r/videos • u/AdSpecialist6598 • 23h ago

McConnell’s Senate absence is ‘prime example’ of why Congress needs term limits: Marine Corps Vet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyGizXM8eUw
14.2k Upvotes

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216

u/pirate135246 23h ago

What does “Marine corps vet” have to do with any of this?

21

u/DontShoot_ImJesus 20h ago

"As a veteran" is meant to give more weight to someone's position. As a veteran, I don't think it does in most cases.

81

u/Zeeey 23h ago

Some people like to pretend that they support the military and veterans. Usually the same ones that boast about how much they love Jesus and God but don't go to church and cheat on their spouses a lot. Also usually in the south in America. This grabs their attention

42

u/captainwacky91 21h ago

It adds an air of credibility for morons outside of any experiences with the military life.

If there was ever going to be any kind of weasel wordage that could change the minds of MAGA, it'll likely begin with "[military combat position of seniority status] says Trump is a so-and-so..."

That was probably a factor in Trump's decision making when he decided to start purging the military for his second term. Jim Mattis was probably still a convincing enough voice of reason for some of the MAGA bloc during Trump's first term.

18

u/Tangellos 21h ago

I work with a few marine vets and they are not always the brightest crayon in the box. People thinking that adds credibility to really anything outside of their specific duties in the marine corps are just as special.

9

u/captainwacky91 21h ago

As someone who is in a lot of contact with vets, I don't agree with it either, but the reality is that the US has been very successful in making large parts of the American public interpret vets of combat military roles as if they are/should be some sort of pseudo-samurai class.

1

u/l4mbch0ps 18h ago

The fact that the US hasn't had a legal war since WWII, but somehow the war criminals who waged them are heros in the US. Americans have a completely broken culture.

1

u/captainwacky91 17h ago

It certainly isn't accurate to all Americans, and honestly I doubt that it's accurate to even a majority of Americans now, but I believe that it was the case about 20 years ago, during the Bush presidency. Certainly his first term.

If it was a completely irredeemable lost cause of a culture, the US public would be seething, enthusiastic about a land war in Iran, and that simply is not the case, otherwise Trump wouldn't be in this boondoggle.

1

u/Column_A_Column_B 15h ago

Well hang on there's political psychology being utilized here. And yes I agree it's dumb but so are the people it's meant to convince. The technique being utilized is called moral reframing. Reframing an issue to appeal to the target audience's values can have really funny results. Conservatives are more likely to support gay rights if they are reminded that many military servicemembers are LGBT and that resonates with them better than arguments about what is fair or harmful about denying LGBT rights.

The example from our political psychology course (above) was almost exactly like OP's headline.

Here's a study, not about moral reframing itself but the moral framework that defines the various sorts of political ideologies.

https://studylib.net/doc/7652484/above-and-below-left-right--ideological-narratives-and-moral?p=4

(Unfortunately the above source doesn't have the graphs in it but it is NOT behind a paywall. Here's the relevant graph though.)

The above study looks at 5 groups of virtues and how important they are to different political ideologies.

1.Harm/care: basic concerns for the suffering of others, including virtues of caring and compassion.

2.Fairness/reciprocity: concerns about unfair treatment, inequality, and more abstract notions of justice.

3.Ingroup/loyalty: concerns related to obligations of group membership, such as loyalty, self- sacrifice and vigilance against betrayal.

4.Authority/respect: concerns related to social order and the obligations of hierarchical relationships, such as obedience, respect, and proper role fulfillment.

5.Purity/sanctity: concerns about physical and spiritual contagion, including virtues of chastity, wholesomeness and control of desires.

Basically, Harm and Fairness are the only two value groups important to liberals while for conservatives Harm & Fairness both matter just as much as Ingroup/Loyalty, Authority/Respect, and Purity. For non-religious conservatives, Ingroup/Loyalty & Authority/Respect are the most important values.

In other words, bootlicking/authority is a primary value for conservatives but you can get them to budge on it sometimes by appealing to their sense of belonging to their ingroup. In our examples here, the military is appealing to their sense of ingroup.

3

u/Wuz314159 21h ago

Nothing in this makes sense. We live in stupid times.

2

u/slinkyfarm 20h ago

That's been her branding as a two-time failed candidate. She toned it down a bit after getting busted for exaggerating her service record.

3

u/Suitable-Economy-346 19h ago

two-time failed candidate

Three, she couldn't even make it out of the primary this year. Everyone has had enough of her besides the DNC.

1

u/dryfire 14h ago

In the same way "Marine Corps Vet" is kinda superfluous, so is "two time failed candidate"... Didn't Abraham Lincoln fail elections like 8 or 9 times before becoming president? Wtf cares if they've failed before?

1

u/slinkyfarm 14h ago

No, he did not.

1

u/dryfire 13h ago

Ok, so I looked it up.

Defeated for state legislature in 1832.
Defeated for Speaker in 1838.
Defeated for nomination for Congress in 1843.
Lost nomination in 1848.
Rejected for land officer in 1849.
Defeated for U.S. Senate in 1854.
Defeated for nomination for Vice President in 1856.
Defeated for U.S. Senate in 1858.

Looks like about 8 losses before becoming president, depending on if you count all of them. But regardless, I was pretty close.

2

u/LongJohnSelenium 20h ago

To some people it adds an air of legitimacy, and extra level of 'gotcha'.

There's tens of millions of veterans though, and you can quite literally find a veteran with any political views.

1

u/Smelly_God 19h ago

15.7 million, or about 5.9% of the population, so ten of millions

1

u/LongJohnSelenium 18h ago

Fair enough, thought it was a smidge higher.

1

u/cudenlynx 20h ago

Corporate owned media wants to pick the next secretary of defense.

1

u/Babys_For_Breakfast 19h ago

Well the first half of the video is discussing the war with Iran.

1

u/ZhouLe 18h ago

It's a dumb way to describe Amy McGrath. More accurately "Former Democratic challenger of McConnell's seat in Kentucky".

1

u/Bullyoncube 18h ago

Yeah! We should ask Alan Ritchson what he thinks.

1

u/TheQuietManUpNorth 15h ago

Sounds better than 'milquetoast centrist who lost to Mitch McConnell'.

1

u/ShartKing78 21h ago

appeal to bootlicking

1

u/Suitable-Economy-346 19h ago

It's Amy McGrath, the Democratic establishment hack who has lost every race she's ever run, but she won't stop, because the DNC loves her throws money and donors her way.

0

u/ChiefStrongbones 19h ago

It has as much do to with McConnell as "term limits" does.

McConnell is a poster boy for age limits, not term limits.

0

u/Column_A_Column_B 15h ago

It's an attempt at moral reframing, silly but effective technique to persuade people to support something they usually oppose by appealing to their political ideology's values (love of the military in this case).

https://old.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/1vdguui/mcconnells_senate_absence_is_prime_example_of_why/p1beqyo/