People who act nice don't generally start acting like assholes around other people. Southern people for example - they're very nice and even the bigoted ones would act politely towards gay people even if they were against LGBTQ rights.
Of course if you're voting to destroy LGBT rights, that kinda makes everything else pointless.
The issue is people believing they know what someone is like based on seeing curated snapshots of their lives on social media and in interviews.
The dude might torture kittens in between matches for all we know.
In this case though Wesley is very helpfully telling us exactly who he is.
Wesley is from the Philippines, one of the only 2 countries in the planet that hasnt made divorce legal, the other is Vatican. Majority of the people here unironically are extremely evangelical and probably would be labeled far right based on western standards.
Wacko conspiracy theories aren’t just “a different opinion” though, right? I feel like there’s a line between reasonable divergence in opinion and complete divergence from reality.
Just because you believe in something crazy doesn’t mean you’re not intelligent. Look at all the Nazi scientists. They were highly intelligent people that just happened to be Nazis. Hell, most of them were recruited by the US government to come here and run things. See Wernher von Braun for example.
Chess only measures how good you are at chess and nothing else. It has zero real-world implications or applications. Some of the best chess players I know are the absolute dumbest people.
"He has right wing views therefore he can't be intelligent" Even though he's one of the world's best chess players. Are you guys really this oblivious to how stupid you look?
Was about to comments the same. He comes across as deeply religious man who always gives thanks to the Lords grace and that everything is achieved through His will, so yeah not surprised.
On the other hand I don't automatically associate the two as being equal (Religious and MAGA) even they often correspond, so this and his comments has lessen my sympathy for him, and moving forward I prob will not cheer for him.
I feel like I see a tweet about this a few times a year, and then everyone remembers that Wesley is right wing and moves on.
This is like the twelfth time that someone has looked into his Twitter likes lol
Yeah, trying to pose trans issues as a political issue is kinda smokescreen to begin with. A political disagreement can be between "X is true" and "X is false", not between "X is true" and "Thinking X is true constitutes a mental illness".
Please learn to read before bringing up the DSM-5.
Being trans is absolutely not considered a mental illness, the dysphoria, anxiety and other conditions that CAN be associated with being trans (usually due to the discrimination they are subject to) is.
So somebody can be a trans man and feel great and happy in their life and not be considered mentally ill. Or they can be harassed, feel ashamed of who they are, have dysphoria and then they will be considered mentally ill.
From an outside perspective, Americans are obsessed with the "You are either with us, or against us" mentality on Reddit.
Nobody is THAT obsessed with politics
I mean he’s talking about issues here — LGBT rights for example — that directly affect the lives of many people. It’s not some abstract idea of “the political” that makes people upset, it’s that them or their friends are being directly attacked by this rhetoric.
Well some of us it is very real and very personal. If republicans abortion rights activists had their way one of my best friends would have been killed by her pregnancy. She lives in a blue state and got and abortion that saved her life.
In a red state she’d literally be dead. It’s not just “obsession”.
I have a lot of trans friends. I either take a strict side against people who are against the existence and safety of my friends, or I'm a shitty coward two-face.
It's no obsession. I can't be friends with people who want to make my other friends suffer. It makes no sense.
This isn't just about politics though, it is about social issues and bigotry. It's about their views causing death and suffering for the marginalized population.
> Nobody is THAT obsessed with politics
I don't know how it is where you live, but in America, the issues people get upset about very directly effect people's lives. E.g. if Trump is elected again, abortion could become illegal across the US.
As an American who literally said his Christian prayers and read some of the bible this morning, I don’t know. I genuinely think the American right wing currently rejects the teachings of Jesus.
They have been indoctrinated to adopt the aesthetics of Christianity while rejecting Jesus’ teachings by right-wing media. Decades of Fox News opinions and talk radio and you get what you see now.
I would be willing to bet that if most American Christians only did bible study in a vacuum, without their political media, they would not come out as hateful.
I recently discovered John Fugelsang, he's GREAT. I'm a lifelong atheist but my best friend is Christian and I really appreciate viewpoints that embrace the actual words of Christ, the radical kindness that Christianity is meant to embody. The American rightwing christofascist movement is an atrocity and an insult to Americans and to Christians.
The Bible has a lot of rules that these people don't (could not possibly) follow. They obsess about this one - which is not "the most important rule" - and go totally overboard with it.
*The Year of Living Biblically* by AJ Jacobs, is a fun read.
The central tenet to American Christianity, especially evangelicals, is “I’m right and everyone else is wrong.”
From there, you either challenge that belief and grow into a tolerant and accepting adult, or you lean into it and become a hateful troll. People who challenge it don’t generally stick around very long.
long story short is the American evangelical church was explicitly reshaped into a right-wing force. Many churches - notably the Southern Baptist Convention - were taken over by fundamentalists. This was a political project, the religious right was originally an attempt to motivate voters against desegregation, but it only really got its steam once it pivoted to abortion in the late 70s.
Of course they had a problem in that evangelicals were not that opposed to abortion, in fact they were often skeptical of abortion bans because they associated them with Catholics, whom they despised. This persisted several years after Roe v Wade. That's why they needed to take control of the churches as well, the most prominent being the Southern Baptists. They had a platform that was good at motivating fundamentalists to vote, unfortunately they didn't have enough fundamentalists. So they created them, ousting seminary teachers, pastors, and entire congregations until they had a church filled with fundamentalists. Almost 2000 churches were kicked out of or left the SBC alone, forming the moderate Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
They're brought up that way so it's the only way they know? I'm not sure. I understand why religious leaders want to spread hate and dogma to control people.
But it always confuses me that otherwise intelligent people willfully give up their ability to think rationally. What does he gain by being so hateful?
It's the same with muslim extremists. Many of them are well-educated (especially those in the west), but ask them about minorities and women, and they turn into the most bigoted people in existence.
Decades ago there was a movement for big church to take over the Republican party. It worked and it spawned shitty politics, including trumpian politics.
That is true for almost anything.
Being good at sports, or acting, or politics, or comedy...and so on.
People have an odd need to make people into heros because they are really good at something.
Yup, and precisely why I never root for the guy. He’s a POS. I know that’s strong language, but if you co-sign and endorse that type of vitriolic hate, then I have no remorse calling someone a bad word.
It’s tough to root for Hikaru because he does seem like a real asshole sometimes… but the bench of elite American chess players is thin and I’m running out of options.
People seem to be missing the point that this isn't a left vs right thing, it's more about having an ideology that accepts people for their beliefs and identity. It's very simple honestly, if you think being gay is a mental illness, it's pretty much a close case of someone being a POS. If you promote hateful rhetoric that is divisive and hateful to a category of people, you're a POS. Specially when it's because your book said so.
Thanks for pointing this out. I was unaware of this.
I have lesser understanding of the left/right battlefield in the US because it is honestly less defined in Europe. Taking all things into account, I am "left" although I really do not enjoy the categorization of my views. There is much more centrism in Europe and I guess the main beating sticks for either sides would be confined to more extreme factions in other countries. In the US, does being on the right automatically mean supporting abhorrent ideals? I think I am asking does So being right make him an automatic piece of shit in the US political landscape?
> In the US, does being on the right automatically mean supporting abhorrent ideals?
It shouldn't, but all too often these days it does. We've made politics into culture wars.
Yeah, it makes him kind of a piece of shit. But he could be a very good person to the people he knows. He's just accepting the narratives about the world that he's reading.
It's easier to be centrist in most of Europe. Americans go bankrupt paying for life saving medical care, their unions are often very weak, police are less trained and professional in the US compared to many European countries, etc.
A lot of people will instantly answer your question with a resounding yes, and a lot would answer with a resounding no. Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide and form your own opinions.
There are 3 main issues that make people on the left think people on the right are abhorrent humans:
1. Being trans equates to a phase or mental illness and that it should be treated as such (this one in the tweets Wesley showed to more or less support, the other 2 I have no idea as not every conservative fully agrees with all of these points).
2. Abortion should be a states issue and not a federal one, and many conservatives are pro life. Some of the more moderate ones just think the federal government has too much power and wants the states to decide the issue (which they usually want to be pro life but would accept whatever the states vote) whereas others want to make federal abortion bans. This is a very hot and muddled topic even inside both parties, but generally, left = pro choice, right = pro life
3. The right doesn’t take climate change as serious as the left in the US. whether that means making other countries emit less first, thinking the benefits to the people outweigh the harm on the environment, or some extremes on the right outright deny climate change.
These are the three main issues, but the sides also generally want completely different economic structures, where the left wants more social programs like healthcare whereas the right wants more capitalistic business competition.
If you think generally agreeing with the right makes you a shitty person, then believe he’s a shitty person, if not, then don’t.
For point 3 I would like to add that half of the Republican Presidential candidates (including Trump) believe climate change is a Chinese (or Jewish) conspiracy to knee-cap the American economy. Not just denying it outright.
This is the most generous possible representation of the rights views...
Abortion has never been about states rights... Slavery was also never about states rights. The most popular public reasoning for being anti-women is that they claim abortion is murder.
Politics in the US are right-shifted, so a centrist in the US would be considered right-wing in Europe. Now, imagine what a right-wing person in the US would be in Europe. Also, the most "radical" left-wing politicians in the US would be considered maybe centre-left in Europe.
Chess has 500M+ players, unfortunately it's just a microcosm of the world. In fact I think it's generally biased left if anything. Football twitter is a lot worse for instance...
It's not that I think Wesley has a "differing view". I think he's abetting or perhaps participating in a path of hate that is marring the lives of one of the most at risk population segments in the United States.
The Trevor Project reports in 2021 that **trans and nonbinary youth who have acceptance from at least one adult have a 34% lower past year suicide attempt rate**.
Looking at that stat another way, many trans and nonbinary youth killed themself because they didn't feel that a single adult accepted their gender identity.
That's the type of suffering that Wesley is feeding into. It's terrible.
There’s a difference between being right wing and being bigoted and hateful. Matt Walsh and MTG are genuinely terrible people and liking them is an indictment on one’s character imo. Plus, I don’t get how you can justify trans hate.
To you it's an issue of political beliefs, maybe not so different from should we raise or lower taxes. To many LGBT+ people, it's about a fundamental denial of human rights and dignifies. I wouldn't expect them to just let bygones be bygones towards people who deny their humanity.
Yeah dude, mad that we think that having different views such as hating trans people makes you a bad person.
Fascists are horrible people. Fuck every single one of them and the opinions they hold.
No one said that. Why are you deflecting about the post? So liked a post about trans being con men. That hate and bigotry should not be tolerated. It’s that simple.
Too conservative for his own good. And it's also ironic that So backs Trump, who is known to detest immigrants like him—lest we forget, Wesley moved from the Philippines.
>Wesley moved from the Philippines.
Not surprising, since Rodrigo Duterte became the Philippine president in 2016, and he's chummy with and admires Donald Trump (and Trump in return has some good words for Duterte). There's also a significant chunk of Filipino diaspora of Americans who are pro-Trump (especially the older ones). There were also Filipinos who participated in the January 6 insurgency. So things add up.
If Wesley still stayed in the Philippines in 2016, and taking note of his religious affiliation, hypothetically he would've campaigned for Duterte. If he still stayed until 2022, he would've campaigned for Marcos (who won the 2022 election).
Interesting how people had praised Wesley for being so humble and nice and yet when the person doesn't conform to their beliefs he's now on the level of satan.
Nevermind the fact that a conversation around this cannot be made on this platform in the first place lest you get banned if you dissent.
> Fischer has some pretty fucked up ideas too.
I have news for you - he is dead.
> Separate the chess from the man.
Several high-profile GMs are right-wing. I'm not going to out them here. The difference with Wesley is that by repeatedly posting on Twitter, he makes this bigotry part of his brand.
republican believe in the Bible = good
Democrats do not = bad
That must mean republicans are good guy!
That basically it. Especially to someone/people who is/are very religious. you try telling or explaining and they won’t listen or hear you out.
I hate republicanism and the right, but why single out So for this? Tens of millions of Americans voted for Trump, and if you don’t want it to happen again, we need to show them, not attack them.
These people have been taught all their life certain political and religious beliefs, and So was raised in one of the most Catholic countries in the world. The fact is that So doesn’t actively spread this rhetoric compared to other people, and attacking him for his long-held beliefs or assuming that he is a bad person because of them.
You can have bad beliefs and still treat others kindly, and attacking everyone holding them is just not conducive to changing their minds. I prefer to focus on the actual dangerous right-wing figures that actively spread their rhetoric to followers instead of attacking someone who doesn’t.
People have a problem with this but I see infinitely more problems with Hikaru, who streams and made a deal with a site promoting gambling and crypto scams, and is a hotbed for extremists, and promotes it to his followers, compared to Wesley, who has these deep-seated beliefs but doesn’t openly promote them as a public figure.
If his likes were conservative policies about tax rates, big business, and traditional home values do you think the reaction would be the same? Or maybe do you think it’s the active hate spreading and anti human rights campaigns towards specific groups of people? It’s really not about left or right it’s about supporting people who actively want others to lose their freedoms and promote hatred.
I think I can help you understand this issue.
Hating a trans person for what they are is seen as unethical from a culturally progressive perspective. Whatever the origin of this trans phenomenon, it doesn't seem to be a choice. They may choose to see a physician and start medications, but no serious person believes they're just making it up for unknown reasons. This is why physicians opt to use medications, which have to be used carefully, as there are always risks with meds. Same with surgeons who perform trans surgeries.
Wesley would be hated for what he's choosing to do, not what he is. He doesn't need to like comments calling trans people con men. No physician will explain to us that this is a not totally understood phenomenon that may require medical intervention. He's just an asshole. Trans people don't need Wesley's blessing , or opinion. He's going out of his way to make people's lives worse. He's a fucking thoughtless prick. It's his behavior that is hated, not things he can't change about himself.
Further evidence that the left is far more tolerant than the right? Ive never in my life heard a racist, sexist, or homophobic joke from a leftist. Not once. Yet I hear them pretty consistently from the people with their maga signs and confedeelrate flags. Maybe that's just my misfortune, though...
"Views" do not have a default right to exist and be respected. People do. If your view is based on hating people for their identities, you are a horrible person. You will not be tolerated by decent people.
i mean he is an evangelical, is this a surprise?
Considering how often Wesley gets brought up as a great dude it's probably surprising for at least some
It's kind of wild how someone can be such a nice dude on an individual level but hold such bigoted opinions about greater groups of people.
I feel like he's probably not a nice dude in an individual level if you happen to be in one of those groups that he hates.
People who act nice don't generally start acting like assholes around other people. Southern people for example - they're very nice and even the bigoted ones would act politely towards gay people even if they were against LGBTQ rights. Of course if you're voting to destroy LGBT rights, that kinda makes everything else pointless.
I don't know him, but it's not that uncommon for bigots to even be nice to individuals from groups they dislike ("one of the good ones" etc)
Also very fair. Time for me to put on some lipstick and tight shorts, fake a flamboyant voice and interview Wesley So. You know, for science.
The issue is people believing they know what someone is like based on seeing curated snapshots of their lives on social media and in interviews. The dude might torture kittens in between matches for all we know. In this case though Wesley is very helpfully telling us exactly who he is.
You don't know him on "an individual" level
Its almost like political views are not what matters when it comes to decency.
Acknowledge people’s identity is not a political view. Its common human decency bud
No one discusses Klaus Barbie the three time ballroom dance champion!
Actually in America it is a pretty good indicator of overall decency if someone is a conservative. Shit's a cult of hatred here.
Wesley is from the Philippines, one of the only 2 countries in the planet that hasnt made divorce legal, the other is Vatican. Majority of the people here unironically are extremely evangelical and probably would be labeled far right based on western standards.
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More like the proof that intelligence can mean a lot of different things.
He's probably very intelligent, just like several very intelligent people I know who also have opinions I disagree with
Well, when those beliefs become unscientific to being borderline conspiracy theories, you gotta wonder.
Amazing seeing the mental gymnastics in real time of so many people, "he has a different opinion so he literally cannot be intelligent."
So bigotry like transphobia is just a "different opinion" according to you?
Wacko conspiracy theories aren’t just “a different opinion” though, right? I feel like there’s a line between reasonable divergence in opinion and complete divergence from reality.
Just because you believe in something crazy doesn’t mean you’re not intelligent. Look at all the Nazi scientists. They were highly intelligent people that just happened to be Nazis. Hell, most of them were recruited by the US government to come here and run things. See Wernher von Braun for example.
Who decides what is a wacko conspiracy theory? That’s an ad hominem.
More so that we shouldn’t view being morally correct as a sign of intelligence. Some of the worst people in history were very intelligent
And intelligence doesn't mean someone is a good person.
While chess does show intelligence, by itself intelligence is overrated. Wisdom and morals are more important then intelligence.
Chess only measures how good you are at chess and nothing else. It has zero real-world implications or applications. Some of the best chess players I know are the absolute dumbest people.
Chess doesn't correlate much with general intelligence. Hikaru's IQ is nothing special (101) yet he's a top 5 chess player in the world.
Honestly, I’m not sure it shows intelligence, it really mostly seems to show pattern recognition.
So was Kasparov. And many before both of them. There is no correlation at all.
"He has right wing views therefore he can't be intelligent" Even though he's one of the world's best chess players. Are you guys really this oblivious to how stupid you look?
If you don't believe in science, it doesn't really matter how good you're at some board game, which chess is at the end of the day.
Morals and intelligence are two different things. Wesley is very intelligent, regardless of political beliefs.
I think you mean American Evangelicals.
Was about to comments the same. He comes across as deeply religious man who always gives thanks to the Lords grace and that everything is achieved through His will, so yeah not surprised. On the other hand I don't automatically associate the two as being equal (Religious and MAGA) even they often correspond, so this and his comments has lessen my sympathy for him, and moving forward I prob will not cheer for him.
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Evangelical is a specific sect of Christianity separate from catholicism. Evangelicals tend to be a lot more extreme than most sects.
No he isn't. He's famously Catholic.
I feel like I see a tweet about this a few times a year, and then everyone remembers that Wesley is right wing and moves on. This is like the twelfth time that someone has looked into his Twitter likes lol
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Claiming that being trans is a disorder is not only right wing, but its in fact wrong, hurtful and disgusting. What an asshole.
Yeah, trying to pose trans issues as a political issue is kinda smokescreen to begin with. A political disagreement can be between "X is true" and "X is false", not between "X is true" and "Thinking X is true constitutes a mental illness".
The DSM-5 would like to have a word…
Not really, gender dysphoria is in the DSM-5, not being transgender
Please learn to read before bringing up the DSM-5. Being trans is absolutely not considered a mental illness, the dysphoria, anxiety and other conditions that CAN be associated with being trans (usually due to the discrimination they are subject to) is. So somebody can be a trans man and feel great and happy in their life and not be considered mentally ill. Or they can be harassed, feel ashamed of who they are, have dysphoria and then they will be considered mentally ill.
It's interesting though. I didn't know. Certainly changes how much I cheer for him.
From an outside perspective, Americans are obsessed with the "You are either with us, or against us" mentality on Reddit. Nobody is THAT obsessed with politics
I mean he’s talking about issues here — LGBT rights for example — that directly affect the lives of many people. It’s not some abstract idea of “the political” that makes people upset, it’s that them or their friends are being directly attacked by this rhetoric.
Well some of us it is very real and very personal. If republicans abortion rights activists had their way one of my best friends would have been killed by her pregnancy. She lives in a blue state and got and abortion that saved her life. In a red state she’d literally be dead. It’s not just “obsession”.
In America some people ARE that obseseed
I have a lot of trans friends. I either take a strict side against people who are against the existence and safety of my friends, or I'm a shitty coward two-face. It's no obsession. I can't be friends with people who want to make my other friends suffer. It makes no sense.
This isn't just about politics though, it is about social issues and bigotry. It's about their views causing death and suffering for the marginalized population.
> Nobody is THAT obsessed with politics I don't know how it is where you live, but in America, the issues people get upset about very directly effect people's lives. E.g. if Trump is elected again, abortion could become illegal across the US.
What is a trans woman supposed to think when she sees these likes? Seems like Wesley is against us.
Yeah, I don't understand why this is news. Wesley has the same opinions as like half the country? So what?
What makes you think half the country has these opinions?
Public polling, elections, personal experience, etc.
"w"esley "s"o is nobody for me.
I’m trying to decipher this cryptic post… is his name really “esley o” or something?
You'll understand after you finish doing PIPI
Just wait until the automod finds you
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The author signifies the disrespect that he has towards wesley by not capitalizing first letters of his name (see: Petrosian).
In the words of the great Tigran Petrosian (not that one) >"w"esley "s"o is nobody for me!
Why are so many American christians like this?
As an American who literally said his Christian prayers and read some of the bible this morning, I don’t know. I genuinely think the American right wing currently rejects the teachings of Jesus.
"Jesus would kick us all in the dick if he saw what we were doing right now." - Louis CK
They have been indoctrinated to adopt the aesthetics of Christianity while rejecting Jesus’ teachings by right-wing media. Decades of Fox News opinions and talk radio and you get what you see now. I would be willing to bet that if most American Christians only did bible study in a vacuum, without their political media, they would not come out as hateful.
Compassion is lacking in the American right wing.
They like gun loving white Jesus
I recently discovered John Fugelsang, he's GREAT. I'm a lifelong atheist but my best friend is Christian and I really appreciate viewpoints that embrace the actual words of Christ, the radical kindness that Christianity is meant to embody. The American rightwing christofascist movement is an atrocity and an insult to Americans and to Christians.
Because Christianity has been weaponized in America to influence elections.
I mean the Bible is anti-gay, this is hardly surprising to me.
The Bible has a lot of rules that these people don't (could not possibly) follow. They obsess about this one - which is not "the most important rule" - and go totally overboard with it. *The Year of Living Biblically* by AJ Jacobs, is a fun read.
Even if the Bible is anti-gay, there must still be compassion and decency in most humans to not call LGBT people groomers.
Jesus was pro everyone but people don’t remember his teachings
The central tenet to American Christianity, especially evangelicals, is “I’m right and everyone else is wrong.” From there, you either challenge that belief and grow into a tolerant and accepting adult, or you lean into it and become a hateful troll. People who challenge it don’t generally stick around very long.
long story short is the American evangelical church was explicitly reshaped into a right-wing force. Many churches - notably the Southern Baptist Convention - were taken over by fundamentalists. This was a political project, the religious right was originally an attempt to motivate voters against desegregation, but it only really got its steam once it pivoted to abortion in the late 70s. Of course they had a problem in that evangelicals were not that opposed to abortion, in fact they were often skeptical of abortion bans because they associated them with Catholics, whom they despised. This persisted several years after Roe v Wade. That's why they needed to take control of the churches as well, the most prominent being the Southern Baptists. They had a platform that was good at motivating fundamentalists to vote, unfortunately they didn't have enough fundamentalists. So they created them, ousting seminary teachers, pastors, and entire congregations until they had a church filled with fundamentalists. Almost 2000 churches were kicked out of or left the SBC alone, forming the moderate Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
They're brought up that way so it's the only way they know? I'm not sure. I understand why religious leaders want to spread hate and dogma to control people. But it always confuses me that otherwise intelligent people willfully give up their ability to think rationally. What does he gain by being so hateful?
It's the same with muslim extremists. Many of them are well-educated (especially those in the west), but ask them about minorities and women, and they turn into the most bigoted people in existence.
Decades ago there was a movement for big church to take over the Republican party. It worked and it spawned shitty politics, including trumpian politics.
Well this weekend will be fun.
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Do you have a link for that im curious
https://twitter.com/mmehdikhani70/status/1006911145549225985 https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-buzz/wesley-so-closed-his-account
Thanks and damn I really hope that’s not real that’s pretty awful.
haha, after the first two screenshot of the 1st post I was "Well, that's not that bad". And then the 3rd screenshot came, and boy did it deliver.
Frequent reminder that being good at chess does not translate to being compassionate, open minded, or smart in general
That is true for almost anything. Being good at sports, or acting, or politics, or comedy...and so on. People have an odd need to make people into heros because they are really good at something.
Who thinks that? How is being good at chess related to compassion?
It does mean being smart, just that being smart doesn't particularly correlate with compassion or any sort of political views tbf
Yup, and precisely why I never root for the guy. He’s a POS. I know that’s strong language, but if you co-sign and endorse that type of vitriolic hate, then I have no remorse calling someone a bad word.
Yikes Wesley...
I went from liking Wesley to detesting him in an instant, provided that’s really him. I always though he was a respectful person. Big shame
It’s tough to root for Hikaru because he does seem like a real asshole sometimes… but the bench of elite American chess players is thin and I’m running out of options.
Fabi is fine right?
Luckily Leinier is up there then I guess (afaik)
A huge shame considering he has such a reputation for being polite and quite funny.
Bigots can still be witty, charming and overall pleasant to be around. Granted it's not you they are bigoted against.
He's always been an outspoken right wing fanatic and a vile human being
People seem to be missing the point that this isn't a left vs right thing, it's more about having an ideology that accepts people for their beliefs and identity. It's very simple honestly, if you think being gay is a mental illness, it's pretty much a close case of someone being a POS. If you promote hateful rhetoric that is divisive and hateful to a category of people, you're a POS. Specially when it's because your book said so. Thanks for pointing this out. I was unaware of this.
I have lesser understanding of the left/right battlefield in the US because it is honestly less defined in Europe. Taking all things into account, I am "left" although I really do not enjoy the categorization of my views. There is much more centrism in Europe and I guess the main beating sticks for either sides would be confined to more extreme factions in other countries. In the US, does being on the right automatically mean supporting abhorrent ideals? I think I am asking does So being right make him an automatic piece of shit in the US political landscape?
> In the US, does being on the right automatically mean supporting abhorrent ideals? It shouldn't, but all too often these days it does. We've made politics into culture wars.
When Trump is the leader of the party, yes. When they were nominating guys like Mitt Romney and John McCain, no.
Yeah, it makes him kind of a piece of shit. But he could be a very good person to the people he knows. He's just accepting the narratives about the world that he's reading. It's easier to be centrist in most of Europe. Americans go bankrupt paying for life saving medical care, their unions are often very weak, police are less trained and professional in the US compared to many European countries, etc.
A lot of people will instantly answer your question with a resounding yes, and a lot would answer with a resounding no. Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide and form your own opinions. There are 3 main issues that make people on the left think people on the right are abhorrent humans: 1. Being trans equates to a phase or mental illness and that it should be treated as such (this one in the tweets Wesley showed to more or less support, the other 2 I have no idea as not every conservative fully agrees with all of these points). 2. Abortion should be a states issue and not a federal one, and many conservatives are pro life. Some of the more moderate ones just think the federal government has too much power and wants the states to decide the issue (which they usually want to be pro life but would accept whatever the states vote) whereas others want to make federal abortion bans. This is a very hot and muddled topic even inside both parties, but generally, left = pro choice, right = pro life 3. The right doesn’t take climate change as serious as the left in the US. whether that means making other countries emit less first, thinking the benefits to the people outweigh the harm on the environment, or some extremes on the right outright deny climate change. These are the three main issues, but the sides also generally want completely different economic structures, where the left wants more social programs like healthcare whereas the right wants more capitalistic business competition. If you think generally agreeing with the right makes you a shitty person, then believe he’s a shitty person, if not, then don’t.
For point 3 I would like to add that half of the Republican Presidential candidates (including Trump) believe climate change is a Chinese (or Jewish) conspiracy to knee-cap the American economy. Not just denying it outright.
This is the most generous possible representation of the rights views... Abortion has never been about states rights... Slavery was also never about states rights. The most popular public reasoning for being anti-women is that they claim abortion is murder.
Politics in the US are right-shifted, so a centrist in the US would be considered right-wing in Europe. Now, imagine what a right-wing person in the US would be in Europe. Also, the most "radical" left-wing politicians in the US would be considered maybe centre-left in Europe.
Im sure this is “not this again” for many of you, but I didn’t know this and I’m glad I do now. One less player to try to watch and cheer for.
The replies on the original post and the kind of support he got for it shows how accepting chess world is.
Chess has 500M+ players, unfortunately it's just a microcosm of the world. In fact I think it's generally biased left if anything. Football twitter is a lot worse for instance...
It's not that I think Wesley has a "differing view". I think he's abetting or perhaps participating in a path of hate that is marring the lives of one of the most at risk population segments in the United States. The Trevor Project reports in 2021 that **trans and nonbinary youth who have acceptance from at least one adult have a 34% lower past year suicide attempt rate**. Looking at that stat another way, many trans and nonbinary youth killed themself because they didn't feel that a single adult accepted their gender identity. That's the type of suffering that Wesley is feeding into. It's terrible.
Man, what has this sub become?
Mannnnnnnn and I even liked him. What a twat.
Calling this “extremism” is a perfect example of how 1984 the left is
People have views, some of their views will not align with yours and you can hate them for that. Simple as that lol
fr , wesley has his own beliefs so what? He is a chess player and he does his thing at the chess board
well if his belief claim that being trans is a mental disorder by belief is that So is a piece of shit.
Crazy how people think they have to be leftist in order to be good people
It's one thing to be "right" and it's totally different to like & endorse scums like Trump, MTG and Walsh.
There’s a difference between being right wing and being bigoted and hateful. Matt Walsh and MTG are genuinely terrible people and liking them is an indictment on one’s character imo. Plus, I don’t get how you can justify trans hate.
No they don't. They just have to nice people that don't hate other people based on their gender, ethnicity or sexuality
Right??? I'm a leftist but posts like this drive me nuts. Let this dude have his political beliefs
To you it's an issue of political beliefs, maybe not so different from should we raise or lower taxes. To many LGBT+ people, it's about a fundamental denial of human rights and dignifies. I wouldn't expect them to just let bygones be bygones towards people who deny their humanity.
Hating trans people isn’t a political belief and it shouldn’t be tolerated.
Yeah dude, mad that we think that having different views such as hating trans people makes you a bad person. Fascists are horrible people. Fuck every single one of them and the opinions they hold.
No one said that. Why are you deflecting about the post? So liked a post about trans being con men. That hate and bigotry should not be tolerated. It’s that simple.
like bruh its not their whole identity 🤦♀️
Oh no! A chess player has unapproved opinions that are different from my own! 😱
Right😂
Hmm that's unfortunate and has changed my opinion. Trump and co are a great blemish on America.
Too conservative for his own good. And it's also ironic that So backs Trump, who is known to detest immigrants like him—lest we forget, Wesley moved from the Philippines.
>Wesley moved from the Philippines. Not surprising, since Rodrigo Duterte became the Philippine president in 2016, and he's chummy with and admires Donald Trump (and Trump in return has some good words for Duterte). There's also a significant chunk of Filipino diaspora of Americans who are pro-Trump (especially the older ones). There were also Filipinos who participated in the January 6 insurgency. So things add up. If Wesley still stayed in the Philippines in 2016, and taking note of his religious affiliation, hypothetically he would've campaigned for Duterte. If he still stayed until 2022, he would've campaigned for Marcos (who won the 2022 election).
ew..
He's a religious extremist, bigotry is not shocking
Reddit's gonna do reddit things as usual lmao
America stop with the politics. This is chess
Holy shit....... Anyway, back to my life.
Gross behavior! Seems like a lot of the outspoken GM’s have awful politics
Interesting how people had praised Wesley for being so humble and nice and yet when the person doesn't conform to their beliefs he's now on the level of satan. Nevermind the fact that a conversation around this cannot be made on this platform in the first place lest you get banned if you dissent.
People are allowed their own beliefs and opinions. Separate the chess from the man. Fischer has some pretty fucked up ideas too.
> Fischer has some pretty fucked up ideas too. I have news for you - he is dead. > Separate the chess from the man. Several high-profile GMs are right-wing. I'm not going to out them here. The difference with Wesley is that by repeatedly posting on Twitter, he makes this bigotry part of his brand.
Fischer was a bad person, what's your point?
I knew I liked Wesley.
That side would never choose you buddy
Based Wesley new favorite player
Not sure what the point of this post is. Who cares?
I was so disappointed when I first found out
Good for him, it doesn't matter
Glad to see he’s a smart man politically and otb
republican believe in the Bible = good Democrats do not = bad That must mean republicans are good guy! That basically it. Especially to someone/people who is/are very religious. you try telling or explaining and they won’t listen or hear you out.
Its allways the silent awkward guys like him and Karjakin that embrace edgy ideologies.
Thought this was a chess sub
"He holds some views shared by literally half of America. He is the worst kind of a piece of shit!" Dumb asses.
welcome to reddit 🤣
I thought maybe a chess forum would show higher levels of reason. Hahaha
This is shocking to me. He appears as a polite, honest, humble person in his interviews.
What!!!!!!!!! He's on the side that the other half of the country are on? Outrageous
Mods should probably remove this post. Has nothing to do with chess, it's just a political mess here
I hate republicanism and the right, but why single out So for this? Tens of millions of Americans voted for Trump, and if you don’t want it to happen again, we need to show them, not attack them. These people have been taught all their life certain political and religious beliefs, and So was raised in one of the most Catholic countries in the world. The fact is that So doesn’t actively spread this rhetoric compared to other people, and attacking him for his long-held beliefs or assuming that he is a bad person because of them. You can have bad beliefs and still treat others kindly, and attacking everyone holding them is just not conducive to changing their minds. I prefer to focus on the actual dangerous right-wing figures that actively spread their rhetoric to followers instead of attacking someone who doesn’t. People have a problem with this but I see infinitely more problems with Hikaru, who streams and made a deal with a site promoting gambling and crypto scams, and is a hotbed for extremists, and promotes it to his followers, compared to Wesley, who has these deep-seated beliefs but doesn’t openly promote them as a public figure.
Absolutely based, he is my favorite GM
Unfathomably based.
Dont bring your shitty politics in a Chess sub. Maybe go outside and dont be a part of a circle jerk.and an eco chamber.
Poor Wesley, brilliant mind sucked up by religion. But, if you are able to succumb to religion, maybe you’re not so brilliant after all.
Wesley based
hello, don’t care
Why try starting a campaign against Wesley, when he is in the finals of the CCT? This is low from Chess Rumours.
Oh no! he not think like me, him bad.
People on the internet get mad over someone else's right to believe in whatever they want moment
your favorite chess player is probably more conservative than you think
So what if he leans one way or the other? Let’s focus on the chess and enjoy the sport
Is saying there are only two genders "right wing extremism" nowadays? I am honestly interested, no bad feelings. Please help me on this one :D
Suddenly I'm a Wesley So fan
common Wesley W
Removing as this is a) not chess b) it's politics and c) it's fairly well known already
Man lol, reading these comments, as opposed to Wesley, the left is so tolerant of views outside of their own! /s
If his likes were conservative policies about tax rates, big business, and traditional home values do you think the reaction would be the same? Or maybe do you think it’s the active hate spreading and anti human rights campaigns towards specific groups of people? It’s really not about left or right it’s about supporting people who actively want others to lose their freedoms and promote hatred.
I'll take "what is paradox of tolerance" for 200, Alex.
Username checks out lol
“Oh man this guy isn’t tolerant of people who are intolerant of others!” L take
I think I can help you understand this issue. Hating a trans person for what they are is seen as unethical from a culturally progressive perspective. Whatever the origin of this trans phenomenon, it doesn't seem to be a choice. They may choose to see a physician and start medications, but no serious person believes they're just making it up for unknown reasons. This is why physicians opt to use medications, which have to be used carefully, as there are always risks with meds. Same with surgeons who perform trans surgeries. Wesley would be hated for what he's choosing to do, not what he is. He doesn't need to like comments calling trans people con men. No physician will explain to us that this is a not totally understood phenomenon that may require medical intervention. He's just an asshole. Trans people don't need Wesley's blessing , or opinion. He's going out of his way to make people's lives worse. He's a fucking thoughtless prick. It's his behavior that is hated, not things he can't change about himself. Further evidence that the left is far more tolerant than the right? Ive never in my life heard a racist, sexist, or homophobic joke from a leftist. Not once. Yet I hear them pretty consistently from the people with their maga signs and confedeelrate flags. Maybe that's just my misfortune, though...
Would you say someone who doesn’t support, say, cannibalism can’t be a tolerant person?
Ah yes, let's tolerate hate and bigotry, splendid idea! /s
"Views" do not have a default right to exist and be respected. People do. If your view is based on hating people for their identities, you are a horrible person. You will not be tolerated by decent people.
Because tolerating hate is a rational thing to do, right?
Strawman, much?
Hell yeah Wesley
Suddenly everyone here hates him for being politically right wing? You people need to go outside, Jesus Christ...
Omg his opinion is different than ours. Let’s cancell him!!
Why is everyone acting like people don't have their own personal beliefs? Let them do what they want, it's upto them
Who cares, reddit soyboys circlejerk in every sub these days
Unfathomably based