Meanwhile, the actual results of ceding the government to fascists is… increasingly right-wing leanings in the general population
Waoh but no, if we can just SHOW those damn SHITLIBS that they’ll never win, the inner socialist heart of The People will perk up and we’ll lead the masses singing the Internationale straight to DC. That’s how Popular Support works!
Fuck all that loser groundwork shit, that’s boring and doesn’t make us feel very revolutionary, while STICKING IT to THE MAN makes us feel fantastic as millions of disadvantaged folk are marked for death.
Voting may not fix the country, but not voting can sure as fuck make it worse.
Meanwhile, I’m here saying “both”.
Do both.
Actually go help your neighbor in person. Directly. Personally. Help your fucking neighbor.
If you want Lefties excited to go vote, give us something to vote for instead of against where the Centrist Libs concede to the Fash every god damn time.
What are your thoughts on Zohran Mamdani? Give me candidates like that, and I’ll bring 20 non-voters to the polls, and each will cast a ballot.
Give me another Clinton, another Cuomo, another Biden? Sorry, when I vote, I vote alone - and this isn’t up to me.
Which way, Western Man? Grow the voter base, grow the party? or grow the campaign warchest from donors that want both sides indebted to their lobbyists?
How we vote in the Primary is how we can get money out of politics.
In the meantime, have you made a sandwich to give away to a stranger? Have you handed a history book to a stranger? Have you had conversations about WHY Fascism doesn’t address our neighbors’ needs?
Your lack of groundwork is disturbing. For as much as you care, you come off like a filthy Casual this way. Let’s fix that?
How we vote in the Primary is how we can get money out of politics.
God, I just want to crush the neoliberals, to hear the lamentations of their political commentators, to see their empty suits driven before me, on ONE fucking primary before I die.
This is a hilarious and I relate, but it doesn’t actually help us. Or anyone. One sandwich to a homeless man? Is more actual benefit to the world than saying this.
Unless you go and start a conversation with a Red-hatter this way. Get them riled up and cheering for how you HATE the same people they do, and use it to glean some motivation deeper than “owning the libs.”
Then you can maybe, just maybe talk to a voter about how society has left them behind too. From experience, they have the same concerns, fears, pressures as what drives people to the Left, its just been twisted by gaslighting propaganda about who we are. Before I could bring this red-hatter to a pride parade, they need a LOT of therapy. But for many there is realistic hope.
You still haven’t commented on Mamdani, and that disappoints me.
This is a hilarious and I relate, but it doesn’t actually help us. Or anyone.
I… wasn’t trying to help anyone by saying it? Other than venting for my own benefit?
Unless you go and start a conversation with a Red-hatter this way. Get them riled up and cheering for how you HATE the same people they do, and use it to glean some motivation deeper than “owning the libs.”
Bruh. I lived in a deeply conservative area for most of my life. My social circles were deeply conservative, and I feigned being ‘apolitical’ to avoid having to go nuclear at a time when my living position was precarious.
Thinking that there’s a commonality of dislike there is falling for the extremely thin mask they put on whenever some liberal gives them pushback. It’s not real. They immediately drop the mask when around people they think are similar to them.
The people they hate aren’t ‘the elite’ as you or I would recognize them. The people they hate aren’t ‘politicians’ as you or I would recognize them. They have deeper motivations than ‘owning the libs’, but not more wholesome ones, I assure you. Being a metaphorical bump-on-a-log who isn’t suspected of liberalism lets you hear some gruesome truths about the principles of conservatives.
You still haven’t commented on Mamdani, and that disappoints me.
… fucking what? I’ve commented numerous times on Mamdani??
fucking what? I’ve commented numerous times on Mamdani??
My bad, I’ll dig thru your profile for that.
Bruh. I lived in a deeply conservative area for most of my life. My social circles were deeply conservative, and I feigned being ‘apolitical’ to avoid having to go nuclear at a time when my living position was precarious.
I feel that, and I can relate. I’m less precarious today.
Thinking that there’s a commonality of dislike there is falling for the extremely thin mask they put on whenever some liberal gives them pushback. It’s not real. They immediately drop the mask when around people they think are similar to them.
Oh, that? That’s not what I’m talking about for a motive. But in retrospect, I can see how I read that way.
We have to distinguish between a spectrum of rightwingers - the ones who know the dogwhistles are such, and those who are so uneducated they bought the frame of “small government” as good in its own right because “everyone agrees”. Like it’s a religion they were raised in.
“Hating the elites” (whatever that means) isn’t a coherent political idea as a result. Having 3 jobs and being pissed that you’re still broke? That’s a coherent political thought they don’t even have the vocabulary to express.
Is the “elite-hate” just antisemitism pretending to look vaguely leftish? Potentially. Or has this dudebro been so starved of literacy that he takes the dogwhistle unironically, but won’t connect “billionaire” with that on his own? This is a spectrum.
I’d rather find and talk to the drive of “why am I still poor when I work this hard?”
If an upscale clothing store manager steps to me talking about “these kids don’t know how to work,” I’m acknowledging how exhausted he looks. His is not a life of dignity, and I will say this to him. The education system has failed him through his trainees, and he is being asked to pick up the slack. Where are bank tellers going to come from when kids graduate unable to count money? What kind of AI are data scientists going to build when they don’t understand what each statistics distribution describes?
We are failing to invest in our country, and he will either see how this affects him personally, or he will walk away seething. If he brings up DEI or trans anything, or immigrant crime? I have a one-liner to address it and move back to the real conversation - you work too hard bro, and its because our systems are failing.
“Hating the elites” (whatever that means) isn’t a coherent political idea as a result. Having 3 jobs and being pissed that you’re still broke? That’s a coherent political thought they don’t even have the vocabulary to express.
Alright, but many of them take a perverse pride in poverty, don’t work three jobs, and quite explicitly love the elite. Like, the level of idolization of rich folk who share their dogwhistles that goes on is insane.
If you’ve never seen a Trump flag with Rambo’s body on it, count yourself lucky. And it’s not a new trend either. Wealth means people are ‘smart’ and ‘hardworking’, unless they start talking all liberal-like. The ‘elites’ they hate are not the people who drain their meagre wealth away from them, they’re the people that make them feel insecure - doctors, lawyers, career politicians who don’t suck them off.
Is the “elite-hate” just antisemitism pretending to look vaguely leftish? Potentially.
Not even, though. Elite hate isn’t a smokescreen for something more nefarious - step back, take in the full view of their position, and it is literally just that - hate for elites. The issue is that the ‘elites’ they despise are people who make them feel ‘lesser’ intellectually.
And the worst part is, many of these people are not stupid, inherently. But they’ve been raised to see incuriosity about their preconceptions as a virtue. They will simultaneously express what a BADASS REBEL they are by meekly submitting to conservative social norms and what a GOOD UPSTANDING LAW-ABIDING CITIZEN they are for meekly submitting to conservative norms. And if you point it out, they see no contradiction. Which, in practice if not principle, to be fair, I suppose there isn’t.
I flatter myself a bit in saying that I have a bit of an edge in arguments with most people. I used to like to argue, and got very good at it - now I argue out of exhausted obligation and the knowledge that letting points go uncontested in a social circle lets them multiply, which results in very unpleasant social circles. Let me tell you, the insanity of giving gentle pushback and maneuvering a conservative into a position where they state something in reverse of their position (such as from ‘politicians need more power’ to ‘politicians need less power’) while still maintaining their original position is…
1984 had it fucking right, man. The level of people to engage in doublethink is overwhelming.
If an upscale clothing store manager steps to me talking about “these kids don’t know how to work,” I’m acknowledging how exhausted he looks.
I suppose I can’t speak to that. My experience is overwhelmingly with poor, rural, religious conservative America.
I suppose I can’t speak to that. My experience is overwhelmingly with poor, rural, religious conservative America.
My experience is varied. Some of the rural folk, but also the men who think they’re above that, and think Trump will cut their taxes. Evangelicals too.
I’ve even gone off on some religious nut to “repent his following an Antichrist,” which spooked him enough to make him leave.
1984 had it fucking right, man. The level of people to engage in doublethink is overwhelming.
Calling them on that outright rarely does anything, unless we can get someone else to follow up with the same until we wear them down. And they blow up every single time.
Alright, but many of them take a perverse pride in poverty, don’t work three jobs, and quite explicitly love the elite. Like, the level of idolization of rich folk who share their dogwhistles that goes on is insane.
See, my first instinct is to call those elites they love? Manipulate Liberals. But that takes work and deep cultural access and context to discern, and I rarely have that.
Elite hate isn’t a smokescreen for something more nefarious - step back, take in the full view of their position, and it is literally just that - hate for elites. The issue is that the ‘elites’ they despise are people who make them feel ‘lesser’ intellectually.
This is why I usually start with a frame of hating Liberals. Out loud. 5-10 minutes of “sounding like Tucker” to get them nodding along. Invite them to learn. Whether they do or don’t, make them feel smart for even nodding along… And then switch the frame when we hit a natural pivot point. It doesn’t work every time, but they at least walk away respecting me for not being an elitist Liberal.
And the worst part is, many of these people are not stupid, inherently. But they’ve been raised to see incuriosity about their preconceptions as a virtue. They will simultaneously express what a BADASS REBEL they are by meekly submitting to conservative social norms and what a GOOD UPSTANDING LAW-ABIDING CITIZEN they are for meekly submitting to conservative norms. And if you point it out, they see no contradiction. Which, in practice if not principle, to be fair, I suppose there isn’t.
Crystalized as “conservative is the new punk rock” in more recent years. I see that.
This is where I talk about being good neighbors. When my neighbor hurts, it hurts me. And if I can look you in the eye? You’re my neighbor. I owe you some basic respect simply for you being here. How can I help, neighbor?
Still digging, not seeing your comments on Mamdani.
But the way you run defense for Biden and Cuomo without actually committing to them? Doesn’t leave me hopeful that I can call you a “comrade” in any sense.
Critiquing the Soviet Union? With Nuance? Actually Based. I wanna see what happens when you read William Hinton’s (admitted racist) firsthand account of the Chinese Cultural Revolution in his book “FanShen” and his secondhand account of the reversal in “ShenFan”.
I use the first as evidence that we can do better when we talk to each other - that “ground game” you maligned in this thread. I use the second to describe the Strong-State’s problem of accountability for leadership’s incompetence, and the incentive for workers to outright Lie as a survival measure.
There is hope for you yet. But I would love to hear you explain what soaking in a rightwing geography has pushed you to.
And yes, I still want to hear your thoughts on Zohran Mamdani. They’re buried. Either I need a new interface that makes this search easier, or a restatement.
Still digging, not seeing your comments on Mamdani.
Simply searching ‘Mamdani’ by user ‘PugJesus’ comes up with:
In any case, a major congratulations and good luck to Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist who won the Dem Party primaries for NYC mayor!
I wouldn’t count on it. Party elites are notoriously resistant to any kind of positive change. The only way we can change the Dem Party is by forcing it to change - by ensuring progressive candidates like Mr. Mamdani continue to win going forward.
Hopefully, the strained democracy of the US will hold up long enough for that to matter.
Damn, my hopes for Mamdani just got even higher. Low turnout under ordinary circumstances give high-enthusiasm candidates an advantage, by that enthusiastic base’s relative size to the ordinarily voting electorate.
Fucking fascist ghouls. Good on Mamdani for not putting up with it, though it’s horrifying that this is already a fucking concern.
(someone else) If we fill them with Zohran Mamdanis, on the other hand…
Me:
But the way you run defense for Biden and Cuomo without actually committing to them? Doesn’t leave me hopeful that I can call you a “comrade” in any sense.
I ‘ran defense’ for Biden when he was the only fucking candidate with a realistic shot at beating the fascist. Sorry for not wanting more Palestinians to die, for not wanting Ukrainians to be murdered by genocidal Russian imperialists, for not wanting literal millions abroad to starve and waste from sickness for lack of US aid, for not wanting US LGBT folk and marginalized groups to be murdered en masse, and, selfishly, for not wanting to have my health insurance as a Filthy Poor™ with a chronic disease stripped so I die vomiting blood on my bathroom floor?
I’ve literally never ran defense for Cuomo, in any way shape or form.
There is hope for you yet. But I would love to hear you explain what soaking in a rightwing geography has pushed you to.
Cynicism. The idea that these people are ready to be our comrades with just the right phrasing is, unfortunately, insanity. The core issue is not misinformation, or the wrong policies - otherwise you would be right, there is hope. The core issue has been the development and cultivation of sickened values over the past 70 years that are directly contrary to functional politics.
Values are much harder to change than political allegiances, and political allegiances are already notoriously hard to change. Whatever the solution is to our problem, it doesn’t include turning rural fascists into comrades any more than the Dem attempts to turn rural fascists into conservatives has worked.
Simply searching ‘Mamdani’ by user ‘PugJesus’ comes up with:
Thanks for the tutorial.
And yeah, I’m falling into an old pattern of arguing with people I agree with. Im actually arguing against a real Liberal I see elsewhere, but don’t have the standing to argue against without social consequence.
Damn. My bad comrade.
Cynicism. The idea that these people are ready to be our comrades with just the right phrasing is, unfortunately, insanity. The core issue is not misinformation, or the wrong policies - otherwise you would be right, there is hope. The core issue has been the development and cultivation of sickened values over the past 70 years that are directly contrary to functional politics.
100% real. But a LOT of them have this double think about the older values too. The values they act on come from a cultivated fear that’s been maintained so long its seeped into the whole ass person. This is the core of what Fascist Movements look like, unironically.
They need cult-deprogramming. Which means extracting them from their entire current cultural context, and replacing it. This is easiest with an online-only dudebro that’ll probably end up a mass shooter if we don’t. But a whole community? A whole Trump-worshipping church?
The “Republican Jesus” memes never escape Liberal circles. They need someone they can recognize as their own to call them out. I won’t be happy until there’s protests outside of Megachurches calling the Pastor a “Grifting Antichrist”, telling the Parrish to Repent this Sin.
Democracy only works in combination with education. We are currently missing the latter so the best things you can do in the long run is educate everything else will only change things temporarily but makes them worse over time.
What is groundwork? I haven’t heard this term before. Is it things like protesting and voting? Propagnda? Having conversations with everyday people? Or are those something else?
Getting ready, essentially; ‘groundwork’ as in ‘preparing the ground for a building’. Propaganda, conversations, organization, convincing people, the basic, preliminary steps to action.
When do you think the Democrats plan to start on the groundwork?
I’m pretty sure it’s fucking up to us.
Joined a union yet?
I’m a freelance contractor, man.
Freelancers’ Unions are a thing too.
By actively sabotage it at every opportunity, we se it in New York right now. These people have just given up, believing themself clever for accepting a slightly slower decline and resent everyone else.
It’s the “Hit Rock Bottom and Turn Your Life Around” narrative. But it’s BS - there is no rock bottom. Things can always get worse. There is no miraculous cure. You need to make change happen.
I’m convinced nothing short of violence will change anything in a meaningful way in the states.
Just look at the French, their government is terrified of it’s people.
I’m convinced nothing short of violence will change anything in a meaningful way in the states.
That may be so, but if so, it’s probably best not to strengthen the repressive reactionary entity you’re planning on squaring up against.
And you should most definitely not discuss any real plans of action on open, public forums like Lemmy. Find a private, closed, and encrypted service that can be trusted and use that.
This is why I had to laugh so hard about the groups that wanted to organize via reddit. WTF?
I’m not in the states, so this is purely hypothetical on my behalf.
Better yet, log the fuck off. Don’t have sensitive conversations online. The internet isn’t going to save us we have to organize locally.
Definitely a good point.
Who, precisely, are you accusing of this and how do you think they are strengthrning the regime?
Who, precisely, are you accusing of this
Ghouls who constantly advocated things like “Voting doesn’t matter, both sides are the same!” and we’re now reaping the ‘rewards’ of.
and how do you think they are strengthrning the regime?
By literally putting it into fucking power, and then sneering at all action against it for being insufficiently ‘revolutionary’.
Are there any peole actually advocating to do nothing? How many accelerationists do you really think there are?
There’s been a lot of positivity about Zohran Mamdani lately. A socialist winning even just a primary in the largest city in America is a big threat. So there’s currently a big push to tamp down on that and portray the movement as politically unviable and a handout to the far-right.
How long have you been on this site? Nearly every day there’s someone putting forward the “Aktually, Trump winning is GOOD because now The Left Will Truly Rise As Was Foretold”
Long enough to know that’s bullshit. You sure you aren’t just browsing a specific instance? I browse the all variant cause I want to see what people are thinking broadly without getting in too much of an echochamber, and I don’t think I’ve seen even one.
There are people in this very comm, nearly every day, putting forward that idea.
Like, if I go and grab some recent quotes, will I be wasting my time, evoking a “Yes but those are just SOME people, I would actually require (Number of quotes provided+1) to believe you”, or have you just genuinely not noticed them?
No. There isn’t. This is just an incredibly flimsy strawman argument that fails to conceptualize that there are alternatives to voting when it comes to exerting one’s political will.
I’ve genuinely met people who say that voting does nothing yet take zero other actions to better their situation.
Holy Strawman Batman!
Would you like me to quote some folks on this very site?
You can quote me if you want, I can guarantee you’ll somehow manage to misread “Democrats lots because they didn’t hold a primary and ran a bad candidate rather than admit that the former candidate was sundowning” as somehow being my fault. XD
What if i told you that there are litteral dozens of completely electoraly irrelevant shitposters on the fringes of the internet that serve has a full time obsetion and scape goats to dissmiss that fact? What would you say then?
“Sounds like someone has a pretty small filter bubble if they’ve only seen dozens.”, probably.
And you would be absolutely correct.
You need another no Kings protest. Do it again Super effective
What, more boring groundwork? If it doesn’t overthrow the government immediately, what good is it?
If it doesn’t act quickly it will be no good as they are fortifying their positions.
If only Very Serious Ideologues hadn’t spent the past 50 years insisting that any behavior that didn’t immediately overthrow the government (It Will Happen Any Day Now) was worthless, we might be in a better position to act quickly.
But hell, if your idea is to act quickly, by all means - act! But if your thought is “Laying groundwork is worthless”, you had better goddamn be acting instead of preparing, because if you’re doing neither, you’re not really any better than any “Price of eggs” ghoul who doesn’t care how many foreign children die as long as their omelets remain cheap.
These fools wouldn’t understand that real protest requires direct action. None of this begging bullshit and hoping for the establishment to be swayed against its own self interest.
But protesting is how we win. Did you not see the Democrats during the state of the Union speech. Did you see the Booker marathon reading. George Floyd protest. No Kings. That port shut down whatever the fuck that was. Occupy. Occupy 2. The woman’s March.
lol
I love that your personality is “Don’t vote for a Democratic candidate or protest, it’s useless”, but people like you never bother to propose a realistic alternative. I’m sure you have a super secret solution that will totally work 😉
I literally have tons of ideas. Really simple shit too but you all love to argue so much and never learn. The leftist of today are the same leftist that let FBI infiltrate their most effective groups in the 70s and let them turn them into nonsense cults to kill any momentum. There the same leftist that took occupy wallstreet and turned it into a nonsense cult of stoners clicking their fingers in a park. It’s the same leftist that went from having a dominant cultural position with media and tech and has handed it to the right wing on a platter. The same leftist that have removed themselves from every social spaces allowing right wing ideas to rapidly spread while we all sit in the corner laughing about Ed Sheeran moth beans.
We need engagement and capture. I watched the right wing spend a year building a network of accounts from the ground up. That network spread information rapidly. And by information, it was literally shit posts. Trump on horseback with no shirt soy Wojack nonsense. And it fucking worked. It’s the most bullshit thing you accept but it’s true. People need to act like a network flood the channels with the messages to refute theirs.
What ideas do you have? I hadn’t heard the term groundwork before now, and I don’t know what this debate is about really. Can you explain?
What groundwork? I see more of the DSA and communist parties at 50501s than Democrats.
What groundwork? I see more of the DSA and communist parties at 50501s than Democrats.
What a bizarre claim.
I don’t see you pointing anything out that might refute it. The DNC is still operating in Business-As-Usual mode.
I don’t see you pointing anything out that might refute it.
Most members of the DSA are also Dems. Communist Parties in the US are immensely tiny and, for that matter, often put forward positions that directly refuse cooperation with filthy shitlib movements like 50501.
Unless you have a remarkably specific local milieu, it’s unlikely that you’d see more of both of them than of Dems.
The DNC is still operating in Business-As-Usual mode.
Okay?
I’m talking about the 50501 on the steps of the Colorado statehouse on May 1st. The Democrats were not represented, but there were half a dozen socialist/communist parties with booths set up and about the same number of unions.
Missed the ‘May 1st’ part of it and made a comment referencing an earlier protest; it seems there was a small protest on May 1st that was hampered by two separate groups not coordinating.
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