I don't think you've answered yet, so I'll ask again. How do you know a new shippie belongs to one of these proscribed groups before they start posting C1 violating posts? No one is arguing that once someone violates C1 they shouldn't be planked, we all agree on that. So what is it exactly you want? No one comes into the ship and for their first post says something like "Hi, I'm a member of (insert hate group here)".
I think there's been some cases where the username they applied for has been enough to raise questions.
To make some up
Kkkhristian or Irafanboi on the obvious side.
AmericanDaughter or Feinian maybe on the more dog whistle side.
Parenthetically, Stetson, as a fellow Canadian this has made me wonder where one would place a supporter of the CAQ government?
My guess would be most caquettes would profess to dislike Trump, but be hard-pressed to explain how some of their cultural policies are different from MAGA's agenda, beyond muttering something about how it's about secularism, not bigotry.
I don't think you've answered yet, so I'll ask again. How do you know a new shippie belongs to one of these proscribed groups before they start posting C1 violating posts? No one is arguing that once someone violates C1 they shouldn't be planked, we all agree on that. So what is it exactly you want? No one comes into the ship and for their first post says something like "Hi, I'm a member of (insert hate group here)".
I think there's been some cases where the username they applied for has been enough to raise questions.
To make some up
Kkkhristian or Irafanboi on the obvious side.
AmericanDaughter or Feinian maybe on the more dog whistle side.
Neo-Nazis are not usually very bright and think it is very funny to use easily decipherable code. Unsurprisingly these are not usually hard to identify.
A surprising number of them can be identified by the stupid words they choose in usernames.
OK I'll admit to ignorance. I get the others, but how is AmericanDaughter a dogwhistle?
I think kind of a "Glory to Virginia Dare, first white woman born in the colonies" sorta thingamabob? Not that Miss Dare was neccessarily who @jay_emm had in mind, but that general idea.
OK I'll admit to ignorance. I get the others, but how is AmericanDaughter a dogwhistle?
I think kind of a "Glory to Virginia Dare, first white woman born in the colonies" sorta thingamabob? Not that Miss Dare was neccessarily who @jay_emm had in mind, but that general idea.
I’ve lived in North Carolina my entire life, and I’ve known about Virginia Dare (and the Lost Colony) as long as I can remember, and I’ve never heard anything along the lines of “Glory to Virginia Dare, first white woman born in the colonies.”
Parenthetically, Stetson, as a fellow Canadian this has made me wonder where one would place a supporter of the CAQ government?
My guess would be most caquettes would profess to dislike Trump, but be hard-pressed to explain how some of their cultural policies are different from MAGA's agenda, beyond muttering something about how it's about secularism, not bigotry.
I mean, fascists are quite good at splitting apart into factions just like street gangs. They're not really in it for the belief system or the ideology. If you listen closely to the genuine complaints, they're about power and resources.
I think, at the end, it's just mimetic violence. All that matters is "more for me, less for you." And trying to tie that monster to any particular identity group is going to be hard because the mask will continuously evolve with the times.
That said, I think I'm with @RooK in saying that a continuous identity-banning policy might be keeping up with the times once figurative identity-masks have been clearly identified.
Ironically, if my hypothesis is accurate (and I've been thinking a lot about mimetic violence lately, so it's only a hypothesis,) then a lack of real identity is the problem, which is why a lot of these tossers have to loudly proclaim their allegiance to preexisting groups like "Christian." They're not really Christians. They're just wearing these crosses and flags and whatnot as facades to build unity.
Essentially what is being asked here is that H&As take the long and laborious route to banning people on the off chance that one might think better of their folly, and making the Ship less pleasant in the process.
Then they should shorten the process. As soon as someone shows their colors, plank 'em. Don't warn them or give them shore leave. This is a privately owned and operated forum. @Doublethink and @Alan Cresswell don't owe people they think are jerks and assholes anything like due process.
I object strenuously to the notion that people should be thrown overboard based on group affiliation alone for a couple of reasons.
First, the intense focus in this thread on white supremacist Trump supporters ignores completely the many non-white Trump voters, which points toward the fact that making broad generationalizations and assumptions about tens of millions of people is necessarily difficult to the point of being impossible. @Louise's numerous repetitions of these generalizations only makes me think she doesn't know enough about politics in the US to be mounting arguments about and against the ordinary flesh-and-blood people who vote here.
Second, I object because sexism is routinely overlooked and even tolerated on these boards. If you're going to get rid of Trump voters on the assumption that they're racists, get rid of all the Catholics and Orthodox and adherents of every other misogynist flavor of Christianity too on the assumption that they're sexists. Political affiliation in the US, as @Lamb Chopped pointed out, is for a lot of people not a big commitment and doesn't say very much about many of us. Religious affiliation, however, tells you a lot about someone.
OK I'll admit to ignorance. I get the others, but how is AmericanDaughter a dogwhistle?
I think kind of a "Glory to Virginia Dare, first white woman born in the colonies" sorta thingamabob? Not that Miss Dare was neccessarily who @jay_emm had in mind, but that general idea.
I’ve lived in North Carolina my entire life, and I’ve known about Virginia Dare (and the Lost Colony) as long as I can remember, and I’ve never heard anything along the lines of “Glory to Virginia Dare, first white woman born in the colonies.”
Sorry. I didn't mean to imply it was a common thing, but rather something used by a subset of white nationalists. See the "VDARE" website.
@stetson , I think that's, we'll, a pretty far fetched reach.
Okay. That's the only explanation I can think of for why "American Daughter" would link to "kkkristian". Protecting the race through protecting its womanhood etc. Other than that, I turn it over to @jay_emm.
Parenthetically, Stetson, as a fellow Canadian this has made me wonder where one would place a supporter of the CAQ government?
My guess would be most caquettes would profess to dislike Trump, but be hard-pressed to explain how some of their cultural policies are different from MAGA's agenda, beyond muttering something about how it's about secularism, not bigotry.
I mean, fascists are quite good at splitting apart into factions just like street gangs. They're not really in it for the belief system or the ideology. If you listen closely to the genuine complaints, they're about power and resources.
Agreed. Though I'm not really sure a street-gang split-up is the best analogy for CAQ and MAGA, because I doubt there has ever been too much institutional connection between them. The Quebec right has its own history and institutions, and since the days of at least Duplessis has followed its own more toryish line of thought, with its own theories on race and religion, largely unconnected to what was happening in the anglosphere(*).
That said, I believe certain newspaper chains have been happy to pander editorially to both factions at the same time in their respective countries, because yeah, it's basically the same sorta people with the same sort of complaints in both countries.
(*) At least culturally. Economically, in terms of his relation to the American business interests, Duplessis was among the most, shall we say, accommodating of Canadian premiers.
I’ll take your word for it rather than fouling my iPad with white supremacy sites.
Cool.
I don't get the impression that site has a huge following, but some of the contributors are big names on the racist right, including quite a few with mainstream presence.
I find these groups worth keeping an eye on, because eg. one of their superstars was writing for Lord Black's papers back in the 1990s when Black also owned the Chicago Sun-Times. I don't know if that writer was carried in the Sun-Times specifically, but he was clearly trying to enter into mainstream commentary, so it was good to know his origins.
(Not that think anyone else is obligated to maintain due vigilance by reading such sites. I've had a freaky fascination with right-wing propaganda, and have been seeking it out since I was a teenager. I recognize it's not gonna be everyone's cuppa tea.)
First, the intense focus in this thread on white supremacist Trump supporters ignores completely the many non-white Trump voters, which points toward the fact that making broad generationalizations and assumptions about tens of millions of people is necessarily difficult to the point of being impossible. @Louise's numerous repetitions of these generalizations only makes me think she doesn't know enough about politics in the US to be mounting arguments about and against the ordinary flesh-and-blood people who vote here.
I wouldn't assume Louise doesn't know anything based on her implications that most Trump supporters are white. Looks to me like the research implies that MAGA voters still skew very white.
Also, I live in a very multi-racial part of the city--minority white where I live--and the only MAGA suppporters who have every made me feel unsafe were all white. It's the folx who think they are entitled to be powerful just because of their race who strike me as particularly toxic.
Political affiliation in the US, as @Lamb Chopped pointed out, is for a lot of people not a big commitment and doesn't say very much about many of us. Religious affiliation, however, tells you a lot about someone.
If we're teasing people about not knowing the U.S., now I want to ask whether you've been here although I know you're from here. I imagine it's all about who you hang out with. I'd say that political party tells me a lot more about a person that religion! If you're Christian, you might be conservative or liberal, toxic or thoughtful. But if someone wants to deport my neighbors, force women to have babies, and murder trans folk?--maga--then I know more than enough about them.
First, the intense focus in this thread on white supremacist Trump supporters ignores completely the many non-white Trump voters, which points toward the fact that making broad generationalizations and assumptions about tens of millions of people is necessarily difficult to the point of being impossible. @Louise's numerous repetitions of these generalizations only makes me think she doesn't know enough about politics in the US to be mounting arguments about and against the ordinary flesh-and-blood people who vote here.
I wouldn't assume Louise doesn't know anything based on her implications that most Trump supporters are white. Looks to me like the research implies that MAGA voters still skew very white.
Also, I live in a very multi-racial part of the city--minority white where I live--and the only MAGA suppporters who have every made me feel unsafe were all white. It's the folx who think they are entitled to be powerful just because of their race who strike me as particularly toxic.
I didn't say Louise doesn't know anything. I said the things she has been saying lead me to believe that she doesn't know enough. Perhaps she knows more about the American electorate than she has demonstrated here.
Of course MAGA skews white. But Trump got 45% of Latino voters in 2024. Yes, they in effect voted for white supremacy, but I doubt very much a lot of them had that in mind when they voted. More important, statistics are not predictive for the individual; they don't tell you anything about individual people who turn up on the Ship. Do you propose that people who say they voted for Trump be asked to prove they're not white in order to remain on the Ship? Kash Patel is okay?
The only MAGA supporters who have ever made me feel unsafe were all men. Rather than suggest the H&As ask Trump voters to prove they aren't male, I think they should deal with people as individuals, not as members of groups.
Political affiliation in the US, as @Lamb Chopped pointed out, is for a lot of people not a big commitment and doesn't say very much about many of us. Religious affiliation, however, tells you a lot about someone.
If we're teasing people about not knowing the U.S., now I want to ask whether you've been here although I know you're from here. I imagine it's all about who you hang out with. I'd say that political party tells me a lot more about a person that religion! If you're Christian, you might be conservative or liberal, toxic or thoughtful. But if someone wants to deport my neighbors, force women to have babies, and murder trans folk?--maga--then I know more than enough about them.
"Christian" is near meaningless description as a religious affiliation. I meant denominational affiliation. It tells me a lot about someone if they're a Southern Baptist or a member of the United Church of Christ.
Where I live (a city that's had no majority racial or ethnic group for decades, if it matters) the Democrats are so strong party affiliation doesn't tell you much at all. If you want to get ahead in politics in Long Beach, you run as a Democrat. Party registration for those of us who are merely voters doesn't tell you much either, especially as California has jungle primaries that lump everyone together. I've been registered, in order, as a Republican, Democrat, Green, Republican again, Democrat again, and have held pretty much the same views all along. Recently more people have been changing their party affiliation (Gallup).
My point is that you cannot and should not draw important conclusions about individuals based on their memberships in various large groups and classifications.
If we're teasing people about not knowing the U.S., now I want to ask whether you've been here although I know you're from here. I imagine it's all about who you hang out with. I'd say that political party tells me a lot more about a person that religion! If you're Christian, you might be conservative or liberal, toxic or thoughtful. But if someone wants to deport my neighbors, force women to have babies, and murder trans folk?--maga--then I know more than enough about them.
Both the Republican Party and Pope Francis championed the right of the renegade county-clerk Kim Davis to reject same-sex marriage certificates.
Now, I gather that, were someone to show up here and say they're a fan of the Republican Party, you would take that by itself as an admission of homophobia, and want that person automatically booted. And I don't think it would matter to you if they said "But don't worry, I'm more liberal than the average Republican on social-issues, I just vote for the party because I think they're better on the economy."
So, by that reasoning, under a rule of automatic banning upon announcement of questionable allegiances, I see no reason why self-announced liberal Catholics should get a benefit of the doubt that ISN'T being granted to liberal members of overall conservative political groups.
So it is okay for older organisations to be misogynistic and homophobic but not new ones? My church organisation is 30 years old, where does it fit in to the hierarchy?
As for a small part, my gay son wouldn’t be allowed to get married in most churches. I don’t think that is a small issue.
I didn't mean that they're small issues, only that they're not the main purpose of the organisation, and I think that matters in determining whether we should treat support for a movement as support for particular views. If you're a member of Westborough Baptist Church (for example) it's reasonable to assume you support their views on gay people. That's far less true of the Roman Catholic Church. Antiquity means that people can identify with a movement or organisation from an early age and remain attached to it for identity reasons even when they disagree with it on many fronts. For new movements there is not that 'legacy' affiliation and people have chosen to identify themselves with it.
What if someone's a member of the Roman Catholic Church and does support their views on gay issues, or women’s ordination for that matter? Is it only because they might not support their views that they’d be welcome on the Ship? (don’t get me wrong, Westboro Baptist is kind of in its own weird anti-gay and anti-everything cult category…)
OK I'll admit to ignorance. I get the others, but how is AmericanDaughter a dogwhistle?
I think kind of a "Glory to Virginia Dare, first white woman born in the colonies" sorta thingamabob? Not that Miss Dare was neccessarily who @jay_emm had in mind, but that general idea.
I’ve lived in North Carolina my entire life, and I’ve known about Virginia Dare (and the Lost Colony) as long as I can remember, and I’ve never heard anything along the lines of “Glory to Virginia Dare, first white woman born in the colonies.”
So it is okay for older organisations to be misogynistic and homophobic but not new ones? My church organisation is 30 years old, where does it fit in to the hierarchy?
As for a small part, my gay son wouldn’t be allowed to get married in most churches. I don’t think that is a small issue.
I didn't mean that they're small issues, only that they're not the main purpose of the organisation, and I think that matters in determining whether we should treat support for a movement as support for particular views. If you're a member of Westborough Baptist Church (for example) it's reasonable to assume you support their views on gay people. That's far less true of the Roman Catholic Church. Antiquity means that people can identify with a movement or organisation from an early age and remain attached to it for identity reasons even when they disagree with it on many fronts. For new movements there is not that 'legacy' affiliation and people have chosen to identify themselves with it.
What if someone's a member of the Roman Catholic Church and does support their views on gay issues, or women’s ordination for that matter? Is it only because they might not support their views that they’d be welcome on the Ship? (don’t get me wrong, Westboro Baptist is kind of in its own weird anti-gay and anti-everything cult category…)
The line I'm suggesting is the C1 line; the only addition I'm making is to assume that for organisations and movements whose raison d'etre is bigotry we accept statements of support as sufficient evidence of a C1 violation. In all other respects we continue to operate a don't-ask-don't-tell policy. I don't doubt there are shipmates with homophobic views; if they keep them to themselves there's no problem.
OK I'll admit to ignorance. I get the others, but how is AmericanDaughter a dogwhistle?
I think kind of a "Glory to Virginia Dare, first white woman born in the colonies" sorta thingamabob? Not that Miss Dare was neccessarily who @jay_emm had in mind, but that general idea.
I’ve lived in North Carolina my entire life, and I’ve known about Virginia Dare (and the Lost Colony) as long as I can remember, and I’ve never heard anything along the lines of “Glory to Virginia Dare, first white woman born in the colonies.”
The line I'm suggesting is the C1 line; the only addition I'm making is to assume that for organisations and movements whose raison d'etre is bigotry we accept statements of support as sufficient evidence of a C1 violation.
But bigotry isn't the raison d'etre of the Republican Party. At the current time, they also support eg. lower taxes, higher tariffs, and more defense spending. So shouldn't non-bigots who vote GOP based on those issues get the same break that you wanna give to non-bigots who might be staying in the RCC because they like the music?
(I personally don't want to ban anyone based on simple claim of membership in a group. But it seems to me that the people who advocate such a policy want to make a big show of kicking out Republicans/MAGA, while still finding excuses to exempt bigoted groups that they for some reason deem more acceptable.)
The line I'm suggesting is the C1 line; the only addition I'm making is to assume that for organisations and movements whose raison d'etre is bigotry we accept statements of support as sufficient evidence of a C1 violation.
But bigotry isn't the raison d'etre of the Republican Party. At the current time, they also support eg. lower taxes, higher tariffs, and more defense spending. So shouldn't non-bigots who vote GOP based on those issues get the same break that you wanna give to non-bigots who might be staying in the RCC because they like the music?
Yes, which is why throughout this I've specified "MAGA" or "Trump supporters".
The line I'm suggesting is the C1 line; the only addition I'm making is to assume that for organisations and movements whose raison d'etre is bigotry we accept statements of support as sufficient evidence of a C1 violation.
But bigotry isn't the raison d'etre of the Republican Party. At the current time, they also support eg. lower taxes, higher tariffs, and more defense spending. So shouldn't non-bigots who vote GOP based on those issues get the same break that you wanna give to non-bigots who might be staying in the RCC because they like the music?
Yes, which is why throughout this I've specified "MAGA" or "Trump supporters".
So, you mean "'MAGA' or 'Trump supporters'" to distinguish them from Republicans more broadly?
Yes, just as MAGA women are misogynists. If you want to know why, start a thread on the appropriate board.
So where's the treating people as individuals rather than as members of groups thing gone?
By this line of reasoning all Muslims are misogynists or all Jews Zionists or ...
She can correct me, but I think that was the point @Ruth was making: If all self-identified MAGA folks or even all Republicans should automatically be banned because of their membership in those groups rather than their individual, expressed views, it’s only logical that the same standard should hold for people who are members of religious groups that, for example, discriminate against women, LGBTQ+ folk, etc.
That none of us think, for example, seem to think that it would be appropriate to ban all Roman Catholics solely based on the RCC’s positions on ordination of women or LGBTQ+ issues. She’s saying that should logically lead us also to reject automatically banning all members of specified political groups based solely on official positions of those groups.
The line I'm suggesting is the C1 line; the only addition I'm making is to assume that for organisations and movements whose raison d'etre is bigotry we accept statements of support as sufficient evidence of a C1 violation.
But bigotry isn't the raison d'etre of the Republican Party. At the current time, they also support eg. lower taxes, higher tariffs, and more defense spending. So shouldn't non-bigots who vote GOP based on those issues get the same break that you wanna give to non-bigots who might be staying in the RCC because they like the music?
Yes, which is why throughout this I've specified "MAGA" or "Trump supporters".
So, you mean "'MAGA' or 'Trump supporters'" to distinguish them from Republicans more broadly?
Yes. There are plenty of people whose politics I find abhorrent but who nonetheless have managed to draw the line at supporting fascism. Liz Cheney, to choose an obvious example. The GOP is old and complex enough, and embedded in people's identities over a long time, that it's reasonable not to automatically assume that someone who identifies as a Republican is a fascist, something I don't believe can be said of MAGA and its cultists.
Republican does not equal MAGA. MAGA is a form of US home grown fascism that now has a lot of overseas support and imitators too. It has succeeded in capturing the leadership of the Republican party but is still a different thing even if there is a lot of overlap.
And just as misogynist women exist, so too do Black and Jewish and Muslim etc admirers and fellow travellers of Hitler and other fascist movements like MAGA.
In the past the Catholic church and other churches did murder or encourage the murder or mass deportations of people on a large scale by the state in ways that foreshadow fascism but they dont to my knowledge do so now.
Attempting to slippery- slope rejection of a dangerous powerful form of modern fascism is a recognisable debating tactic but it's one that can shade into bad faith attempts to represent people as saying things they are not.
People who were previously admins - who know we have always banned an entire group on the basis of their affiliation- Nazis- whose hands were among those on the tiller for years with these rules in place- have seemingly suddenly discovered their consciences on affiliation bans- despite never a peep of sympathy for the poor Nazis or pointing out they're not all white and making no objection when they were powerful admins who could have moved to rescind the Nazi ban.
We actually do ban an entire group based on their affiliation and always have done - regardless of their race sex or other characteristics - Nazis. If that outrages you or you think it inevitably leads to banning Catholics or you just want to argue that it does, to discredit attempts to recognise and tackle modern Nazi equivalent fascism, I'm sorry but that Ship sailed years ago and we're all on it and none of the people making these arguments seem to have noticed or commented on any ill effects or injustice of that up to now.
It turns out we ban lots of people on affiliation reasons - and nobody including me even noticed or started a thread in the Styx so much as discussing it.
But this has touched a nerve.
You dont need to have seen Elon Musk Nazi saluting at Trump's inauguration to realise that Nazism and MAGA are cut from scarily similar cloth. I've posted elsewhere that I think a big difference is philosemitism helping to ward off a correct assessment of MAGA as a modern fascist threat - a modern equivalent of Nazism that needs to be handled the same way.
I'm now absolutely fed up and losing what slender abilities I have to be polite about it. So I'm going to quote the writer A. R. Moxon
Historians have a word for Germans who joined the Nazi party, not because they hated Jews, but out of a hope for restored patriotism, or a sense of economic anxiety, or a hope to preserve their religious values, or dislike of their opponents, or raw political opportunism, or convenience, or ignorance, or greed.
That word is "Nazi." Nobody cares about their motives anymore.
They joined what they joined. They lent their support and their moral approval. And, in so doing, they bound themselves to everything that came after. Who cares any more what particular knot they used in the binding?
Fascism isnt just old black and white movies of people from other countries doing funny walks and dressing up in black uniforms with their bent armed cross symbols. It is here, it is now. It walks like us and talks like us and dresses like us. It votes in our polling stations and posts to our social media sites. It can be a beloved elderly relative, a nurse, a cab driver, people we meet in the street and sit on the bus with.
It's not some weird historic thing in 1940s Germany that we can just say 'Ah - now those are the Nazis! We can all relax. - they're banned and they've hardly bothered us since then'. What we see today hardly ever breaks out into the Horst Wessel song ( though sometimes it does) and they rarely break out the goosestep - so we're all fine.
The problem is modern day fascism now looks ordinary and often is ordinary. I dont want it to be ordinary- I want it to be recognised as extreme and murderous like the Nazis who nowadays usually support it - which tells us what it is. I do not think it deserves any different more sympathetic treatment.
And perhaps we should just say in C1 that fascism is one of the -isms we ban. It seems odd to say we ban all the rest and not the mother-lode.
No that's not going to be enough. You would have to spell out in C1 what you meant by that. It would have to say: "Ship policy is that support for Reform, MAGA, One Nation or similar groupings equates to fascism and will be interpreted as such". And this should be displayed prominently on the front page.
The line I'm suggesting is the C1 line; the only addition I'm making is to assume that for organisations and movements whose raison d'etre is bigotry we accept statements of support as sufficient evidence of a C1 violation.
But bigotry isn't the raison d'etre of the Republican Party. At the current time, they also support eg. lower taxes, higher tariffs, and more defense spending. So shouldn't non-bigots who vote GOP based on those issues get the same break that you wanna give to non-bigots who might be staying in the RCC because they like the music?
Yes, which is why throughout this I've specified "MAGA" or "Trump supporters".
So, you mean "'MAGA' or 'Trump supporters'" to distinguish them from Republicans more broadly?
Yes. There are plenty of people whose politics I find abhorrent but who nonetheless have managed to draw the line at supporting fascism. Liz Cheney, to choose an obvious example. The GOP is old and complex enough, and embedded in people's identities over a long time, that it's reasonable not to automatically assume that someone who identifies as a Republican is a fascist, something I don't believe can be said of MAGA and its cultists.
So, if a newbie says he's a Republican, are the mods obligated to ask him whether or not he voted for Trump and/or pro-Trump candidates?
Because while, yes, the label "Republican" CAN encompass people who hate Trump and never voted for him, it also encompasses a helluva lotta people who did.
All you would have to do is observe someone say "I support Trump" or "I vote Reform" and then plank them. There'd be no need to ask.
Well, yeah. But my question was if someone saying "I'm a Republican" should automatically prompt further inquiry by the mods into that person's ideology. Because there is a pretty good chance that someone identifying as a Republican in 2026 is, in fact, at least a Trump voter, if not an enthusiastic fan.
And FWIW, @Louise has said that Reformers should be exempt from the crackdown, because their supporters might not understand what the party advocates.
The line I'm suggesting is the C1 line; the only addition I'm making is to assume that for organisations and movements whose raison d'etre is bigotry we accept statements of support as sufficient evidence of a C1 violation.
But bigotry isn't the raison d'etre of the Republican Party. At the current time, they also support eg. lower taxes, higher tariffs, and more defense spending. So shouldn't non-bigots who vote GOP based on those issues get the same break that you wanna give to non-bigots who might be staying in the RCC because they like the music?
Yes, which is why throughout this I've specified "MAGA" or "Trump supporters".
So, you mean "'MAGA' or 'Trump supporters'" to distinguish them from Republicans more broadly?
Yes. There are plenty of people whose politics I find abhorrent but who nonetheless have managed to draw the line at supporting fascism. Liz Cheney, to choose an obvious example. The GOP is old and complex enough, and embedded in people's identities over a long time, that it's reasonable not to automatically assume that someone who identifies as a Republican is a fascist, something I don't believe can be said of MAGA and its cultists.
So, if a newbie says he's a Republican, are the mods obligated to ask him whether or not he voted for Trump and/or pro-Trump candidates?
No, same as they're not currently obliged to ask if they're racists. All I'm saying is that on a venn diagram the circle of self-proclaimed MAGA supporters is so close to being entirely inside the circle of bigots that identifying as the former is identifying as the latter just as much as making directly racist comments. If we don't treat identifying as MAGA as a C1 violation all we're doing is letting them cause trouble until they do violate C1 in some other way and get booted. There is no plausible scenario in which a Shipmate announces their allegiance to MAGA yet manages to completely avoid saying anything racist, homophobic, transphobic or ableist.
And FWIW, @Louise has said that Reformers should be exempt from the crackdown, because their supporters might not understand what the party advocates.
The same is true of some who identify as MAGA.
Given that Reform have never been in power, and Trump & Co have, the plausible deniability is far weaker.
The Le Pens have never been in power either, but how many of their supporters in France don't understand what they are proposing to do with immigrants? As I noted earlier, Farage as recently as September 2025 has openly talked about his admiration for Trump.
And FWIW, @Louise has said that Reformers should be exempt from the crackdown, because their supporters might not understand what the party advocates.
The same is true of some who identify as MAGA.
Given that Reform have never been in power, and Trump & Co have, the plausible deniability is far weaker.
The Le Pens have never been in power either, but how many of their supporters in France don't understand what they are proposing to do with immigrants? As I noted earlier, Farage as recently as September 2025 has openly talked about his admiration for Trump.
I struggle to understand people who vote entirely on vibes and then are surprised by the reality but they seem to exist in large numbers. Personally I wouldn't shed a tear if support for Reform were also considered a C1 violation but I think the distinction Louise draws is legitimate.
Ya know what would be fun? If the mods wanna go ahead with this plan, write up a list of groups that qualify for automatic banning, post it here in Styx, and then we can all debate which groups' members are irredeemably evil across the board, and which other ones might include a lot of well-intentioned but misguided souls who just happened fall down the wrong rabbit hole.
Ya know what would be fun? If the mods wanna go ahead with this plan, write up a list of groups that qualify for automatic banning, post it here in Styx, and then we can all debate which groups' members are irredeemably evil across the board, and which other ones might include a lot of well-intentioned but misguided souls who just happened fall down the wrong rabbit hole.
Bad faith suggestions and concern trolling can be a lot of fun for those who like that sort of thing which I'm not a big fan of.
Grappling with the reality of modern fascist movements on a par with Nazism isnt fun.
And no I didn't say Reform supporters should be exempt from C1.
And no despite compulsory government lists being a thing I don't favour lists and never have.
We ban slurs without a list - recognising them using context and collective judgement. Recognising fascism is a similar thing.
Add fascism to C1
Add policy to policy thread -
'-isms in C1 include fascism. Support for fascist politicians or far right movements will be considered as a breach of C1 unless admin see evidence of extenuating circumstances.
For the record, I don't think Doublethink said it was a plan. My impression was that she was asking the question of what people thought.
And while I'm joining in, I don't have a strong feeling either way. I mostly think there are a lot of good points on both sides. I jumped in to support something Louise said that I thought sensible. Earlier someone, Nick Tamen maybe?, was supporting a different position and noted that banning maga would encourage their sense of aggrieved martyrdom. I think that was a very good point.
I think my personal favorite suggestion was adding fascism to the things we don't support. That protects people who are valid contributors but may have some conservative opinions--I'm thinking for instance of ChastMastr who mentioned himself as fitting here--while still warning the maga guys* who are most likely to be actually making people unsafe. And they can still register, but saying we are against fascism means that such people are warned that the admins don't plan to tolerate fascism.
*Because Ruth is totally not wrong that it's generally dudes though I doubt we want to be attacked by any other gender of fascists either.
And no I didn't say Reform supporters should be exempt from C1.
Sorry, I don't know how to do quotes or links on this phone, but I interpreted your post on Page 6, 14th from the bottom, as meaning that MAGA should be in Category 1, ie. instant banning, whereas Reform should be in Category 2, ie. not an instant banning, but ban them when "they start parading it about", IOW when they start violating the Ship's First Commandment.
So, direct question...
You think that "Hey everybody, I like MAGA!" and "Hey everybody, I like Reform!" should both be subject to instant banning?
Comments
To make some up
Kkkhristian or Irafanboi on the obvious side.
AmericanDaughter or Feinian maybe on the more dog whistle side.
My guess would be most caquettes would profess to dislike Trump, but be hard-pressed to explain how some of their cultural policies are different from MAGA's agenda, beyond muttering something about how it's about secularism, not bigotry.
Neo-Nazis are not usually very bright and think it is very funny to use easily decipherable code. Unsurprisingly these are not usually hard to identify.
A surprising number of them can be identified by the stupid words they choose in usernames.
I think kind of a "Glory to Virginia Dare, first white woman born in the colonies" sorta thingamabob? Not that Miss Dare was neccessarily who @jay_emm had in mind, but that general idea.
I mean, fascists are quite good at splitting apart into factions just like street gangs. They're not really in it for the belief system or the ideology. If you listen closely to the genuine complaints, they're about power and resources.
I think, at the end, it's just mimetic violence. All that matters is "more for me, less for you." And trying to tie that monster to any particular identity group is going to be hard because the mask will continuously evolve with the times.
That said, I think I'm with @RooK in saying that a continuous identity-banning policy might be keeping up with the times once figurative identity-masks have been clearly identified.
Ironically, if my hypothesis is accurate (and I've been thinking a lot about mimetic violence lately, so it's only a hypothesis,) then a lack of real identity is the problem, which is why a lot of these tossers have to loudly proclaim their allegiance to preexisting groups like "Christian." They're not really Christians. They're just wearing these crosses and flags and whatnot as facades to build unity.
Then they should shorten the process. As soon as someone shows their colors, plank 'em. Don't warn them or give them shore leave. This is a privately owned and operated forum. @Doublethink and @Alan Cresswell don't owe people they think are jerks and assholes anything like due process.
I object strenuously to the notion that people should be thrown overboard based on group affiliation alone for a couple of reasons.
First, the intense focus in this thread on white supremacist Trump supporters ignores completely the many non-white Trump voters, which points toward the fact that making broad generationalizations and assumptions about tens of millions of people is necessarily difficult to the point of being impossible. @Louise's numerous repetitions of these generalizations only makes me think she doesn't know enough about politics in the US to be mounting arguments about and against the ordinary flesh-and-blood people who vote here.
Second, I object because sexism is routinely overlooked and even tolerated on these boards. If you're going to get rid of Trump voters on the assumption that they're racists, get rid of all the Catholics and Orthodox and adherents of every other misogynist flavor of Christianity too on the assumption that they're sexists. Political affiliation in the US, as @Lamb Chopped pointed out, is for a lot of people not a big commitment and doesn't say very much about many of us. Religious affiliation, however, tells you a lot about someone.
Sorry. I didn't mean to imply it was a common thing, but rather something used by a subset of white nationalists. See the "VDARE" website.
Okay. That's the only explanation I can think of for why "American Daughter" would link to "kkkristian". Protecting the race through protecting its womanhood etc. Other than that, I turn it over to @jay_emm.
Agreed. Though I'm not really sure a street-gang split-up is the best analogy for CAQ and MAGA, because I doubt there has ever been too much institutional connection between them. The Quebec right has its own history and institutions, and since the days of at least Duplessis has followed its own more toryish line of thought, with its own theories on race and religion, largely unconnected to what was happening in the anglosphere(*).
That said, I believe certain newspaper chains have been happy to pander editorially to both factions at the same time in their respective countries, because yeah, it's basically the same sorta people with the same sort of complaints in both countries.
(*) At least culturally. Economically, in terms of his relation to the American business interests, Duplessis was among the most, shall we say, accommodating of Canadian premiers.
Cool.
I don't get the impression that site has a huge following, but some of the contributors are big names on the racist right, including quite a few with mainstream presence.
I find these groups worth keeping an eye on, because eg. one of their superstars was writing for Lord Black's papers back in the 1990s when Black also owned the Chicago Sun-Times. I don't know if that writer was carried in the Sun-Times specifically, but he was clearly trying to enter into mainstream commentary, so it was good to know his origins.
(Not that think anyone else is obligated to maintain due vigilance by reading such sites. I've had a freaky fascination with right-wing propaganda, and have been seeking it out since I was a teenager. I recognize it's not gonna be everyone's cuppa tea.)
I wouldn't assume Louise doesn't know anything based on her implications that most Trump supporters are white. Looks to me like the research implies that MAGA voters still skew very white.
Also, I live in a very multi-racial part of the city--minority white where I live--and the only MAGA suppporters who have every made me feel unsafe were all white. It's the folx who think they are entitled to be powerful just because of their race who strike me as particularly toxic.
If we're teasing people about not knowing the U.S., now I want to ask whether you've been here although I know you're from here. I imagine it's all about who you hang out with. I'd say that political party tells me a lot more about a person that religion! If you're Christian, you might be conservative or liberal, toxic or thoughtful. But if someone wants to deport my neighbors, force women to have babies, and murder trans folk?--maga--then I know more than enough about them.
Sorry. I think that should be "caquistes", in line with standard Quebecois poliical diminutization.
I didn't say Louise doesn't know anything. I said the things she has been saying lead me to believe that she doesn't know enough. Perhaps she knows more about the American electorate than she has demonstrated here.
Of course MAGA skews white. But Trump got 45% of Latino voters in 2024. Yes, they in effect voted for white supremacy, but I doubt very much a lot of them had that in mind when they voted. More important, statistics are not predictive for the individual; they don't tell you anything about individual people who turn up on the Ship. Do you propose that people who say they voted for Trump be asked to prove they're not white in order to remain on the Ship? Kash Patel is okay?
The only MAGA supporters who have ever made me feel unsafe were all men. Rather than suggest the H&As ask Trump voters to prove they aren't male, I think they should deal with people as individuals, not as members of groups.
"Christian" is near meaningless description as a religious affiliation. I meant denominational affiliation. It tells me a lot about someone if they're a Southern Baptist or a member of the United Church of Christ.
Where I live (a city that's had no majority racial or ethnic group for decades, if it matters) the Democrats are so strong party affiliation doesn't tell you much at all. If you want to get ahead in politics in Long Beach, you run as a Democrat. Party registration for those of us who are merely voters doesn't tell you much either, especially as California has jungle primaries that lump everyone together. I've been registered, in order, as a Republican, Democrat, Green, Republican again, Democrat again, and have held pretty much the same views all along. Recently more people have been changing their party affiliation (Gallup).
My point is that you cannot and should not draw important conclusions about individuals based on their memberships in various large groups and classifications.
Both the Republican Party and Pope Francis championed the right of the renegade county-clerk Kim Davis to reject same-sex marriage certificates.
Now, I gather that, were someone to show up here and say they're a fan of the Republican Party, you would take that by itself as an admission of homophobia, and want that person automatically booted. And I don't think it would matter to you if they said "But don't worry, I'm more liberal than the average Republican on social-issues, I just vote for the party because I think they're better on the economy."
So, by that reasoning, under a rule of automatic banning upon announcement of questionable allegiances, I see no reason why self-announced liberal Catholics should get a benefit of the doubt that ISN'T being granted to liberal members of overall conservative political groups.
What if someone's a member of the Roman Catholic Church and does support their views on gay issues, or women’s ordination for that matter? Is it only because they might not support their views that they’d be welcome on the Ship? (don’t get me wrong, Westboro Baptist is kind of in its own weird anti-gay and anti-everything cult category…)
(Although I had thought they were the group behind the statues of generals rather than the less subtly named United Daughters of the Confederacy)
The line I'm suggesting is the C1 line; the only addition I'm making is to assume that for organisations and movements whose raison d'etre is bigotry we accept statements of support as sufficient evidence of a C1 violation. In all other respects we continue to operate a don't-ask-don't-tell policy. I don't doubt there are shipmates with homophobic views; if they keep them to themselves there's no problem.
So where's the treating people as individuals rather than as members of groups thing gone?
By this line of reasoning all Muslims are misogynists or all Jews Zionists or ...
Thanks! I had heard of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Daughters of the Confederacy, but not the Daughtets of America.
(I wonder if they get a lotta "Dead on Arrival" jokes.)
But bigotry isn't the raison d'etre of the Republican Party. At the current time, they also support eg. lower taxes, higher tariffs, and more defense spending. So shouldn't non-bigots who vote GOP based on those issues get the same break that you wanna give to non-bigots who might be staying in the RCC because they like the music?
(I personally don't want to ban anyone based on simple claim of membership in a group. But it seems to me that the people who advocate such a policy want to make a big show of kicking out Republicans/MAGA, while still finding excuses to exempt bigoted groups that they for some reason deem more acceptable.)
Yes, which is why throughout this I've specified "MAGA" or "Trump supporters".
So, you mean "'MAGA' or 'Trump supporters'" to distinguish them from Republicans more broadly?
That none of us think, for example, seem to think that it would be appropriate to ban all Roman Catholics solely based on the RCC’s positions on ordination of women or LGBTQ+ issues. She’s saying that should logically lead us also to reject automatically banning all members of specified political groups based solely on official positions of those groups.
Yes. There are plenty of people whose politics I find abhorrent but who nonetheless have managed to draw the line at supporting fascism. Liz Cheney, to choose an obvious example. The GOP is old and complex enough, and embedded in people's identities over a long time, that it's reasonable not to automatically assume that someone who identifies as a Republican is a fascist, something I don't believe can be said of MAGA and its cultists.
And just as misogynist women exist, so too do Black and Jewish and Muslim etc admirers and fellow travellers of Hitler and other fascist movements like MAGA.
In the past the Catholic church and other churches did murder or encourage the murder or mass deportations of people on a large scale by the state in ways that foreshadow fascism but they dont to my knowledge do so now.
Attempting to slippery- slope rejection of a dangerous powerful form of modern fascism is a recognisable debating tactic but it's one that can shade into bad faith attempts to represent people as saying things they are not.
People who were previously admins - who know we have always banned an entire group on the basis of their affiliation- Nazis- whose hands were among those on the tiller for years with these rules in place- have seemingly suddenly discovered their consciences on affiliation bans- despite never a peep of sympathy for the poor Nazis or pointing out they're not all white and making no objection when they were powerful admins who could have moved to rescind the Nazi ban.
We actually do ban an entire group based on their affiliation and always have done - regardless of their race sex or other characteristics - Nazis. If that outrages you or you think it inevitably leads to banning Catholics or you just want to argue that it does, to discredit attempts to recognise and tackle modern Nazi equivalent fascism, I'm sorry but that Ship sailed years ago and we're all on it and none of the people making these arguments seem to have noticed or commented on any ill effects or injustice of that up to now.
It turns out we ban lots of people on affiliation reasons - and nobody including me even noticed or started a thread in the Styx so much as discussing it.
But this has touched a nerve.
You dont need to have seen Elon Musk Nazi saluting at Trump's inauguration to realise that Nazism and MAGA are cut from scarily similar cloth. I've posted elsewhere that I think a big difference is philosemitism helping to ward off a correct assessment of MAGA as a modern fascist threat - a modern equivalent of Nazism that needs to be handled the same way.
I'm now absolutely fed up and losing what slender abilities I have to be polite about it. So I'm going to quote the writer A. R. Moxon
Fascism isnt just old black and white movies of people from other countries doing funny walks and dressing up in black uniforms with their bent armed cross symbols. It is here, it is now. It walks like us and talks like us and dresses like us. It votes in our polling stations and posts to our social media sites. It can be a beloved elderly relative, a nurse, a cab driver, people we meet in the street and sit on the bus with.
It's not some weird historic thing in 1940s Germany that we can just say 'Ah - now those are the Nazis! We can all relax. - they're banned and they've hardly bothered us since then'. What we see today hardly ever breaks out into the Horst Wessel song ( though sometimes it does) and they rarely break out the goosestep - so we're all fine.
The problem is modern day fascism now looks ordinary and often is ordinary. I dont want it to be ordinary- I want it to be recognised as extreme and murderous like the Nazis who nowadays usually support it - which tells us what it is. I do not think it deserves any different more sympathetic treatment.
And perhaps we should just say in C1 that fascism is one of the -isms we ban. It seems odd to say we ban all the rest and not the mother-lode.
So, if a newbie says he's a Republican, are the mods obligated to ask him whether or not he voted for Trump and/or pro-Trump candidates?
Because while, yes, the label "Republican" CAN encompass people who hate Trump and never voted for him, it also encompasses a helluva lotta people who did.
It might be courteous to have a tickbox on sign-up asking: "are you aware of these conditions" and then no-one could say they weren't warned.
Well, yeah. But my question was if someone saying "I'm a Republican" should automatically prompt further inquiry by the mods into that person's ideology. Because there is a pretty good chance that someone identifying as a Republican in 2026 is, in fact, at least a Trump voter, if not an enthusiastic fan.
And FWIW, @Louise has said that Reformers should be exempt from the crackdown, because their supporters might not understand what the party advocates.
No, same as they're not currently obliged to ask if they're racists. All I'm saying is that on a venn diagram the circle of self-proclaimed MAGA supporters is so close to being entirely inside the circle of bigots that identifying as the former is identifying as the latter just as much as making directly racist comments. If we don't treat identifying as MAGA as a C1 violation all we're doing is letting them cause trouble until they do violate C1 in some other way and get booted. There is no plausible scenario in which a Shipmate announces their allegiance to MAGA yet manages to completely avoid saying anything racist, homophobic, transphobic or ableist.
Given that Reform have never been in power, and Trump & Co have, the plausible deniability is far weaker.
The Le Pens have never been in power either, but how many of their supporters in France don't understand what they are proposing to do with immigrants? As I noted earlier, Farage as recently as September 2025 has openly talked about his admiration for Trump.
It’s mind-boggling to me, but the number of people out there who simply aren’t engaged enough to put the pieces together is not insignificant.
I struggle to understand people who vote entirely on vibes and then are surprised by the reality but they seem to exist in large numbers. Personally I wouldn't shed a tear if support for Reform were also considered a C1 violation but I think the distinction Louise draws is legitimate.
It would certainly be unrestful! 😲🙄
Grappling with the reality of modern fascist movements on a par with Nazism isnt fun.
And no I didn't say Reform supporters should be exempt from C1.
And no despite compulsory government lists being a thing I don't favour lists and never have.
We ban slurs without a list - recognising them using context and collective judgement. Recognising fascism is a similar thing.
Add fascism to C1
Add policy to policy thread -
'-isms in C1 include fascism. Support for fascist politicians or far right movements will be considered as a breach of C1 unless admin see evidence of extenuating circumstances.
And while I'm joining in, I don't have a strong feeling either way. I mostly think there are a lot of good points on both sides. I jumped in to support something Louise said that I thought sensible. Earlier someone, Nick Tamen maybe?, was supporting a different position and noted that banning maga would encourage their sense of aggrieved martyrdom. I think that was a very good point.
I think my personal favorite suggestion was adding fascism to the things we don't support. That protects people who are valid contributors but may have some conservative opinions--I'm thinking for instance of ChastMastr who mentioned himself as fitting here--while still warning the maga guys* who are most likely to be actually making people unsafe. And they can still register, but saying we are against fascism means that such people are warned that the admins don't plan to tolerate fascism.
*Because Ruth is totally not wrong that it's generally dudes though I doubt we want to be attacked by any other gender of fascists either.
Sorry, I don't know how to do quotes or links on this phone, but I interpreted your post on Page 6, 14th from the bottom, as meaning that MAGA should be in Category 1, ie. instant banning, whereas Reform should be in Category 2, ie. not an instant banning, but ban them when "they start parading it about", IOW when they start violating the Ship's First Commandment.
So, direct question...
You think that "Hey everybody, I like MAGA!" and "Hey everybody, I like Reform!" should both be subject to instant banning?
It would have an effect if the warning said "Support for MAGA is unacceptable to us because we deem it fascist"