"Get Off Of My Side!": Embarrassing Allies

[Yumyumsuppertime]

Who in the public eye do you find yourself largely in agreement with, and yet utterly embarrassed by?

As an example, I'm a Social Democrat, and find myself largely in agreement with most of those who push for a more comprehensive federal assistance program for the poor, the elderly, and the mentally and physically disabled. I like single-payer healthcare, housing first approaches to homelessness, and a harm reduction approach to drug usage.

Michael Moore agrees with me on all of these points, and I cannot stand it. He's a shameless manipulator, a liar, a cheat, and has an ego the size of General Motors at its height. He has misled his audience since his very first "documentary", and continues to do so. Even when he has good points to make, he weakens his argument through appeals to conspiracy theories (Fahrenheit 9/11), performing outrageous stunts (TV Nation), misleading edits (Bowling For Columbine), or outright lying through omission (Roger And Me). While he's great at drawing attention to a topic or a cause, he eventually makes everyone look bad through association, and tarnishes legitimate movements with shady tactics.

How about you? Which public figure on "your side" do you wish would quietly disappear, never to be quoted again?

[Ikania]

I hate being a leftist because I'm constantly surrounded by oversensitive pansies who either can't take a joke or are WAY too politically correct.

[Yumyumsuppertime]

I hate being a leftist because I'm constantly surrounded by oversensitive pansies who either can't take a joke or are WAY too politically correct.

Can you think of anyone in particular in the public eye who embodies this?

[Empire of Narnia]

Sadly a lot of racist people support Christian fundamentalism and authoritarianism.

[Conserative Morality]

John McCain. Interventionists, disunite!

[Servica]

Left-wingers who actually think that the soviet union was a communist entity.

[Empire of Narnia]

Left-wingers who actually think that the soviet union was a communist entity.

It was a Socialist state working towards Communism.

[New DeCapito]

Left-wingers who actually think that the soviet union was a communist entity.

It was a Socialist state working towards Communism.

It was a dictatorship pretending to be Communist.

[Chestaan]

Those who support Stalin.

Left-wingers who actually think that the soviet union was a communist entity.

It was a Socialist state working towards Communism.

This guy, for example...

[Avenio]

Bill Maher. He has a remarkable tendency to run his mouth about things he knows nothing about - like vaccines and religion, both of which have lead to entirely avoidable controversies and harm to the broader liberal movement.

[Alyakia]

I hate being a leftist because I'm constantly surrounded by oversensitive pansies who either can't take a joke or are WAY too politically correct.

i hate being a leftist opposed to american foreign policy because someone regularly comes up and starts talking about how gadaffi and assad were awesome resisting imperialism and i need to immediately start slinking away from them. it must suck that people are too politically correct though.

[Dakini]

Bill Maher. He has a remarkable tendency to run his mouth about things he knows nothing about - like vaccines and religion, both of which have lead to entirely avoidable controversies and harm to the broader liberal movement.

Ugh, agreed. Bill Maher is a tool.

[Napkiraly]

Bill Maher. He has a remarkable tendency to run his mouth about things he knows nothing about - like vaccines and religion, both of which have lead to entirely avoidable controversies and harm to the broader liberal movement.

I can't stand Bill Maher. He's just so...ugh.

[Empire of Narnia]

Those who support Stalin.

It was a Socialist state working towards Communism.

This guy, for example...

Great Comrade Joseph Stalin was a true hero and an inspiration for all mankind.

[Conserative Morality]

Bill Maher. He has a remarkable tendency to run his mouth about things he knows nothing about - like vaccines and religion, both of which have lead to entirely avoidable controversies and harm to the broader liberal movement.

I try not to think of him as on my side.

[Bombadil]

Me, I'm supposed to be on my side but frequently find myself causing immense embarrassment to myself through idiotic decisions, statements and actions.

My hairstyle alone, what am I thinking, get a haircut!

[Dakini]

Bill Maher. He has a remarkable tendency to run his mouth about things he knows nothing about - like vaccines and religion, both of which have lead to entirely avoidable controversies and harm to the broader liberal movement.

I try not to think of him as on my side.

Given the opinions he's expressed on women, I don't think he's especially on my side. It's just shit that he tries to pretend that he's progressive.

[Napkiraly]

Bill Maher. He has a remarkable tendency to run his mouth about things he knows nothing about - like vaccines and religion, both of which have lead to entirely avoidable controversies and harm to the broader liberal movement.

I try not to think of him as on my side.

Eject Maherism from the spectrum!

[The Grey Wolf]

Neo-Nazis and White Nationalists tend to do it for me.

[-Ebola-]

Michael Moore agrees with me on all of these points, and I cannot stand it. He's a shameless manipulator, a liar, a cheat, and has an ego the size of General Motors at its height. He has misled his audience since his very first "documentary", and continues to do so. Even when he has good points to make, he weakens his argument through appeals to conspiracy theories (Fahrenheit 9/11), performing outrageous stunts (TV Nation), misleading edits (Bowling For Columbine), or outright lying through omission (Roger And Me). While he's great at drawing attention to a topic or a cause, he eventually makes everyone look bad through association, and tarnishes legitimate movements with shady tactics.

I agree. His documentaries are terrible, even when some of the issues he raises are legitimate.

[Yumyumsuppertime]

Michael Moore agrees with me on all of these points, and I cannot stand it. He's a shameless manipulator, a liar, a cheat, and has an ego the size of General Motors at its height. He has misled his audience since his very first "documentary", and continues to do so. Even when he has good points to make, he weakens his argument through appeals to conspiracy theories (Fahrenheit 9/11), performing outrageous stunts (TV Nation), misleading edits (Bowling For Columbine), or outright lying through omission (Roger And Me). While he's great at drawing attention to a topic or a cause, he eventually makes everyone look bad through association, and tarnishes legitimate movements with shady tactics.

I agree. His documentaries are terrible, even when some of the issues he raises are legitimate.

Oh, you're just mad because he advocates for extensive health care.

[-Ebola-]

I agree. His documentaries are terrible, even when some of the issues he raises are legitimate.

Oh, you're just mad because he advocates for extensive health care.

That just makes it even worse...

[Constantinopolis]

Annoyingly idealistic leftists who insist that every successful socialist revolution in history didn't really lead to anything close to socialism, and celebrate all the failed revolutions instead.

[Occidentria]

Roughly two-thirds of the people in my party.

Considering that this is NSG I doubt I need to name any names from the notable public.

An anecdotal example that comes to mind is a memorable volunteer from a campaign I was helping coordinate this last cycle. It was a State Rep campaign, and when you're running that far down the ballot you tend to take all the ground support you can get-- beggars can't be choosers when 20% January name recognition is considered an impressive start.

This guy was an elderly old fellow with a stomach-length beard. When I went to pick up walk sheets from his house on weekends he was always decked out in red sweats from head-to-toe; he was literally Santa Claus. He was really really, really talkative but I always just chalked it up to him being a retired senior, the type of quirky eccentric you'd expect to be energetically involved in local politics.

Then one day we're having lunch after a day of canvassing-- he's talking about a conversation he had with his daughter, and he says "I told her, a vote for Pat Quinn is a vote for Hitler!" I just kinda internally roll my eyes; everyone's heard this kind of uninformed ad reductio hitlerum from *some*body they know, and I generally give it a bit more of a pass from the extremely elderly whom lived through and can lucidly recall the 40's and 50's, when comparing someone to Hitler was a comparison to a valid, contemporary political figure.

Then out of nowhere he starts going into how Hitler was a gay prostitute on the streets of Vienna at the age of fifteen. How he was involved in a sexual relationship with his mother that turned him gay, and how the Russians never procured his body because he escaped the bunker on April 30th, escaped to Latin America, helped prop up socialist governments until the day he died and was to blame for the strength of the gay lobby today. He went on to warn me just how pervasive the gay lobby was in the United States, too; how gay children were being permitted in scouting so they could "recruit" boys whom the gay lobby "couldn't yet reach," because they were safeguarded by the morality of the Scouts. He went on to recite a list of politicians, from Barack Obama to the Democratic county sheriff candidate, whom were all "proven Hitler occultists and in confirmated [sic] homosexual relationships," many of them with one another.

Oh, and then he went on a rant about how Russian annexation of Donetsk and Crimea was a moral obligation and that Obama was a "new Hitler" for condemning Russian involvement there.

I don't think I've ever questioned my party affiliation, personal beliefs, and... sh!t, maybe even my sexuality moreso than during my drive home from that lunch.

[Yumyumsuppertime]

Annoyingly idealistic leftists who insist that every successful socialist revolution in history didn't really lead to anything close to socialism, and celebrate all the failed revolutions instead.

Okay, like whom?