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DSandra

(999 posts)
Wed Jul 22, 2020, 04:49 AM Jul 2020

What version of America are Right Wingers seeing on TV?

Being from Northern California, I've been around the San Francisco Bay Area a lot (including recently), and when I see depictions like this I can only conclude this is pure propaganda:



Most of the city is not run down and full of drugdealers. I've driven through San Francisco a lot in the past year or two and never saw anyone defecating. I don't remember ever seeing dirty needles on the floor (and I've done a fair amount of walking around the neighborhoods.) Yes there are a lot of smash and grabs but it's never a good idea to leave valuables or a backpack inside a car in plain view. Yes the city has problems, especially homelessness, and the Tenderloin neighborhood looks like somewhere in a poor third world city, but "reports" like this are a huge exaggeration IMO. San Francisco filthier and more chaotic than Mumbai, India? And about run down Democratic cities, I've seen plenty of run down rural areas just driving through Texas.

Basically though, Right Wingers have a distorted depiction of American cities by Propaganda Masters Fox News and other RW propaganda outlets, thus helping to set up the justification for Trump to send his goons into cities.
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rownesheck

(2,343 posts)
1. Oh yeah.
Wed Jul 22, 2020, 06:37 AM
Jul 2020

I lived in east Texas for most of my life. There are towns there that look like the aftermath of a bombed out war zone. In fact, someone I grew up with moved to Utah after high school. A few years ago she traveled back to the town we grew up in to visit family. Her daughter asked, "mom, why are all the houses broken?" We laughed about that cuz that is exactly what it looks like.

JI7

(89,182 posts)
2. They also claim Europe is being overrun by black and brown muslims imposing sharia law
Wed Jul 22, 2020, 07:44 AM
Jul 2020

A lot of this seems to make them feel better about themselves .

I sometimes respond to these things by asking if it's so bad why do people with a lot of wealth live in these places and they just respond with anger and attacks. Things like "shut up libtard" .

Mostly these people just seem really angry and they enjoy seeing and the thought of other people suffering .

This is why they support Trump. Trump's sense of victimhood while he is the one that attacks others is something they relate to .

bamagal62

(3,218 posts)
3. Within the past year I've been
Wed Jul 22, 2020, 08:29 AM
Jul 2020

Both near the tenderloin for a conference and in rural GA visiting family. We decided to go off road in north GA with my camera and drive around one Sat morning.
I was more afraid stopping and taking photos in rural GA than walking to cvs in the tenderloin. Some of these rural areas are pretty bad. They are just more hidden from view.

 

Decoy of Fenris

(1,954 posts)
4. There's always been the rural/urban divide. To this day I loathe cities and I'm fairly left-wing.
Wed Jul 22, 2020, 08:30 AM
Jul 2020

Doesn't have anything to do with the politics but everything to do with preference and experience, I think. I was born rural and I just can't stand cities; The stench of them, the noise, the sheer unwashed crush of people, and yes, the random people shitting everywhere and anywhere (In every public space I've ever tried to visit in over a dozen cities in America.) Grifters and panhandlers, aggressive beggars doing everything but assaulting you for a smoke or five dollars. It's just an entirely different way of living that isn't compatible with many rural folk. Give me clean skies and open plains over concrete jungle and flowing piles of human excrement.

Fuck Fox, fuck Trump, that's obligatory and obvious, but fuck cities too. You have to be some kind of nutcase to willingly live in those cesspools. That's not a 'right' or 'left' wing thing, just a straight cultural issue.

DSandra

(999 posts)
5. I've been to many big cities around the United States and I've yet to see excrement
Wed Jul 22, 2020, 03:37 PM
Jul 2020

I though tend to avoid run down areas of possible, but there are really nice areas in cities usually, even around downtowns.

Buckeye_Democrat

(14,847 posts)
6. I don't like big cities either, but agree with them politically...
Wed Jul 22, 2020, 03:47 PM
Jul 2020

... obviously.

I never liked going to packed sports stadiums either. I went to one game at Ohio Stadium and vowed to never do it again. Every restroom that I saw had a pool of urine-and-feces water on the floor about 1" deep. I left early and went elsewhere to urinate.

Buckeye_Democrat

(14,847 posts)
8. I saw a historical program about ancient Romans...
Wed Jul 22, 2020, 04:10 PM
Jul 2020

... that focused on their regular citizens rather than the military and political figures normally covered.

I would've never lived in Rome either! They had "amenities" like running water, and it was clearly the place to live if you were trying to make money, but none of it seemed worth it to me. Walking down a dark alley at night was a big mistake in Rome too.

Edit: Cities developed after agriculture, from people banding together to protect their crops from just being seized by others. Yadda, yadda, yadda... and here we are living in conditions that were pretty "unnatural" for much of human existence. Oh, well.

hunter

(38,264 posts)
11. My parents and my wife's parents live in rural areas.
Wed Jul 22, 2020, 06:33 PM
Jul 2020

They have good pensions, nice neighbors, and they love to garden. It's their dream life.

One of my brothers lives in rural white Trumplandia where a neighbor once pulled a gun on him just for asking how he was doing. He and his wife are saving money so they can semi-retire to a better "neighborhood." (They are not the sort of cowboys who will ever truly retire.)

My wife and I met in the 'eighties teaching science in a big city school district. I grew up in 99% white communities but haven't lived in such a place since we married. My wife and I made a very deliberate decision not to raise our children in affluent white U.S.A.. Our children went to public schools where forty percent of the children don't speak English at home and lunches are free for everyone because it's not worth paying someone to keep the books for children who can pay.

Our children are successful adults now, living in big cities, and they feel comfortable almost anywhere, rural or urban, and with all sorts of people.

JI7

(89,182 posts)
14. What the Right Wingers are complaining about are lawless non White people . And bs like Muslims
Thu Jul 23, 2020, 12:49 AM
Jul 2020

taking over .

It's not a complaint about city life v rural life.

RussBLib

(8,985 posts)
7. Last time we were in San Francisco
Wed Jul 22, 2020, 04:03 PM
Jul 2020

Was November of 2019. We were at the Hyatt Hotel downtown very close to the Ferry Building. There was in fact a large human turd within 100' of the Hyatt main entrance on Market Street. We were rather shocked, and disgusted. It was there for our entire 3-day visit.

To score some weed, we caught the underground train from Embarcadero to 3rd St, I think it was. Popped up and found the dispensary, down a rather fucked up alleyway. We decided to walk back to the hotel and a couple of times got bumped by a couple of large black guys, and we definitely did not feel too comfortable. Fortunately the sidewalks were crowded enough to where we figured we'd be OK, and we were. If we were looking for it, we could have found some trouble.

Our trip to Pagan Idol and Alamo Square Park were pleasant and uneventful. Thank goodness for Uber!!

hunter

(38,264 posts)
9. I have family in San Francisco.
Wed Jul 22, 2020, 05:12 PM
Jul 2020

One of my nephews moved away from San Francisco because the cost of housing was too high, but he he and his partner moved back a couple of years later because they missed living in The City.

If city life was so horrible people wouldn't be paying so much to live there.

There are rural places in California that are not nice places to live, where the politics are Republican and the neighbors are meth addicts who have guns.

Strangely, these places receive significant subsidies from the "liberal" cities they hate.

This mirrors the situation in the U.S.A. where taxes from "Blue" Democratic states subsidize "Red" Republican states, and most of those subsidies end up in the pockets of corrupt white people.


hunter

(38,264 posts)
12. The U.S.A. has always been a "developing" nation.
Wed Jul 22, 2020, 06:42 PM
Jul 2020

It still is.

The only people who couldn't see that were affluent and white.



JCMach1

(27,544 posts)
13. But I have seen huge declines in places
Thu Jul 23, 2020, 12:20 AM
Jul 2020

Oklahoma used to have decent highways in the 90's with Democratic Governor's. Now? Horrific. Texas used to have the best highways in the country.

Now?.just meh to bad

And so on

Noticeable decline.

hunter

(38,264 posts)
15. Maybe the uber-wealthy have decided they don't need the rest of us anymore.
Thu Jul 23, 2020, 12:58 AM
Jul 2020

They've got helicopters and private jets.

 

Awsi Dooger

(14,565 posts)
16. Trump strolling out to the microphone and making an authoritative statement
Thu Jul 23, 2020, 01:02 AM
Jul 2020

Never fails. That's the version I see when I am visiting my Republican aunt. She only watches the local Fox affiliate Channel 7. If I'm there during the news, the anchor will say, "President Trump today...," followed by what I described in the header.

Consequently that demographic never sees anything that portrays Trump in a bad light.

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