IMO this shitpost id bordering on parody, but dont let me be a killjoy
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Look, im not saying it isn't a little funny, but fascists dont need narrative consistency. Yea, mocking them about it isn't a bad idea, but dont be fooled into thinking this is some serious line of attack for them. They are desperate to be taken seriously, but dont have any qualms about shifting the goalposts to protect their in-group
Is it worse than using the US military to target political opponents and deport them to Guatemala?
Libs are pretending as if yelling about this will stop the stormtroopers in their tracks as they drag you out of your car in front of your family. Republicans do not give a shit about this - in fact, trump has already been found liable for rape and guilty of bribing a porn star to keep quiet about his affair with her. This is closer to a point of pride for them than something that they'd drop support over.
Its about as cringe as Schumer quoting Kendrick Lamar in a tweet.
I cant wait for the conspiracy theories about this
Lol, what?
He literally has a felony for bribing a porn star to stay quiet about their affair
Not in proportion to the total population
No, that's what I mean - sounds like you're referring to the total republican base as fascist (under normal circumstances I'd be fine with this generality), but my point is that fascist sentiment within that cluster has exploded in popularity.
True, gerrymandering is disenfranchising millions of democratic voters, along with closing polling locations - but the disenfranchising I'm more concerned with is the voting block being pushed into nihilism by a lack of action by the opposition. That makes the fascist party far more attractive to even typically moderate voters who might not agree with the more violent aspects of fascism but agree that stronger action is necessary.
only ever appealing to an ever-shrinking minority of potential voters.
Fascist candidates are appealing to ever-greater numbers, not fewer
The number of votes that the Mango Mussolini "won" by was significantly lower than the number of voters effectively disenfranchised
This part is true , but i suspect not for the reason being implied.
whole the population
Wow that must have been quite the wide angle lens
All I will say is that it’s instantly objectively verifiable that I never repeatedly claimed I wasn’t a liberal, and now you said I did. You are lying so that you will get approval from your echo chamber.
I love this 'i never said those words' game we've been playing, but i wasn't quoting you as making that claim, only that you were insisting that my definition of liberal definitely doesn't apply to you. The deeper I went into explaining the specific part of liberalism you were dancing around that I took issue with, the greater effort you went to either misunderstand my description to paint yourself out of the picture, or quote yourself talking about a specific issue you held that was undermined in all of your other comment history. I tried telling you repeatedly that it isn't about a specific policy position or opinion, it's the way in which liberals abandon those positions when forced to choose between them or their institutions.
You’re also misrepresenting tons of stuff that I believe or have said
Right, like you've been misrepresenting things i've never said? Like:
- 'liberals oppose strikes'
- 'it seems like your whole concept of it is as a limiting factor on progressive movements'
- 'you’re defining liberalism as “allegiance to the government and rejection of methods of change outside of the formal government structure,” and kind of nothing else beyond that'
I'm not ascribing things you say to you, I'm interpreting your behavior through a liberal lens in an effort to give you examples for how you might fall into that category. Do liberals oppose protests? Decidedly not. Do they abandon their support for protest when those protests materially threaten the institutions they're protecting? Resoundingly, yes. You're 'fine' with the undecided movement, but make big time noise about people choosing not to vote as a result of those protests, even though that protest and every other always has the same implicit threat. It isn't the fault of protestors or online agitators for souring the enthusiasm for democratic candidates, and it isn't even the non-voter's fault for seeing the lack of response to those protests and deciding that democrats aren't worth the trouble. Democrats had an opportunity to address those concerns for more than a year before 2024, and they turned their back on their base at every turn. You might think non-voters are responsible for that loss, but it's still the democrats' fault for abandoning them.
Ultimately it doesn't matter what you think. You're right - I am absolutely in good company here.
Im not making blanket statements about the atrocities of Israel being reflective of their citizens, but that is what you did
Blanket statements about the violent nature of race or race-adjacent categories (such as national identities) are racist, yes.
Lmao, you are Schrodinger's Liberal - both a liberal and not a liberal, until the moment you are observed
I don't care if you are one or not. I care that your utilitarian perspective on 'minimizing genocide' heavily skews toward a desired electoral outcome irrespective of the actual platform. You can insist all you want that you believe genocide is a huge problem and that you agree that democrats are complicit, but if at the end of the day your interpretation of others' behavior is being guided by the one action that quite literally can't effect whether genocide happens or not, then to me you're a liberal in the only way that really matters. You are standing in the way of liberation by gatekeeping acceptable forms of protest and criticism that fall outside or antagonize your preferred liberal institutions. God forbid someone be critical of democratic governance that falls short of the radical change that is required to avert catastrophe because they, themselves, have decided to preserve the liberal institutions that created the problems in the first place. You thought people were being uncharitable to Biden's accomplishments because your judgement of him seems to reflect some arbitrary scale and you assume it's what everyone else must be using.
The only other way of illuminating the problem with liberalism is to point out just how much the 'liberal party' resists changing their policy toward Israel, despite the majority of americans holding negative views on Israel, their war crimes in Gaza, and our continued blanket support for them. Even Sanders and AOC took more than a year and a half to recognize it as a genocide. The primary feature of liberalism that I'm concerned with is it's prioritization of protecting liberal institutions over addressing the harm and exploitation those institutions are responsible for. Israel being our flagship ally for influence and control over the ME is why liberals (democrats, republicans, and even most progressives) are willing to overlook, ignore, justify, or outright defend the atrocities that happen in the name of preserving that geopolitical cornerstone. That includes people like yourself who care about it in abstract but limit your view on acceptable action to what does or does not work inside our electoral institutions. I don't care about preserving Israel as an ally - my ideological framework prioritizes liberation politics, not the preservation of liberal institutions. If a liberal institution is responsible for supporting oppressive regimes and genocide, i think that institution should be dismantled, which means that how or if someone chooses to vote is less important to me in achieving that goal than what football team they follow. That is what informs my self image as a leftist. Complain all you want if you think that line of criticism is unfair or ignores what you think is more important, I don't care.
The more you try justifying your perspective in utilitarian terms the clearer it becomes that any alignment you might think we have is paper thin.
It should have been enough of an indication of the way that was going to go by the fact that he went out of his way to complain about liberal being used as a term of derision while also insisting that he definitely isnt one.
I've repeatedly said I didn't care if you, specifically, were a liberal. When you asked me several times, I acquiesced with "probably", but nothing you were saying was 'proving' your position relative to liberalism - if anything it was making more suspicous. I never went through your history because it's immaterial to me if you, specifically, are the type of liberal I'm being critical of. Mostly I was just glad you weren't as bad as others who routinely complain about people castigating liberals, but you're still incredibly disingenuous with your own accusations. Take whatever you want from that as a concession.
Now if it was this scenario where the DNC could hear me here saying that I was planning to vote for them anyway to keep Trump out of power, that would bother me a lot, because that actually would produce this impact you’re talking about which could increase the genocide in the world.
When people all get together and say, "what the democrats are doing is absolutely horrible, but it's incredibly important to vote for them anyway", and then accuse anyone not explicitly declaring their intention to vote for them of being dishonest about their intentions, of course it's going to reinforce that behavior. And why would I assume you think otherwise? Why would you take issue with people sharing reporting that you think is 'misrepresentative' if it isn't because that reporting might shift public opinion in a meaningful way? It's not out of principle that you tone police those political news comms - if anything it's because you believe the best way to minimize genocide is to elect democrats over republicans, and that means protecting public opinion against popular resentment.
Yes, i'm interpreting your behavior. Yes I know you insist that's not what you're doing or why you're doing it. But you've given me no reason to believe otherwise other than a few quotes affirming that the genocide is a problem, and a bunch of examples of justifying your electoral position by comparing democrats to how bad the republicans are in comparison. Honestly, though - and I feel like i've said this a few times already - i don't give a shit if i'm describing you. I never set out to prove that you're a liberal. If you really think that what i'm describing as liberalism in practice, then fine.
Fixing that sounds great, but I’m disgusted in general with this big Lemmy contingent who seem to be a lot more vocal about not voting than they are about any other strategy for fixing US support for genocide. That’s a shit strategy, straight up.
Those people aren't being vocal about not voting, they're describing why electoral politics are a huge part of the problem, and that voting can't fix it. Yes, democrats are the harm reduction option. Yes, trump is a fascist. No, voting does not even begin to fix the problem with our liberal democracy, and insisting everyone make their intention to vote a prerequisite for being considered an honest broker online is the problem i'm talking about. That it remains the central issue in your diatribes serves only to reinforce my opinion of you.
IDK, I feel like you sort of halfway absorbed and halfway failed to absorb what I was telling you about my own viewpoint on protest and effective advocacy for change, and you’re still kind of stuck in this strawman model of “the enemy” who doesn’t believe in protest and so you have to lecture me, or doesn’t believe in criticizing Democrats and so you have to lecture me
Because you continue to carve out exceptions to what you claim to believe, like this:
What I was talking about was OP and the little gang of people who’ve been spreading the narrative that the Democrats are the worst thing, basically indistinguishable from fascism, and are now having trouble hiding their eagerness to double down on assuring everyone that it’s all the Democrats’ fault and this whole thing was inevitable
If that's not a hyperbolic comment about people expressing their distaste for the inadequacy of democratic policy and governance, I don't know what else to call it.
You’ll just yell at them that they’re okay with genocide and being aware that they absolutely are not
I'm not sure where you've gotten that assessment, I haven't told you that you're OK with genocide. I can see how you might have gotten there, though.
It's fine, you seem committed to your misinterpretation and your attachment to your label. You can have it.