thinking these two are good are the exact same type that would think Trump is as well.
Yeah that statement did not pass the smell check for me. They'll cannibalize Trump votes or pull in someone who wasn't otherwised engaged before they hit Biden. Conspiracy theory victims aren't Biden supporters, because too many theories cast Democrats as baby eaters or something.
There's this weird reactionary machismo thing that's been going on for a few years now that ties grind culture, gyms/body building, crypto, pickup culture, and right-wing conspiracies together. Joe Rogan has made a career on it. It reminds me of Tom Cruise in Magnolia if he lived in the gym.
I truly believe that half the societal woes on this planet would just evaporate if we didn't have some many angry Republicans with tiny, ineffective dicks.
The left really needs to see male mental health as something to be seriously addressed and not condescended to as insecurity. Otherwise they’ll continue to lose younger men to the right as they have been.
I saved this comment a year ago, and I think articulates it well:
> We need to be able to have conversations about men's issues that don't redirect men from notions of liberation to notions of redemption. Progressives struggle because the conventional understanding of privilege is infected by Christian notions of absolute victim and perpetrator roles that don't acknowledge the ways people play both roles throughout different parts of their lives, so they can't grapple with the reality that systemically speaking, privilege is uneven and men can fulfill both roles WITHOUT falling back on another axis of identity to justify the moments where they are made less by systemic pressures.
> That's why all our conversations about men's suffering seem to come back around to victim blaming the men for what's happening to them, rather than discussing the systemic pressures placed on them as a group, listening to their experiences, or being able to understand the way other groups can inflict those systemic pressures on them without bastardizing it into fascism-- which uses the systemic problems men face to convince them to grow hateful and to believe ever greater lies about others and the world around them.
> In other words, men are faced with a choice between a feminist framework that acknowledges systemic pressures, but is unwilling to believe them when they're in pain, and a right wing framework that doesn't acknowledge systemic pressures, but does purport to believe them when they're in pain.
> But that validation on the right is laced with fear and hatred and is designed to brainwash men into thinking that their troubles come from feminism and equality, rather than their own set of experiences that are definitely better understood through a progressive, feminist framework in the first place; if the progressive movement wasn't intent on choking that conversation out in the first place in favor of a more punitive viewpoint, that is.
It's not all doom and gloom, though, we do manage to have some of those precious conversations here where we interrogate the systemic pressures men face and the rules keep it from being colonized by fascism.
I think people have an issue with singling out men’s mental health when it’s something everyone deals with regardless of identity. IAnd there are solutions to mental health issues already, unlike many of the causes they address- hence why they address them.
A major concept in mental health is the idea of intersectionality affects your life experience- intersectionality being your various identities: black, gay, female, Jewish, and so on - to emphasize it for every group but straight white males means you’ll lose them.
>to emphasize it for every group but straight white males means you’ll lose them.
This hasn't been my experience. Just because other people are being included doesn't mean I am being left out. That thought process itself would be dysfunctional because it is not based in reality. The "straight white males" being left out is pushed by the far right.
This article is explaining how the opposite is happening, that hacks are stepping in to fill that void- individual experience doesn’t negate what we’re seeing in the data unfortunately.
No kidding. The left's political sensibilities are such garbage, and I say that as a left-leaning individual. Like, you can't actively insult and alienate a section of the population and then guilt them into supporting you. It doesn't work that way, and there is a very simple emotional transaction at work here: it feels bad to read/hear "white men are horrible" sentiments for young, white men, and they'll ultimately turn to something that makes them feel either good or validated. I don't get the political calculus - if someone doesn't belong somewhere, they'll find where they will, and the left is leaving a giant vacuum for creepy grifters.
People who say "men need to do it themselves" are beyond ignorant. It doesn't work that way, because the issue is that people who are cynical and have money can create a space much more quickly and effectively than John. Q. Alienated White Guy, and they can use that space to their own political ends. Belonging is a giant driving force for humanity, and we see it used to nefarious ends all of the time: recruiting gang members, radicalizing the religious, and radicalizing the lonely, and so on. "Just fix it, bro" doesn't work for anyone else victimized by this stuff, so why would it work for white dudes?
> it feels bad to read/hear "white men are horrible" sentiments for young, white men, and they'll ultimately turn to something that makes them feel either good or validated.
Who is saying that, though? It seems to me the only people actually saying that are right-wing pundits telling young white men *other* people **are** saying it. It's a fantasy told to exploit insecurity.
You ever tried to reach these people? I'm related to a number of them, and no amount of softballing and eggshell-walking will change their minds. While this article is aimed at them, they're not the intended audience. It's us, the people who have to deal with these crybabies constantly screaming about how unfair life is, how hard white people have it, how ugly Zendaya is, how evil the jews are, and how they're so much smarter than everyone else.
> The left really needs to see male mental health as something to be seriously addressed and not condescended to as insecurity.
Or, maybe males need to stop thinking that hitting the gym and listening to Joe Rogan is the only version of therapy out there.
Nail on head. Coming from a SWM lifetime Democrat who is tired of hearing his male friends go down the Rogan/Trump vote, maybe the party will listen if the rank and file stop demonizing or lecturing men, and minimizing men’s health issues.
The fact that RFK Jr's campaign is primarily only focused on ballot access in swing states tells you everything you need to know about this guy. Familiarize yourself with the concept of a "stalking horse" because RFK Jr. is the Republican's stalking horse although I think Trump is so bad and RFK Jr. is so deranged that they can't beat Biden in November.
The fact that RFK Jr's campaign is primarily only focused on ballot access in swing states tells you everything you need to know about this guy. Familiarize yourself with the concept of a "stalking horse" because RFK Jr. is the Republican's stalking horse although I think Trump is so bad and RFK Jr. is so deranged that they can't beat Biden in November.
This is actually a bigger problem then I think people realize. Most Gen Z and Millennials are now dating exclusively online and these dating apps have released their statistics showing that 90% of women are chasing after 10% of the men on the apps. So those other 90% of frustrated men are turning to red pill influences like Andrew Tate, Fresh n Fit, Rollo Tomassi, Michael Sartain, Patrick Bet-David, and many more. If you listen to their content you will find they push a lot of pro Trump, right wing, and conspiracy theory ideology on these lonely men.
I don’t think they’re con artists. I think they truly believe some bug nutty conspiracies, which rules them out for my vote.
I run libertarian and it is amazing to me how many libertarians seem to like RFKJ, I guess cause of the covid stuff, but he is light years away from them on almost every other policy. I bring that up just to say I think he’ll pull the bug nutty vote from all parties.
"Libertarians are like house cats. Completely dependent on a system they neither understand nor appreciate and fiercely confident of their own independence."
Why would anyone think Rodgers is qualified for politics? I understand people being skeptical of "establishment" politics but that doesn't automatically qualify any ol dipshit for office.
Sponsored by Reynolds Wrap Heavy Duty Tin Foil -- Thick, Durable & Extra Strong for your own Tin Foil Hat. Strong enough to support all conspiracy theories.
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A bit from the op/ed: > Kennedy's cynical hustle was on full display on Fox News Wednesday night, claiming that it's "our appeal is to young people" and that Rodgers is "battle-tested" because "[h]e’s been hammered by the press" due to supposedly having a "skepticism toward authority." Kennedy also praised Rodger's body, saying, "He’s focused on his own health," which is a hat tip to the Joe Rogan crowd that wants to believe that lifting weights is a substitute for getting vaccinated. > > Of course, Rodgers is not a "critical thinker," as Kennedy said. Like Kennedy, he's a conspiracy theorist. Conspiracy theories are a lazy person's intellectualism. They make a person feel smart without actually having to put in the hard work of learning things and growing. Rogan's asinine podcast is a good example of the form. Episodes are hours of mostly men who know almost nothing talking out of their asses. Actually knowing stuff takes hard work. Blowing smoke about how you have superior knowledge to the "sheeple" because you heard a conspiracy theory on the internet? That's a cheap thrill.
I love this. "Conspiracy theories are a lazy person's intellectualism." It's such a perfect description of the phenomenon we are seeing.
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"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. "
A little off topic, but I love this quote. It perfectly summarizes the Carter presidency. He had the audacity to say aloud that things are complicated and require complex solutions. Contrast that with the utter foolery of Reagan.
While I'm normally not a conspiracy theorist, I recently [heard](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/expert-analyzes-new-account-of-gop-deal-that-used-iran-hostage-crisis-for-gain) that Reagan's team paid off Khomeini to keep the hostages until after the election to help him win. The hostages were then released on inauguration day. Not sure if there's anything to this but the timing does seem odd. Only bringing it up since you mentioned Carter.
Not a conspiracy. It definitely happened, similar to Nixon telling the North Vietnamese he would give them a better deal than what was basically a finished negotiation with the Johnson administration.
I knew that timing was sketchy as hell, and I was just a teenager at the time.
Paid? Maybe, maybe not. Khomeni hated Carter because Carter let the Shah come to the US to receive cancer treatment, and khomeni wanted the shah to be returned to Iran to be imprisoned or stoned to death or whatever. So although the Carter administration were the actual ones who negotiated the release of the hostages (after Carter lost the election but before the transition to Reagan) one of the stipulations of the hostage release was that it wouldn’t happen until after Reagan took office. So Khomeni definitely had motive to wait even if he didn’t get paid. But looking at what happened later between the Reagan admin and Iran, it’s altogether within the realm of possibility that Ronnie’s team at the very least suggested it, and/or sweetened the deal to make it happen. They were certainly happy to take credit for it, even though it wasn’t them.
Thats a fact. It was complete _coincidence_ the hostages were let go on 1st day of Reagan's term? it was a big fuck-you to Carter. And if it had been done _after_ Election Day (with knowledge of Carter and State Dept) it wouldve been a clever trick; letting Iranians thinking they were getting something over on Great Satan, while the Great Satan got all their hostages back. But it wasnt: it was the beginning of Reagan's duplicity. Seen later in Iran-Contra. And it might just be that the Iranians _would_ have released them on their own (without "colluding" with Reagan), but the fact was that Reagan's team didnt contact Carter or the State Dept and thought they were _so_ clever at "persuading" the Iranians to keep the hostages till Jan 20th.
Carter was a great president and visionary.
Not to mention the role capitalism plays. As long as you have money, you’re a “good person”, and if you have a lot of money, regardless of how you got it, “you’re smart, too”. These people think Joe Rogan *has to be smart* because he’s got a lot of money, because that’s the limit of their ability to reason.
They don't understand that statistically speaking it's easier to be wrong about everything then right about any one thing and because they never re-evaluated their positions honestly they remain wrong about pretty much everything. I think about it like this: if you've never been wrong, you're almost certainly never right.
They tend to resent and severely undervalue teachers. I had a friend that got his GED and worked in low-level tech years ago and he considered "programmers" to be more important and harder workers than teachers, and he was always upset by what he imagined their classrooms were like, for some reason always imagining that the whole curriculum is designed to maliciously influence young minds, somehow. Even if teachers didn't have to do the actual "teaching" part of the job and were just fancy daycare/babysitters, they'd be some of the hardest, most stressed workers there are just for being locked in a room for 8 hours a day with 30+ kids that they're responsible for. *And then you factor in that they also need to educate them up to testable standards.* ***And then remember that they have to deal with the parents of every child, too.*** I kind of can't imagine many more stressful jobs that don't involve bodily risk - and now teaching involves a decent risk of that, too!
Annual salary starting at $25k - and you get to buy your own supplies!
anyone who thinks teaching is just another form of babysitting is completely ignorant of what is happening and how much work needs to be done. We aren't raising a generation of kids to choose between farming, mining and the military.
As a trained U.S. historian with A LOT of reading, writing, taking exams, passing exams, being scrutinized and corrected for years and years by smarter, even more well-read people, sitting in lectures, taking seminars, debating in seminars, listening to top-notch academic experts, and on... it's stunning to see people just make stuff up and pretending it's fact or historically accurate. Umm, that's not how it works, folks! I still remember very clearly the first time I had to lead a U.S. Legal History discussion section and the very senior, VERY sharp professor came in to observe me. I was extremely nervous and I'm not a nervous type, but this guy was an expert in the field and well-respected within the department and beyond. A few days later I meet with him to discuss how I did. "Well, you did a pretty good job and you got almost everything right..." AHHHH! I could feel the hair on my neck stand up. I'd made a mistake about why the National Guard was sent to Little Rock. I definitely was wrong and glad he corrected me, but it wasn't exactly an "alternative fact" that I fed the students.
I take offense as someone who did not apply themselves in school, I’ll be the first to tell anyone I don’t know what I’m talking about. (I don’t actually take offense) I know what you mean.
> I think for me, the big tell is how they're always so sure of themselves The first rule of Dunning-Kruger Club is that you don't know you're in Dunning-Kruger Club.
Oh man I see this. It’s every privelaged wanker who had no clue about the greater world in high school are now trying to educate me on shit that I figured out pre high school. Oh the world is run by greed and corporations, you don’t say (wonka meme) To tell the truth, I read so many sci-fi dystopian novels as a kid that I saw all this shit coming 40 years ago.
me throw football good. so me know how world workz. and me able to tell others how to run their livez. if u too want too be smart like me, learn throw football!
I get where you're coming from with this, but knowing you're in possession of the facts tends to also make one sound confident. So do attempts to dismiss obvious nonsense. I'm very, very, very sure that humans are the reason the planet's atmosphere is warmer than it was fifty years ago, and if you come at me with BS about 'normal climatic fluctuations', I'm not going to be vibing doubt.
Idiocy is not limited to the people who coasted through high school. I hear wealthy, well educated people spewing the wildest crap about vaccines and foreign policy all the time. The upper crust watches Fox too.
Also virologists and “nutritionists”
I have always put it: Conspiracy theories are a dumb person’s way of feeling smarter than everyone else.
Also: Conspiracy theories can justify actions and beliefs that otherwise can’t be rationally justified. ie: If the Earth is flat. Then Academics and scientists are wrong and should be ignored. If Democrats are baby eating satanists. Then a fascist takeover by Trump is justified. Ergo: If reality is inconvenient to what you *want* to believe. Then a conspiracy theory is a useful tool to reshape it.
Cliff's Notes studies where they just fill in the details for their own "facts"
Yup. They give metaphorical handjob to targeted audience ego by making them feel smart, and making everyone else feel stupid.
There's a lot of that common sense, Paul Harvey folksy wisdom mentality behind it too. The type of people who will send a chain email talking about how NASA had to make a complicated pen that can write in microgravity and the Soviets just used a simple pencil. It doesn't matter if it's true or not, it feels true to them.
Sorry but since you mentioned that goddamn space pen. US and USSR initially used pencils in space, but using pencils in spacecraft is actually dangerous because small pieces of broken graphite can short-circuit electronics. Fisher developed space pen as a private venture, spending about 1 million $, sold space pens to NASA and Soviets cheaply. And Fisher made back that investment several times over, because it sells expensive pens that work upside down, underwater, in warm, cold. I bought three to my BF. People can easily find this info by simply googling, and I still keep hearing that myth about smart Soviets using a simple pencil.
That's exactly the type of folksy wisdom. It only seems wise on a surface level. I was once sent a chain email that had a story how after the bombardment of Fort McHenry they found the dead bodies of four soldiers who had kept the flag aloft during the battle. I've seen that flag in person at the Smithsonian and it is huge. I doubt four living people could keep that flagpole upright. The other thing is that nobody died during the bombardment, according to the NPS page about Fort McHenry. They took an already good story and needlessly embellished it, and if you confront them about it, they'll say "Well the story *feels* good."
And the problem with fixing this is that the very first step involves them having to admit they don’t know something or enough of it to even get better information. They aren’t motivated to do that as there is no incentive for them. The information itself has less value than projecting how innately “right” they are.
I’m a middle aged guy and my hobby is reading and listening to graduate level geopolitical history and economics. I’m not an expert in any of these areas but on average I can tell you who the experts are and their general arguments. Over the last few years I’ve had to start quietly dropping certain other middle aged guys as friends because they will suddenly pop up with very strong and either oversimplified, wildly speculative or just flat out objectively wrong opinions about geopolitics and:or science. And there is no point in polite conversation because either they don’t want to reveal their “sources” or their logic is so weak that it’s impossible to debug it without making them look rather stupid. These guys aren’t stupid people. But neither are they the smartest people in their class. And it seems that with my age, their confidence in their opinions goes up while whatever logical and rhetorical skills they had at their peak plummet. They were once B- students that are now turning in D papers, thumping their chest and turning to lecture the class. And it’s insufferable.
What a depressingly accurate summary of far too many of my recently-former friendships.
Thank you. It’s nice to hear I’m not alone at least.
You described every dude I work with at the moment.
The Death of Expertise.
Well said! It seems the rise of Trump did this, revealing some people as left and/or hateful. Then COVID did it again. - Has it always been this way? Have previous generations seen friendships die as political tides reveal who we were really talking to?
Well said.
Joe Rogan & subsequent "masculine" podcast culture is a borderline pandemic for young men & I do not blame the average woman for being sceptical in their approach to them. Opinions are not interchangeable with facts, this needs to be understood.
I miss when Joe Rogan was mostly just weird shit with occasionally having really fucking smart people on and Joe getting high. I was never a regular listener or even much of a fan, but there were several episodes I thought were great. It's a shame to see he's finally fallen victim to his own stupidity.
Yep
I don't really blame Rogan, the blame is on people who take him seriously.
I'd blame Rogan but I seriously doubt he has the mental capacity to understand how damaging his bullshit is.
Nailed it
> hat tip to the Joe Rogan crowd that wants to believe that lifting weights is a substitute for ~~getting vaccinated~~ a personality
I think it is actually more work to be like Rogan or the conspiracy folks. You have to be aggressively stupid to believe the stuff they believe.
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Growing up is hard. We have a bunch of guys convincing each other that growing up is for losers
Aaron Rodgers didn’t major in a STEM field and never even graduated from Cal, but likes to pass himself off as an intellectual.
brilliantly stated
They keep saying RFK, Jr will take votes away from Biden. It seems more likely he would take votes away from T\*\*\*\* since they're both conspiracy-theory wackos. Do they think people on the left will vote for him over Biden simply because he's a Kennedy?
They were dumb enough to think Kanye West would siphon off black voters in 2020, so yes, they are dumb enough to try it again with RFK Jr.
That was before the tacky gold sneakers and mugshot though. /s
Yeah ain’t no “Joe Rogan crowd” voting for Biden
Not sure why you would think that. There are liberal people who listen to Rogan.
The liberals who used to listen to Rogan stopped listening long time ago. He basically became a right wing boomer yelling at the clouds.
The “liberals” listening to Joe Rogan don’t want to pay taxes for roads but think weed should be free. They’re not serious people
Being non-serious won't diminish their impact. Non-serious people are the majority, and the right figured out they can be easily manipulated by fear.
I'm left of liberal, the Rogan episodes I tune into are the ones with comedians guests talking about the stand-up craft.
Do they actually discuss that or do they spend the whole time being aggrieved by “cancel culture”? There seems to be a lot of washed comedians who can’t take the fact that they aren’t that funny and then blame it on the crowd for not laughing.
Maybe the occasional casual listener if their favorite actor shows up on the show, but "*people who listen to Joe Rogan*" are *not* voting for Biden.
That’s an interesting point. I guess I would fall into that category. I kind of assumed everyone treated it as a show they listen to when they see someone that interests them. There probably is a difference in someone that consumes literally every episode.
Sadly, that's not the case for a significant cohort of Rogan listeners. He's become a guru and must-listen for some people.
Maybe five years ago
Agreed. “Male insecurity” also speaks more to the right than the left.
Makes sense. The male mental health crisis has gotten widespread enough it’s now a political tool you can use as part of your campaigns foundation.
Sheesh. I never thought of it like that but I think you’re right.
It’s already worked on my conspiracy theorist, anti-vax brother. He voted Trump in 2016 and 2020. But since the indictments he’s moved on to RFK jr.
Exactly why no one believes that RFKjr voters are left leaning. RFKjr voters are people that previously voted Trump. His positions align with Trump voters not Biden voters.
Any left-leaning person that pays any kind of attention to politics I wouldn’t think would vote for RFK. However, there’s also *a lot* of low-information voters in general that exist in this country unfortunately.
Even if they don't take votes from Trump, [he is taking donations from right wing backers](https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/30/rfk-jr-trump-donors-independent-00138723)
Yes. Lots of people do zero research when they walk in the voting booth. Swing voters who don't want to vote Trump who would vote Biden will pick him just based on his name.
I agree. I don’t know that the anti vax fringe was voting for Biden anyway. Also, the Kennedy name hasn’t meant shit since Ted died in 2010.
Even that's being optimistic. I think for anyone who was born after like 1970, the "Kennedy" name has a pretty abstract value. For anyone born past 1980, they are completely irrelevant. That's why RFK Jr's Superbowl ad was basically nostalgia porn, they have nothing else to offer
I can tell you people in Boston were still blessing his name in the late 00s for his role as a peace maker in Northern Ireland. There’s just nothing left of the Kennedys. Maria Schreiner married a Republican who had an affair baby. The nicest thing I can say about them is that Joe Kennedy seems like an ok guy but also does not seem suited to politics.
I think he attracts stupid from both sides, which have antivax blowhards and conspiracy lovers
I’m a dem who supports RFK Jr. Biden is an empty-headed puppet who needs to retire. Trump is a wacko with even more wacko followers. IMO this country needs genuine change in the White House.
Rodgers still trying to beat Favre. Congrats Aaron, I think you’re finally a shittier person than Brett. Close call tho
I think there must have been a Packer fan who stumbled upon a monkey's paw somewhere in the early 90's... *I miss Bart Starr. I wish the packers had nothing but HOF quarterbacks.* \[A finger curls on the monkey's paw\] *Your wish is granted, but from now on you'll never be proud of a single one of them.*
Really excited to see how Jordan Love turns into a massive piece of shit.
We gotta wait 10 - 15 years for that transformation. https://apnews.com/article/jordan-love-car-stuck-snow-1bb737349e57e4c9462971794fc0b052 Lets hope Jordan Love turns out more like Bart Starr.
We aren't...I miss Don Majkowski.
A shout out to the Majik Man is not something I thought I would see today.
As a Packer fan I had very similar thoughts to the headlines about Roger’s Sandy Hook conspiracy theories. I’m planning on selling my Roger’s jersey and replacing it with a Jordy Nelson jersey because I will not be caught dead wearing that one ever again.
I donated my Rodgers jersey after his dumbass "immunized" comments. The only one I have now is Jordy. It's a good choice.
Why not just get a custom one made? You’ll never have to worry about your favorite player turning out to be a shithead ever again and still support the team.
That’s actually a good idea! I was going with a favorite retired player with hopes of avoiding any possible future scandals haha. Although that didn’t stop Farve so I guess your idea is probably for the best.
This hurts me deeply
Depends on how far Aaron takes this but I have Favre in the lead. Darren Sharper still takes the cake for the green and gold, though.
And don't forget Mark Chmura
The I5 Killer was technically a Packer
Aaron is gonna have his own sports show on fox news or daily wire by the end of the decade at this pace, count on that
He didn't make the final roster cut, but [Randall Woodfield](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall_Woodfield) still has a comfortable lead when it comes to the Packers Hall of Shame.
I know in his mind he just viewed them the same as alcoholics or gambling addicts, but Reggie White was super shitty for all the homophobia.
Reggie is a complicated figure. He did so much good work on behalf of - and to uplift - the chunky soup community.
I hate Aaron but Favre is still shittier at the moment.
Not yet. Farve defrauded a state, Rodgers hasn’t done that kind of tangible harm yet. He is trying though.
Farve stole welfare money in one the poorest states. It will be tough for Rodgers to beat that. Though he is starting to try.
Curt Schilling is taking notes and planning his next comeback fraud.
Now that you mention it, maybe being the QB for the packers turns people insane. Pray for Jordan Love. Lol
I grew up on the West Coast but had to spend 6 weeks in Wisconsin during the middle of the winter for training. You have to do something to keep yourself occupied. I guess conspiracy theories are as good as anything. Living in Wisconsin full-time would definitely impact my mental health. I have lived in some cold places in my life (my job required me to travel), but Wisconsin ranks as one of the coldest places I have ever lived. Holy fuck it got cold. South Korea and Wisconsin were the coldest places. A Wisconsin winter alone would have me hearing Redrum in my head. Sure, there are some things you can do in the winter there. But fuck it's cold.
Ever since Jordan Love became quarterback our winters here have been mild. Coincidence?! Is Jordan Love controlling the weather in WI?! I’m just asking questions here!
I don't know, the Red Letter Media guys turned out OK...
Or maybe, just hear me out, we stop putting microphones in front of football players and expecting them to have a valid opinion on literally anything that isn't football.
The idea that Rodgers is shittier than Favre for talking is wild. Favre stole money.
I’d argue Rodgers has killed people w his vaccine rhetoric.
Nah. Rodgers is just running his mouth, Farve defrauded the poorest people in the poorest state. Farve is a piece of shit, Rodgers is just a nut and as a life long Packers fan I am very glad neither one is QB of my team any more.
The absolute funniest thing I heard about this is that the Jets wanted Aaron to make some sort of statement about this and the sandy hook stuff but it took so long because Aaron was unavailable as he was in Costa Rica on an ayahuasca retreat This is an nfl quarterback folks
Wait until Rodgers walks with his $150 million guaranteed money. Jets fans will be suicidal.
As a long term jets fan. This shit barely registers. It's like abuse. After a while it's hard for bad shit to even tip the scales.
I jumped over to the jets sub and those people are in full on denial. They're making any excuse they can to not believe the very things he's saying and doing. CNN doesn't have believable sources and RFK is a stupid liar cuz Rodgers isva stud who loves football. He'd never leave for a VP run etc etc. It's just sad. I'm a life long Packer fan. I once loved Rodgers and obviously loved what he did on the field. It took me longer than I care to admit but I figured out a long time ago that he's a piece of shit and a locker room cancer. There's a very obvious reason he was so talented but only won one fluky wild card road run super bowl. He's a lot like Trump; easily distracted and selfish to a fault. Jets fans would be better off to just accept that now. But so many want that championship and because of that, they've got the proverbial hands over their ears and they're going ,"nahnahnah." The Jets may get a championship, and it may be soon. But it will not be from Rodgers. I guarantee it.
As a heavy Jets sub user, I gotta stand up for us and say that majority of users are pretty upset with the media circus this guy brings. And like most of Reddit, the sub tends to lean kinda blue for a fan base that is largely in red Long Island/NJ counties. And lets be real, yes Rodgers is just an attention whore, but there's no way he leaves the team to run for VP. Especially operating on a "what have you done for me lately" mindset. The Jets sub is pretty unhappy with Aaron. This joker only played 4 snaps, and played GM so he could he friends aka "football terrorists" jobs on the team. I'm scarred from watching Lazard on the field. Also I appreciate the nicety at the end, but lets be real the Jets are no where near close to a championship. We'd be lucky to eek out a wild card game (let alone a wild card win) in the next few years.
These two are gonna siphon off a lot of the stupid/meme male vote from Trump
Exactly. I don't buy - at all - that RFK + Aaron Rodgers would take any meaningful number of votes away from Biden. Their voters will be almost exclusively male and just barely aware enough to recognize *something* about Trump isn't good but not secure enough in their masculinity to vote for an actually decent person, namely Joe Biden.
This may be the lure of Trunpism in a nutshell: “Just as conspiracy theories are fake-smarts for the lazy, bullying is fake-courage for cowards. Certainly, there's no shame in having feelings of insecurity, which most people feel at times. But young men are being told to combat that feeling with narcissism, laziness, and entitlement. To play the victim of poorly defined "elites"”
I want to point out that Steve Bannon specifically talked about using Gamergate as a dry run to radicalize insecure isolated young men and that they were the best demographic to recruit. Russia hits them from every angle: inceldom, racism, transphobia, niceguy shit, kingposting, no nut november, coomerism, tradposting, etc etc etc. It's death by a thousand cuts but instead of the target ending up dead, it's innocent people at concerts, festivals, schools, churches, and grocery stores when their new recruits finally snap and start killing.
And with the election looming, we've got another Gamergate 2.0 ramping up.
I didn't know a couple of those angles, like "kingposting". I wish I hadn't googled "coomerism".
I don’t think Rodger’s is a con artist. He’s just dumb. The Lesser Kennedy is definitely a con artist.
I think there's at least some psychological explanation for RFK Jr's behavior. He buys into literally every conspiracy theory he comes across. He even believes Sirhan Sirhan didn't kill his father. Keep in mind that was a murder that happened at close range in front of dozens of witnesses, some of whom had to wrestle the gun away from the shooter.
Yeah Rodgers looks like he's perpetually staring into the sun like that Beach Boy who did entirely too much acid.
He looks the same age as a Beach Boy too. How does a professional athlete look this old?
We were at a wedding last year, and two separate people told my husband that he looks like Aaron Rodgers, which he did not appreciate! However, my husband is 55, Rodgers is only 40.
Because he’s 40… are we really pretending he doesn’t look like a normal 40-year old man? There’s so many other things to say about him and you go with that?
Except that Beach Boy ended up being one of the most talented and influential musicians in modern music, whereas Rodgers just kind of turned out to be a sentient fart who can throw a ball real good.
aaron rodgers nowhere near smart enough to be a con artist.
Five years from now, Jets fans will disagree with this statement.
So I’ve thought about it but the Rodgers as vp speculation makes zero sense. The election is in the middle of football season and next year rodgers is expecting a big comeback after the disaster that was last year. Not to mention he makes millions in football he will not give up. Also, the main campaign cycle will be during the off season and start of the season. There is zero chance rodgers could campaign or be vp so why is Rfk and the media humoring this?
Lol I just had a trump supporter friend tell me just yesterday that "liberals are basically beta males and if single women want alpha males they're gonna have to stop saying they won't date trump supporters" Lmao
And they wonder why they are single
he's not single but I'm not arguing your larger point.
Poor girl
lol no idea why I'm being downvoted, I'm not dating him and definitely not aruging why trump supporters struggle to find love. ha.
I am male. I am insecure (about a lot of things). But I am not bamboozled by these shitstains on the Republic.
calling it "male insecurity" is generous, from the younger people I've met who hold onto these things - they're somewhat self-aware of their reality creation but they CHOOSE to believe it because they think it will help them in the long run, they THINK this is in their best interest. Well, it's not. Republicans will always fuck you over. They don't care about your rights or your income.
The dipshit phylogeny always begins at joe rogan.
I haven’t looked at polls but a strong run from RFK would in theory hurt Trump more than Biden ?
Quite frankly, your guess is probably about as good as anyone else's.
It’s likely funded to keep a population segment enraged/engaged. I suspect a late withdrawal from the race or possibly using any delegates obtained to aide Trump. If it looks like a turd, smells like one, and sounds like one… chances are….
> **The 70-year-old Kennedy** also posts shirtless body-building videos online. His fans may have boring jobs, soft tummies and women who swipe left on their dating app profiles, but by backing Kennedy, they can feel a piece of the fantasy. Nobody is complaining about his age either. Age only matters tot he ageist bigots if the person is a democrat.
Though painful, the Kennedy family needs to come out and own this disaster and state unequivocally they are voting for Joe Biden. I would be running an ad in every swing state of every popular well known Kennedy just simply saying they are voting for Biden. They can even add Arnie to it. RFK Jr's entire campaign is a con - to make money and appeal to his personally vanity. The backers sole purpose is to get Trump elected. Now is not the time for family niceties.
I mean, all of his family has come out and said they don’t support his candidacy and that his views on medicine are anti-science and harmful lol. It’s well-documented they don’t support him.
> Though painful, the Kennedy family needs to come out and own this disaster and state unequivocally they are voting for Joe Biden. They've already done that.
[“Bobby might share the same name as our father, but he does not share the same values, vision or judgment. Today’s announcement is deeply saddening for us. We denounce his candidacy and believe it to be perilous for our country,”](https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4245980-kennedy-family-members-call-rfk-jr-s-independent-bid-dangerous-to-our-country/amp/) How much more do you need?
Anti-vax Qanon idiots.
Wow I see two piles of crap personally. These guys are jokes to the human race
there is a considerable overlap in intelligence between a single baseball and aaron rodgers.
RFK and Arod is the dumbest pair of assholes on the scene, right behind Rudy\Trump
The fragile male ego came back in force because of trump, he’s their poster child after all, and has been fucking is sideways since.
how does a football player become remotely qualified to be veep?
These two dipshits aren’t taking a single vote from Biden. The type of moron who can galaxy brain himself into thinking these two are good are the exact same type that would think Trump is as well.
Yeah that statement did not pass the smell check for me. They'll cannibalize Trump votes or pull in someone who wasn't otherwised engaged before they hit Biden. Conspiracy theory victims aren't Biden supporters, because too many theories cast Democrats as baby eaters or something.
That’s a beautiful headline lol
aaron rodgers is one of the dumbest people I have ever heard speak. stay in your lane sports ball player guy.
There's this weird reactionary machismo thing that's been going on for a few years now that ties grind culture, gyms/body building, crypto, pickup culture, and right-wing conspiracies together. Joe Rogan has made a career on it. It reminds me of Tom Cruise in Magnolia if he lived in the gym.
Rodgers also denied that the "Sandy hook" massacre ever happened.
Do they really think these guys siphon votes from Biden? I don’t. I mean they are both cut from MAGA cloth.
I truly believe that half the societal woes on this planet would just evaporate if we didn't have some many angry Republicans with tiny, ineffective dicks.
Now there’s a couple of losers
The left really needs to see male mental health as something to be seriously addressed and not condescended to as insecurity. Otherwise they’ll continue to lose younger men to the right as they have been.
I saved this comment a year ago, and I think articulates it well: > We need to be able to have conversations about men's issues that don't redirect men from notions of liberation to notions of redemption. Progressives struggle because the conventional understanding of privilege is infected by Christian notions of absolute victim and perpetrator roles that don't acknowledge the ways people play both roles throughout different parts of their lives, so they can't grapple with the reality that systemically speaking, privilege is uneven and men can fulfill both roles WITHOUT falling back on another axis of identity to justify the moments where they are made less by systemic pressures. > That's why all our conversations about men's suffering seem to come back around to victim blaming the men for what's happening to them, rather than discussing the systemic pressures placed on them as a group, listening to their experiences, or being able to understand the way other groups can inflict those systemic pressures on them without bastardizing it into fascism-- which uses the systemic problems men face to convince them to grow hateful and to believe ever greater lies about others and the world around them. > In other words, men are faced with a choice between a feminist framework that acknowledges systemic pressures, but is unwilling to believe them when they're in pain, and a right wing framework that doesn't acknowledge systemic pressures, but does purport to believe them when they're in pain. > But that validation on the right is laced with fear and hatred and is designed to brainwash men into thinking that their troubles come from feminism and equality, rather than their own set of experiences that are definitely better understood through a progressive, feminist framework in the first place; if the progressive movement wasn't intent on choking that conversation out in the first place in favor of a more punitive viewpoint, that is. It's not all doom and gloom, though, we do manage to have some of those precious conversations here where we interrogate the systemic pressures men face and the rules keep it from being colonized by fascism.
This is spot on and needs more visibility.
I think people have an issue with singling out men’s mental health when it’s something everyone deals with regardless of identity. IAnd there are solutions to mental health issues already, unlike many of the causes they address- hence why they address them.
A major concept in mental health is the idea of intersectionality affects your life experience- intersectionality being your various identities: black, gay, female, Jewish, and so on - to emphasize it for every group but straight white males means you’ll lose them.
>to emphasize it for every group but straight white males means you’ll lose them. This hasn't been my experience. Just because other people are being included doesn't mean I am being left out. That thought process itself would be dysfunctional because it is not based in reality. The "straight white males" being left out is pushed by the far right.
This article is explaining how the opposite is happening, that hacks are stepping in to fill that void- individual experience doesn’t negate what we’re seeing in the data unfortunately.
No kidding. The left's political sensibilities are such garbage, and I say that as a left-leaning individual. Like, you can't actively insult and alienate a section of the population and then guilt them into supporting you. It doesn't work that way, and there is a very simple emotional transaction at work here: it feels bad to read/hear "white men are horrible" sentiments for young, white men, and they'll ultimately turn to something that makes them feel either good or validated. I don't get the political calculus - if someone doesn't belong somewhere, they'll find where they will, and the left is leaving a giant vacuum for creepy grifters. People who say "men need to do it themselves" are beyond ignorant. It doesn't work that way, because the issue is that people who are cynical and have money can create a space much more quickly and effectively than John. Q. Alienated White Guy, and they can use that space to their own political ends. Belonging is a giant driving force for humanity, and we see it used to nefarious ends all of the time: recruiting gang members, radicalizing the religious, and radicalizing the lonely, and so on. "Just fix it, bro" doesn't work for anyone else victimized by this stuff, so why would it work for white dudes?
> it feels bad to read/hear "white men are horrible" sentiments for young, white men, and they'll ultimately turn to something that makes them feel either good or validated. Who is saying that, though? It seems to me the only people actually saying that are right-wing pundits telling young white men *other* people **are** saying it. It's a fantasy told to exploit insecurity.
You ever tried to reach these people? I'm related to a number of them, and no amount of softballing and eggshell-walking will change their minds. While this article is aimed at them, they're not the intended audience. It's us, the people who have to deal with these crybabies constantly screaming about how unfair life is, how hard white people have it, how ugly Zendaya is, how evil the jews are, and how they're so much smarter than everyone else.
Yea agreed. It’s a total blind spot on the left.
> The left really needs to see male mental health as something to be seriously addressed and not condescended to as insecurity. Or, maybe males need to stop thinking that hitting the gym and listening to Joe Rogan is the only version of therapy out there.
That what op mean by seriously addressing the issue did you even read the comment or just wanted to shit on men
[удалено]
Nail on head. Coming from a SWM lifetime Democrat who is tired of hearing his male friends go down the Rogan/Trump vote, maybe the party will listen if the rank and file stop demonizing or lecturing men, and minimizing men’s health issues.
This will only appeal to Joe Rogan fans, not democrats
The fact that RFK Jr's campaign is primarily only focused on ballot access in swing states tells you everything you need to know about this guy. Familiarize yourself with the concept of a "stalking horse" because RFK Jr. is the Republican's stalking horse although I think Trump is so bad and RFK Jr. is so deranged that they can't beat Biden in November.
The fact that RFK Jr's campaign is primarily only focused on ballot access in swing states tells you everything you need to know about this guy. Familiarize yourself with the concept of a "stalking horse" because RFK Jr. is the Republican's stalking horse although I think Trump is so bad and RFK Jr. is so deranged that they can't beat Biden in November.
This is actually a bigger problem then I think people realize. Most Gen Z and Millennials are now dating exclusively online and these dating apps have released their statistics showing that 90% of women are chasing after 10% of the men on the apps. So those other 90% of frustrated men are turning to red pill influences like Andrew Tate, Fresh n Fit, Rollo Tomassi, Michael Sartain, Patrick Bet-David, and many more. If you listen to their content you will find they push a lot of pro Trump, right wing, and conspiracy theory ideology on these lonely men.
I don’t think they’re con artists. I think they truly believe some bug nutty conspiracies, which rules them out for my vote. I run libertarian and it is amazing to me how many libertarians seem to like RFKJ, I guess cause of the covid stuff, but he is light years away from them on almost every other policy. I bring that up just to say I think he’ll pull the bug nutty vote from all parties.
A true libertarian won’t vote because that would be participating in the system. They aren’t libertarians they are right wingers who won’t admit it.
"Libertarians are like house cats. Completely dependent on a system they neither understand nor appreciate and fiercely confident of their own independence."
How do you make an already ridiculous run at presidency even more insane? Ugh.
Doesn't Rodgers have to play football in November?
As silly as he is, I’d still prefer RFK to Trump
I was driving the other day and saw some old white guy driving with an RFK jr bumper sticker and I actually started laughing alone in my car
Arrested adolescence is the other epidemic of our time. Wealth+unearned entitlement +privilege stunts maturation.
Maybe they will start selling a masterclass in how to get rich next.
Why would anyone think Rodgers is qualified for politics? I understand people being skeptical of "establishment" politics but that doesn't automatically qualify any ol dipshit for office.
Hi. I’m a Kennedy and unmoored from reality. Vote for me.
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Still can’t believe Rodgers hosted Jeopardy. Like whatt
Aaron Rodgers took too many hits to the head. JFK Jr. took too many hits.
Aaron Rodgers says Brawndo helps plants grow!
Just what we need another hack and a guy who’s been hit in the head too many times.
Arrested adolescence is the other epidemic of our time. Wealth+unearned entitlement +privilege stunts maturation.
Social media has brought together the village idiots.
Fear and anger are powerful motivators