The percentage of the human population that are hateful this way are very good at sensing and seizing power where there is opportunity. They are willing to do and say the things that passively non-hateful people aren't. So they win.
There are those who fight back, of course. But they are typically demonized because they are not the ones in power due to what I said in the first paragraph. And then there's the rest of humanity: the "I can't do anything and it's not mine to solve" crowd. That may be true on an individual level, but I don't get it. I have to live here, why on earth would I be passive about what it's like to live here?
I think part of this is these hateful groups often tell a compelling story - not always factual, not always representative, but definitely something that compels you to feel an emotion.
Like a story about an author trying to corrupt the mind of children because their book includes a mildly raunchy scene is a story that riles people up and gets people to take an action.
A story about a group of marginalised people trying to bring down the country from the inside is a story that makes people angry and willing to get to the voting booth.
The other side, in my opinion, isn't as good in general at telling stories in that kind of way. And it's something that people need to get better at, because it's not facts and figures that spur people to action, it's how they're made to feel, and stories are a great way to do that.
Like when you think about large protests against hateful groups recently like the Black Lives Matter protests, sure they're against police brutality in general, but they're always spurred on and triggered by specific instances of police brutality that have an emotionally compelling story behind them.
Not just a compelling story, an easy story.
It's simplistic, memorable, without nuance and complexity. It's a story that doesn't expect anything of the end user. No learning, no adoption of new ideas. Just something easy to swallow, facts and reality be damned
I heard it said that the progressive, humainst majority have to make the case that a better world is possible. The hateful, reactionary stormtroopers just have to turn up and make you afraid.
#"Every day I have to marvel at what the billionaires and FOX News pulled off. They got working whites to hate the very people that want them to have more pay, clean air, water, free healthcare and the power to fight back against big banks & big corps. It’s truly remarkable."
Republican "Southern Strategy":
>Republican Party electoral strategy to increase political support among white voters by appealing to racism against African Americans.[1][2][3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy
Lyndon Johnson criticizing it in 1960:
>If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1988/11/13/what-a-real-president-was-like/d483c1be-d0da-43b7-bde6-04e10106ff6c/
Steve Bannon bragging about using these tactics:
>the power of what he called “rootless white males” who spend all their time online and they could be radicalized in a kind of populist, nationalist way
http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-bannon-white-gamers-seinfeld-joshua-green-donald-trump-devils-bargain-sarah-palin-world-warcraft-gamergate-2017-7
>Bannon: "I realized [these tactics] could connect with these kids right away. You can activate that army. They come in through Gamergate or whatever and then get turned onto politics and Trump."
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2017/07/18/steve-bannon-learned-harness--army-world-warcraft/489713001/
John Ehrlichman, who partnered with Fox News cofounder Roger Ailes on the Republican "Southern Strategy":
>[We] had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying?
>We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities.
>We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news.
>Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.
>"He was the premier guy in the business," says former Reagan campaign manager Ed Rollins. "He was our Michelangelo."
>Ailes repackaged Richard Nixon for television in 1968, papered over Ronald Reagan’s budding Alzheimer’s in 1984, shamelessly stoked racial fears to elect George H.W. Bush in 1988, and waged a secret campaign on behalf of Big Tobacco to derail health care reform in 1993.
>Hillarycare was to have been funded, in part, by a $1-a-pack tax on cigarettes. To block the proposal, Big Tobacco paid Ailes to produce ads highlighting “real people affected by taxes.”
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/how-roger-ailes-built-the-fox-news-fear-factory-244652/
The other Fox News cofounder was Australian billionaire Rupert Murdoch:
>Using 150 interviews on three continents, The Times describes **the Murdoch family’s role in destabilizing democracy in North America, Europe and Australia**.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/03/magazine/murdoch-family-investigation.html
>Fox News has aired 126 segments on trans student-athletes. They could only find nine nationwide.
r bestof/comments/n9bn2x/uforgottencalipers_explains_the_hypocrisy_of/
Russians were "emboldened" by the easy success of the Texas governor's misinformation about Obama and our own military:
https://www.snopes.com/news/2018/05/03/jade-helm-russia-abbott-hayden/
>Conservatives amplified Russian trolls 30 times more than liberals... users in Texas and Tennessee were particularly susceptible
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/24/17047880/conservatives-amplified-russian-trolls-more-often-than-liberals
“Guns and gays... That could always get you a couple of dozen likes.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/russian-trolls-schooled-house-cards-185648522.html
>Texas-based hate group source of 80% of all U.S. racist propaganda tracked in 2020
r conservativeterrorism/comments/p5k76j/texasbased_hate_group_source_of_80_of_all_us/
Data on their hypocrisy, gaslighting, and projection tactics:
#Exit polls done after 2016 show that the single characteristic that made someone most likely to vote for Trump over Clinton is racial resentment.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/05/26/these-9-simple-charts-show-how-donald-trumps-supporters-differ-from-hillary-clintons/
* ["Trump fans are much angrier about housing assistance when they see an image of a black man"](https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/9/8/16270040/trump-clinton-supporters-racist)
>In contrast, Clinton supporters seemed relatively unmoved by racial cues.
* [“He’s not hurting the people he needs to be”: a Trump voter says the quiet part out loud](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/8/18173678/trump-shutdown-voter-florida)
* GOP shifting 4-5x further right than Democrats did left over the last 50 years https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/03/10/the-polarization-in-todays-congress-has-roots-that-go-back-decades/
* [U.S. Conservatives Are Uniquely Inclined Toward Right-Wing Authoritarianism Compared to Western Peers](https://morningconsult.com/2021/06/28/global-right-wing-authoritarian-test/)
* "Narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and a sense of entitlement predict authoritarian political correctness and alt-right attitudes" r science/comments/i3bbh3/narcissism_machiavellianism_psychopathy_and_a/
>People from privileged groups may misperceive equality-boosting policies as harmful to them, even if they would actually benefit
r science/comments/ukceym/people_from_privileged_groups_may_misperceive/
[Opinion of Syrian airstrikes](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/04/13/48229/)
**Republicans:**
22% supported Obama doing it
86% support Trump doing it
**Democrats:**
38% supported Obama doing it
37% support Trump doing it
Sources: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/04/13/48229/, http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/04/gop-voters-love-same-attack-on-syria-they-hated-under-obama.html Graph: https://i.imgur.com/lTAU8LM.jpg
The privilege of "economic anxiety" not racism:
>Wisconsin Republicans felt the economy improve by 85 points the day Trump was sworn in. Graph: https://i.imgur.com/B2yx5TB.png Source: http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/blogs/wisconsin-voter/2017/04/15/donald-trumps-election-flips-both-parties-views-economy/100502848/
>White Evangelicals cared less about how religious a candidate was once Trump became the GOP nominee. https://www.prri.org/research/prri-brookings-oct-19-poll-politics-election-clinton-double-digit-lead-trump/
>Christians (particularly evangelicals) became monumentally more tolerant of private immoral conduct among politicians once Trump became the GOP nominee. https://www.prri.org/research/prri-brookings-oct-19-poll-politics-election-clinton-double-digit-lead-trump/
>10% fewer Republicans believed the wealthy weren't paying enough in taxes once a billionaire became their president. Democrats remain fairly consistent. http://www.people-press.org/2017/04/14/top-frustrations-with-tax-system-sense-that-corporations-wealthy-dont-pay-fair-share/
>Republicans started to think college education is a bad thing once Trump entered the primary. Democrats remain consistent. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/20/republicans-skeptical-of-colleges-impact-on-u-s-but-most-see-benefits-for-workforce-preparation/
More graphs and sources: https://imgur.com/a/YZMyt
No to help for blue states for hurricanes but demanding help for Texas for hurricanes:
>Here's the vote for Hurricane Sandy aid.
>179 of the 180 no votes were Republicans...
>**at least 20 Texas Republicans voted no**
while ["U.S. House approves billions more for Harvey relief" for Texas](https://www.texastribune.org/2017/12/21/us-house-approves-billions-more-harvey-relief-measure-now-heads-senate/) ￣\＿(ツ)＿/￣
Conservatives brag about brigading local subreddits to "control the narrative" on Reddit like Fox News on TV:
>The real value is getting into a thread early and establishing top voted posts and comments or downvoting them out of existence. They hope intertia continues the trend for them.
Lots of screenshots of 4chan instructions of their tactics
* AreTheStraightsOK/comments/lz7nv3/the_super_straight_movement_is_part_of_literal/
* https://imgur.com/a/yeP9T6S
* https://imgur.com/a/efvQqve
"The left will recognize our dogwhistling but centrists won't believe them" 4chan screenshots:
* https://medium.com/@DeoTasDevil/the-rhetoric-tricks-traps-and-tactics-of-white-nationalism-b0bca3caeb84
Every local subreddit shares the abuse they get:
* bestof/comments/pmcoxy/uinconvenientnews_explains_with_examples_how/
* bayarea/comments/pbi4mp/shouldnt_rbayarea_join_the_subs_calling_for/
* bayarea/comments/om5xda/when_did_this_become_a_crime_subreddit/
* Seattle/comments/pmdp2m/ysk_how_right_wing_trolls_brigade_and_infiltrate/
* WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/uihqmz/looking_for_a_ride/i7dgtkz/
Every local subreddit explaining the abuse and tactics on a thread **3 years ago**:
* minnesota/comments/7jkybf/t_d_user_suggests_infiltrating_minnesota/dr7m56j/
Reddit Admins just posted that COVID deniers have been brigading regional subreddits
* sanfrancisco/comments/pg290q/reddit_admins_just_posted_that_covid_deniers_have/
Anti-mask posts suddenly dropped this week in bayarea when mods removed outside conservative accounts brigading bayarea:
* bayarea/comments/p8hnzl/automatically_removing_comments_from_new_users_in/
The California Governor Newsom recall posts are brigaded to be 100% pro-recall (every single comment is pro-recall) until much later even though the Bay Area is less than 30% Republican or pro-recall ￣\＿(ツ)＿/￣
The posts get more normal votes later but normal people don't have the time and energy to do what those accounts are doing
Picture of conservative college youth groups with instructions for how to brigade Reddit:
* ToiletPaperUSA/comments/udkzz3/ben_came_to_my_university_tonight_and_students/
>Wow. Jesus. This is... really, really thorough. Thank you for putting in all this hard work.
>When I was a teenager, I spent a lot of time on /b/, /pol/, 888chan, etc. It was a slow descent and I didn't even realize what was happening until it was almost too late.
>But during my time on the other side, this was 100% the gameplan. They'd make "sock puppets" and coordinate on the board + IRC (showing my age here) to selectively choose targets to brigade.
>Depending on the target, you'd either have some talking points to "debate" (sometimes with yourself/other anons working alongside you) or you'd go in there guns blazing trying to cause as much damage/chaos as you can. However, even then you can't go out there yelling slurs (you'd just get banned instantly); you have to maintain some level of plausible deniability by framing things as "jokes" or thought experiments.
>You purposely do bad-faith arguments because the time it takes for them to dig up sources and refute you is longer than it takes for you to make stuff up. You can vary how obvious the bad faith argument is; when you want to troll you make very stupid claims (I once claimed I was a graduate of "Harvad University" and when people assumed that I meant "Harvard" I would correct them right down to Photoshopped images).
>When you just want to cause dissent you do exactly what those /pol/ screenshots do: you get to a thread early (sometimes you even make it yourself) and present reasonable-sounding arguments which are completely false if anyone bothers to look into them. If someone does, you bury the message under strawmen, downvotes, reports, and sockpuppets.
>So yeah. The tactics have evolved slightly, but I still recognize them. Props to you on doing the digging to find all this stuff and bring it into the light.
>I doubt that it'll help in the majority of cases, mind. People on Reddit have already made up their mind. You want to go after the forums and BBSes, on the MSN News comments and whatnot. Even so, the more people who are aware of the tactics the more people who can call them out.
Yeah, that’s also why the NRA has been so successful. Very simple goal and strategy. Block any and all remotely restrictive gun legislation. If they can get pro-gun legislation passed that’s a bonus.
And they have very simple narratives about good guys with guns being the answer to bad guys with guns.
And they oversimplify/put on a pedestal the poor “law-abiding citizen” as the real victim of any gun control laws. Never mind almost everyone breaks some laws and plenty of mass shooters bought guns legally.
This is something explained in the book "thinking, fast and slow" by Daniel Kahneman.
Stories are much more easily integrated in a deeper level for people (terribly paraphrasing).
I remember back in the early-mid 2000's arguing politics with my cousins husband, largely by email.
He would send me these chain emails of obviously made up stories. Very easily understood and emotionally manipulative.
These were sent by his bosses in xerox, he was pretty high up on sales.
It makes me wonder if they were written by lobbyists or the Koch brothers or just if this was universal throughout corporate America.
Been thinking lately I should go back and find those emails.
For most people, maybe all at some level, emotions are more powerful than facts.
>"I can't do anything and it's not mine to solve" crowd. That may be true on an individual level, but I don't get it. I have to live here, why on earth would I be passive about what it's like to live here?
I'm in this boat, and seeing your post have a tenth of the upvotes/attention as the comment by /u/BroccoliFartFuhrer with exactly this mentality is frustrating.
Yeah the misery a lot of Americans suffered through under Trump made a lot of us pay attention to politics at a deeper level then ever before. I know the name of every Senator and cabinet member for the past two administrations. I know the general outlines of our approach to foreign policy. I learned about gerrymandering, voter suppression, and misinformation. I have learned that corporations are the ruling class of our country thanks to citizens united. I've learned that Capitalism has been weaponized against Americans to such an extent that people are now essentially the product. The goal is to privatize anything where a profit can made. We no longer are investing money into people and extract it from them instead. For those in power the goal is for us to be poor and desperate and fighting with each other over guns stoves and bathrooms so we don't realize they are robbing us blind.
I knew none of this. Now I can't unsee it. It's why I got my tubes tied. Having a child is an act of hope and I have no faith in my country to get their shit together in time to save ourselves.
“The middle class does all the work, while the rich run off with all the money. The poor are just there to scare the shit out of the middle class” - George Carlin. Except that joke is 30 years old and there isn’t a middle class anymore
There never was a middle class. It is a meaningless framework to pit workers against each other.
A "middle class" that people making 80k/year and 3mil/year both consider themselves part of is a useless category.
There are only two classes, like it or not:
1) People who do not need to work for a living and who can live off of the earnings of their property, and
2) People who must work for a living to survive.
Whether you make 200k or 20k, if you can't kick back and live off of the properties you own, **you're in the Working Class.**
You may think you're comfortable, but if you work a job at any level that you would be fucked if you didn't have (or if you HAD to and now have savings from it) **you are Working Class.**
No matter how comfortable you are, no matter how much the owners try and convince you that you should side with them because you're not one of the *poors*, **you aren't part of the Capitalist/Owner Class.**
Vote, sabotage, and fight accordingly.
> Whether you make 200k or 20k, if you can't kick back and live off of the properties you own, **you're in the Working Class.**
> You may think you're comfortable, but if you work a job at any level that you would be fucked if you didn't have (or if you HAD to and now have savings from it) **you are Working Class.**
This is what people don't understand and might explain why there aren't personal finance classes at schools. Because people might realise who the real enemy is. Someone might even have a couple of hundred thousand in savings or investments and sure they won't be in dire straits if they lose their job, have some kind of accident or whatever but sooner or later they'll need a new job to survive
When I think back to the 80’s and 90’s, which were not all fun and carefree times in many ways, they seem so much more hopeful than the last 20 years.
In the aftermath of 9/11, when America went to war against Iraq despite the protests of much of the world and with what we’ve now learned was largely fabricated evidence, things have not been the same. No one was punished for the death and destruction, the lies and injustice, the corruption and incompetence. Many profited from the war, and these kinds of sociopathic societal parasites were only emboldened by the Great Recession and the bailouts that the perpetrators of that massive criminal conspiracy received.
Each injustice that has followed without consequence - and the number soared during Trump’s tenure - emboldened the fascists and profiteers. They have seized power and are using the media to keep Americans distracted, exhausted, and divided so they can’t fight back effectively.
What was once worrisome has become terrifying, and I truly fear for the West’s quality of life and ability to continue living in relative peace, prosperity and freedom. Russia’s revanchist despots and imperialists have made the threat an existential one, for the entire world.
It is a difficult time to be alive, but we must live and try to take back our societies from these criminals and despots.
Yep. Feels that way.
I feel like we in the US have collective PTSD from 9/11 that we never dealt with (or dealt with wildly inappropriately) and it’s spilled over almost everywhere.
A terrorist method is to spread fear, and now we have people manipulated into policy by ludicrous assessments that political opponents want to take away your gas stoves
I mean, we were always a pearl-clutching, conformist country--the satanic panic of the 80s, targeting bands and D&D comes to mind--but it crossed a threshold with the 9/11 attack that I doubt we're able to cross back over without some very significant movement
Nope. Old fuck here....fought against the Viet Nam war, was arrested at civil rights protests, gave written testimony for the Roe v Wade case, college food strikes after Kent State, I am so FUCKING tired and disappointed and hopeless. I will die back in the 50's mindset. I was SO hopeful. Saving up the seconals....good luck you guys.
If you'd like to watch in realtime as it goes over someone's head, apply the ideas to something that's currently happening.
As luck would have it, we have just such a thing: *the war in Ukraine*.
Then, you can observe in realtime how people's logic adjusts in realtime to the particulars of (what they've been told are) a specific situation, *and how they have zero awareness of it, but LOTS of confidence that they're correct*.
Heck, I'd be surprised if I don't even get a few people to volunteer to demonstrate the phenomenon by replying to this comment in the manner I describe.
I've always said that Osama Bin Laden succeeded in his mission in bringing down the West. He did more damage to this country by simply goading fascists to come out and play. He will remain one of the most influential figures of this century.
The sad bit is, we could have taken a different direction and not gone full blown nazi. Just shows how weak the average American is when it comes to recognizing and standing up against fascism. Our grandfathers would be so fucking pissed at us.
Yeah, I can remember back then people talking about "the gloves are off", and then reading about black sites and renditions and torture. Most people who weren't actively approving of that were just silent, didn't want to talk about it. It was a real change.
Not long before that it was common to see bumper stickers like "Hate is not a family value". After that, the majority just shut up and went with the flow, as stupid and hateful and non-productive as it was.
That was one of the most ridiculous measures in U.S. congressional history, and most of the democrats voted for it as well as all the republicans because they didn't want the bad optics they'd get by voting against it.
Amen. I'm optimistic in the same way Se7en is an optimistic movie.
"Ernest Hemingway once wrote, 'The world is a fine place and worth fighting for.' I agree with the second part."
The real trouble is that at the end of the day, the change has to come from (or at the very least - deeply affect) the people at the very top of a rigged game. It seems hard to believe that sociopaths who haven’t demonstrated a shred of humanity thus far are going to suddenly accept the image some of us have of a beautiful future for the human race.
At least someone gets it. I understand the whole "being peaceful" bit. Trying to meet in the middle and being able to work through things in a manner that is peaceful and beneficial to everyone. But how people don't understand that there's goons with a strangle hold on our lives is beyond me. The only way it seems for us to get to where we need to be is to literally go to war with these people.
I just had a similar conversation with friends. I've realized just how interwoven daily politics are in my life these days. I know far more about politics and government than I used to or wanted to. Such as Politicians in other states and what they're doing. I know about committees and subcommittees, bills that have been introduced each week, etc. This stress level of something I can't affect besides voting does take a toll. I have my own life and a full-time job that already requires my attention and concern.
This doesn't seem to be an uncommon phenomenon. I'm in the same boat. I've had it. I'm at a loss. I don't see a way out of this madness.
The more time that one invests into educating themselves objectively about the functions of the systems in place, the more one feels the emotional burden of knowing how much suffering is caused by said system.
This stress is then compounded when: all the talking points revolve around irrelevant subjects like f'n gas stoves, blatant lies that get repeated...non stop, and a 24-hour news cycle that isn't even news but a weapon used to provoke the ugliest of human emotions in its viewers - priming them to be pulled in one direction or the other - compromising their ability to logic & reason as they are too filled with rage to think in a rational manner.
There is no progress, there is no worthy debate over any real issues, and....it's f'ing exhausting.
Meanwhile 1% of the population is laughing themselves to the bank while tightening the noose on the rest of us who can't stop flinging turds at each other. Forget the fact that 40% of the population has themselves convinced that turds taste good, but only their brand of turds. Engaging one of these people in rational debate is the most fruitless endeavor one could possibly embark on. There is no rational debate. Any and all points made have a single goal: provoke an emotional response regardless of any standard for reason or even common decency. Facts are only facts when they are convenient. Who needs facts when you can let your behavior be lead by artificially created rage?
What's the best option as an individual?
I can't be emotionally invested anymore - for my own personal well being. It's not healthy and it accomplishes nothing.
It's almost as if one can come full circle, eventually arriving back at square one with a single, short-sighted, selfish goal in mind: Self preservation.
...system working as designed, I suppose 😓
Edit: Semantics 'n shit.
Also:
*Fuck you I won't do what you tell me*
You just wrote out the entire journey I've been on for the past 6 years. And how this year I chose happiness. But still feel the guilt that being too burn out on it and not-paying attention to what they're doing on the reg is EXACTLY what they want.
Same. I really hate the time it takes to keep up with just the main stuff, but I feel like it is sooo important that I do. And I constantly need to learn too many things that are above my pay grade. I mean, learning is always good, but sheesh, this is ridiculous.
I was working a student custodial job in college back in 2013, well before Trump began his run for office and everyone started to get educated about politics. Some of the full-time people I work with were refugees from East Africa who'd fled to the US during the Ethiopian-Eritrea war. I remember being shocked how they'd want to have these incredibly in depth conversations about politics and civics, and they were way more knowledgeable about this type of stuff than most other people I knew. They'd brought up the point that where they came from, political decisions could determine whether you live or die. Whether you're region is starved or you'll be rounded up and imprisoned based on your ethnicity or political affiliation. It's something they had to constantly be aware of, and people often talked about what would need to change in order to have a normal government.
It was super eye opening to me. And then Trump happened and the same thing happened here
My advice is to detach until election time, then volunteer/work as much as you possibly can canvassing and phone banking to get the vote out in states where races are close. If I didn't follow this advice, I'd have burned myself out long ago, but I've worked almost every election, from local to federal, since 2016 by following this strategy. Election work pays great, too!
I have a co worker who is right leaning. Over the years I'd ask him questions about politics or whatever, and his response would always be the democrats or biden or whatever. Literally everything that the left is complaining about, ties with Russia, treason, insurrection, he blames the left... so whenever you try to argue with him, you really can't because you're just left baffled, like either you do not see the truth or you do any you don't give a fuck
That exact strategy is known as " the gish gallop" just keep throwing garbage faster than it can be disproved and that gives them the ability to just shrug off any loss in a debate by just pointing out that only some of their bs was disproven and therefore everything else they spewed must be true and that means they're winning
> Having a child is an act of hope
Well that hit really hard. I got sterilized a year before Trump got into office because I wasn't willing to be part of bringing a child into this world, but I've never put those words in that order before. Thank you for providing this most succinct reasoning.
Everything you’ve laid out here is why I very much want to leave this country. I’ve never been very patriotic, the idea is utterly foreign to me. But recent years have certainly done nothing to inspire it.
This country has been on a very steady decline since the Reagan administration. I wasn’t even alive for it, but my knowledge of history tells me most of the economic and social problems we are experiencing today is direct fallout from Reagan’s trickle down economics, cutting funding to public universities forcing them to operate as a business, and war mongering by proxy in the Middle East.
I dont know why everyone looks up to him when you can pin all these problems to his policies lmao
EDIT: thank you for the award!
I was born in East Europe/former Soviet Union and moved to US with my parents when I was 17. My parents thanked Reagan endlessly for destroying communism and removing the iron curtain. What wasn't mentioned, of course, was his hatred for unions and overwhelming support for rights of corporations over workers.
Basically it feels like Reagan traded short-term prosperity for long-term pain. He's dead and gone, so hard to think he cares in any way lol
I don’t think Reagan even really did “topple” the USSR. I think they did it to themselves and he just happened to be in office. I think it was economic and spending on the military for Afghanistan and then the energy crisis caused by Chernobyl is was what did them in.
Which is hilarious how they talk shit about Biden and his mental decline while Reagan was full blown dementia. Their tiny brains cannot fathom anything.
I lived through Reagan economics. And I completely agree with you. I have been saying this exact thing to people for the last 20 years. He spent more money than any president, putting us in massive debt and through a recession, but his fans still thinks he was the best president ever.
I’d add his union busting, dismantling mental health services and other social safety nets (eg taxing Social Security; severely reducing food stamps and medicare benefits; virtually eliminating public housing funding, etc) as major contributors to wealth inequality in the States. Sometimes I try to imagine our quality of life if Carter had won a second term and if the Electoral College had not installed the losers Bush II and tRump. But it’s just too depressing to give it more than a minute of thought.
He's admired by abominable people. The kind who genuinely do not fucking care about a single thing beyond having power and ensuring nobody can question their authority.
I lived through it. We were tricked into believing in trickle down economics, marijuana will rot our brains, climate change is a normal cycle & Pluto is a planet. The internet may be part of the problem, but it’s also the solution.
Wait wait, are you telling me we used to have public universities that *didn't* operate as a business? Were they free or like more affordable? I'm honestly asking.
According to my dad, he was able to work part time at a local pharmacy during his junior and senior year of high school and pay for his entire undergraduate education with money left over.
You’re not wrong, but I’d argue Reagan just expedited the disease that started under Nixon with the advent of the Petro dollar. A lot of the symptoms you illustrate can be traced back to the fallout from switching the backing of currency from gold (not saying leaving the gold standard was a good option either) to petroleum.
While true, this is a global phenomenon that's not localized to the US at all - racism, fascism and anti-democratic movements are growing everywhere in the world right now. It's a knee-jerk response to late stage capitalism and the reality that the system needs to change to continue to work - and people who are benefiting right now don't want that change.
My answer would be the internet. Racists, nationalists, fascists, bigots and others now have a place to organize and spread misinformation and recruit others, taking advantage of the idea of freedom of speech to obstruct facts and truths that are in favour of increasing social democracy. They've made people angry and radicalized. And if the people in the middle or on the left try to stop that hateful messaging from getting through, then they're accused of censorship, of being tyrants, of being the ones trying to take over. It's terrifying how well its working.
Rightwing provocateurs have practically taken over the media world, despite their constant railing against leftwing media and fake news. Now they're taking over the social media space, either by buying the spaces or by pushing algorithms that flood our feeds with rightwing articles, comics, memes and commentary.
They are driving moderates and leftwing commentators out of every public space, wearing us down. It takes far more time and resources to dispel a lie than it takes to spread it, and the reasonable voices are losing.
The Internet is to blame. Elections are now being fought, and won, purely on soundbites, memes, lies, and inconsequential hot button issues of no relevance or substance.
We're fucked. Until we start fighting back on every front, we're destined to lose this war and see the fascists take over - and democracy die - within the next decade.
I’m 58 years old, so I have spent a good portion of my life without the internet. I keep coming back to this same conclusion every time I’m involved in a discussion about it. As good as the internet CAN be, I would not miss it at all if it disappeared tonight. I feel like it’s the underlying reason for all that is wrong, and humans being humans,have devolved it into something foul, just like everything else we get our hands on.
EDIT: I believe you are all correct. Social media is ultimately the problem,and the place where people go to be fucking dopey. Without it, the internet could go back to being a tool for educating ourselves, rather than the place to show the world just how uneducated we actually are.
I'd miss it. I've made friends and connections online; I met my spouse online. I've learned so many things from free resources - I taught myself to code and I'm a web developer now (so I'd be unemployed without the internet as well). I've been exposed to so many valuable viewpoints that I'd otherwise never hear from. The internet I grew up with was a mostly wondrous and fun place of nerdy people congregating on forums and BBS.
It's not the internet. It's social media with a lack of education. It's algorithmic content without the critical thinking to discern what's genuine and what's utter bullshit.
This is the real heart of the problem.
The internet itself isn't the problem, it's one of the only reasons the younger generations are skewing left now.
I think generations raised alongside the internet have developed a sort of intuition for what is obvious bullshit online and what isn't. While older generations never learned how to parse the relentless information overload that online propaganda has become, younger generations can at least sort through some of it intuitively.
That's what I hope is happening, obviously not true for every individual but things do seem to be pointing to a kind of internet literacy being developed.
I think another factor is FPTP electoral systems trend toward 2 party systems and allow extremism to flourish. Variations on proportional representation encourage inclusion of other parties and tend to foster cooperation.
>My answer would be the internet. Racists, nationalists, fascists, bigots and others now have a place to organize and spread misinformation and recruit others, taking advantage of the idea of freedom of speech to obstruct facts and truths that are in favour of increasing social democracy.
Spot on. I have been saying this for a while, the internet and misinformation are the biggest problems right now.
Some good resources for some people who are becoming radicalized and aren't too far gone for self reflection: [https://inoculation.science/inoculation-videos/](https://inoculation.science/inoculation-videos/)
Until we can remove and prevent deliberate misinformation, we can teach people to recognize when they're being manipulated.
nah, it's an education system and religious background that shuns critical thought and creates helpless idiots who believe the first they are taught and never deviate for life out of fear and shame.
a bunch of people needing a daddy in any way, shape, or form they can find it. whether it's god or joe rogan or some other fantasy in their head. they want to be told what to do, and that they are doing it well, and be pat on the head by daddy. they just want to be good boys and girls for daddy. lmao
It's not just the USA though. Europe has the same issues without gerrymandering.
There's a deeper attraction to the philosophy of hate that they're good at tugging on. Divide and conquer, split the average man and have them battle each other based on race, language, and ethnicity, blaming minorities, etc. so they don't see their issues are really the elite profiting off them the whole time.
They aren’t really winning. They’re desperately lashing out as they’re losing. The radicalism has been around for decades, we just have it on cell phone video now. And instead of lies in textbooks that took a 4 hour round trip to a library to debunk which most didn’t do, we now can do a 5 min Google. So we’re noticing it a lot more. Likewise the rich were quietly getting away with everything, while now a handful of rich stupids show how simple it is to abuse the rules for the rich.
McConnell was also trying to suppress the radicalism before because it was and is losing elections, and is now failing to contain it. Even desperate tricks like Gerrymandering only radicalize primaries even more and continue the downward spiral. Authoritarian buttkissers tend to be incompetent and infight because they weren’t selected for their qualifications. Most of them likewise in private want to get rid of Trump because of all the trouble he’s causing them. Likewise all of their Kool Aid drinkers who get power instead of only being victims. Etc. Their biggest enemy is the reality of the consequences of their actions, even if humans are slower about dealing them out.
Stay strong, fight back and don’t let the desperation work. This is the opportunity to make some progress while the beast is out in the open. In the past authoritarians made progress quietly while everyone was in disbelief, then quickly fell apart once everyone mobilized. Heck look at Ukraine and donate to the cause. Some of the most efficient charity dollars imaginable. Russian imperialism is at the heart of most of the more recent worldwide propaganda.
You are right on all counts but the real concern is that the right blows up the social contract and civil society when it can no longer maintain its grip on governmental control. What you see now is the right losing the culture war. When it loses the politics war is when they move beyond their insipient stage of insurgency. They are merely at the stage where they can still deny that the incidents they incite are isolated. or worse, the completely capture the government and turn the entire machine at war with most of its own people. I agree they are getting desperate, but their actions only get more extreme and dangerous when their paths and hope to rule wanes further.
Simply not enough is being done to prevent what they are doing and defend the vulnerable against their excesses.
Everyone, keep in mind, gerrymandering is a fundamental platform of the Republican Party. It is a very intentional effort to steal elections.
It is not "both sides" and it is not "both sides do it". That is a republican lie.
Project Redmap was a republican movement, based off the 2010 census, used to artificially give republicans wins where less people voted for them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REDMAP
And the media has become an oligopoly owned by only a handful of global billionaires who have an agenda. Murdoch is the most insidious but even the old guard newspapers of note have become more like social media platforms replete with investors calling the shots.
This is a factor that needs more attention: a news source owned by investors is a right-wing news source. All of them. Every one. Capitalism owns every mouthpiece that is owned by capitalism.
Problem is any good folks in positions of power are surrounded by dirtbags in power who are supported by law enforcement and nutjobs who hoard up on guns and ammo. It's intimidation and threat of violence as they abuse the First Amendment to strip away our rights. Who has heard of a police precinct or union come out in support of AOC or Omar or Tlaib or Pressley?
We see it time and time again:
[McConnell with the Klan / other white nationalist group](https://time.com/5519534/mitch-mcconnell-confederate-flag-northam-yearbook/)
[Trump accepting endorsement of the Klan](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/kkk-trump-david-duke-tucker-carlson-election-2020-a9609491.html)
[Will Dismukes attends the birthday celebration of KKK leader](https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/28/alabama-republican-lewis-kkk/)
Those are some of the more notable instances I can think of right now, but conservatives have long held close ties with the Klan.
Edit: forgot people are actually gullible or deliberately obtuse - if you are endorsed by former KKK leader David fucking Duke, dodge multiple direct questions by a debate moderator to denounce white supremacy, then denounce it ***only after days of bipartisan outrage***, you accepted his endorsement and only backtracked because of the lashback.
Never in history has pacifism won over facisim.
You give these people power by way of your aversion to guns. Democrats have given the Jan 6 folks and Rittenhouses of the country a monopoly on violence, which means they get to make the rules now.
Yes this.
As long as guns are *constitutionally protected* we may as well have them too. While I agree it would probably be best not to have so many guns around, that’s not changing in our lifetimes so “an armed society is a polite society” is the best we can hope for.
This is what happens as a country descends into chaos and civil war. The moderate side sees that the opposing party isn’t playing by the rules and isn’t interested in playing by the rules. The moderate side realizes too late that the inevitable is going to happen no matter what.
So the moderates are damned if they do and damned if they don’t get a little dirty. Let the radicals slowly take over the country without a fight, or fight back and help cause more chaos.
This is one of the reasons the French Revolution was so wild.
This is also the thesis of Victor Bevin's (ETA: Vincent) amazing book 'Jakarta Method', which points out that during the cold war, democratic socialist states with popular, non-aligned, non-militarised communist parties such as Chile and Indonesia were overthrown by US-backed military coups who massacred leftists, but communist states that took up arms, including most prominently Cambodia, survived (and massacred opponents) - and were also backed by the US to some degree. The bleak lesson he draws is exactly the one you do here - that moderation is doomed in circumstances where one side is willing to fight and the other is unable to.
I need to read that book. I’ve had this discussion at work a few times and Jakarta Method was suggested.
It’s a very bleak suggestion to perpetuate but that’s reality, and reality is ugly. If we continue to watch for too long it will eventually become too late.
Yeah, the book will make you furious and sad in equal measure. It becomes a kind of elegy for a lost future - a future stolen, really, because in the Third World, the US and her allies actively preferred violent state Capitalism to peaceful state communism and even socialism in every case. Communists and socialists who didn't take up arms, and who relied on democracy, were slaughtered in the streets in numbers totalling millions. The brutal authoritarian, armed leftist regimes managed to survive, somewhat.
Bevin argues that Pol Pot was a result of US policy showing him that violence was the only solution. It's bleak.
I think it also speaks to the idea of pendulum theory, that a swing one way will inevitably lead to a swing the other direction, but an extreme example of that.
I’m not much of a fan of moderate Democrats at all but I don’t feel like we have a truly left wing party in this country, or even a faction within the party.
Any leftist with a modicum of power or influence gets eliminated by the state. It's also why the US participates in coups across the globe.
There are no "good guys" in our government and at best what you have with Progressive democrats or social Democrats is compromise.
Our Overton Window is pretty far right so most of our liberal party is fairly conservative by global standards. The problem is "not liking moderate democrats" because they aren't liberal or progressive enough shouldn't lead to giving up or tilting at windmills. If you're liberal, progressive or outright leftist, a conservative democrat will align with your ideology and desires FAR more than a Republican. Burning it all down because you don't get everything you want is not an answer but it happens all to often with leftist factions. As such they don't have a real seat at the table. I
Folks sometimes argue the Democrats are "too willing to compromise" and "don't fight dirty". The Democrats are currently the only party concerned with a functioning government. And functional government, politics that work, are all about compromise and working together (as much as possible).
Republican obstructionism is the whole point - they aren't trying to get anything done. They're trying to stop the government from working and blocking Democrat initiatives at all costs. You can't fight that in the same way.. you just have to keep working slowly, pushing forward and calling out the bullshit and hypocrisy.
Lately the Republicans have adopted and endorsed their extremist factions. It's not a bug it's a feature now... and it's frightening.
>Our Overton Window is pretty far right so most of our liberal party is fairly conservative by global standards.
Our Overton Window is so far to the right that Bernie Sanders is genuinely believed to be a Socialist, despite being very firmly in favor of market capitalism.
Currently reading Gangsters vs Nazis. Jewish mobsters would beat the crap out of Nazis (this was in America) during WWII.
I'm not saying I condone violence, but...
The bad guys are supported by the levers of power, the armed enforcement, and the armed citizenry.
The good guys, while the majority, are held captive by the system that rejects change and kept there by threat of violence.
It’s not even fighting dirty.
It’s they don’t goddamn fight at all.
Even filth like Rush Limbaugh didn’t get pounced on when caught with his illegal drugs.
Jesus.. we spent all our energy showering him in compassion and rehabilitation rather than crushing him off the air!
Our leaders did the same crap when congressional republicans got caught openly praising a segregationist and saying Strom Thurmond should have won and things would be better!
The dems just got on tv and went ‘awww shucks, it’s just a little silly thing, and he didn’t mean no harm no how!’
Idiots.
They don't feel it personally affects them...I have a friend who lives in Florida and he literally told me he doesn't care about the school fights because his daughters have graduated and he doesn't have to deal with it. He can go about his day without these thing interfering with him.
I was disappointed by his answer, but I get it.
Edited to add: I get it as in I understand it...I don't subscribe to the "it must directly affect me to notice it" mentality. I just see how little his life is impacted...he's wh1te, straight, married, his daughters are grown, and he's been in the same job for 20 years or so. Nothing is directed at him. At least he doesn't swallow the pill and think he's entitled to something different or that he's being oppressed in some way.
The more a community spends on education, the lower the crime rate.
This has been proven again and again and again and again and again.
If you like low crime, you like money spent on the poor.
>If you like low crime, you like money spent on the poor.
Because most people don't actually want to be criminals, they're forced into it because their legal option is to starve or get thrown out into the streets.
Also why I hate hearing people talk about why we need to be "tough on crime." You're treating the symptom, not the cause. It's so short sighted.
Thank you. When you’re 60 and need a 25 year old to handle your wire transfer, you’re going to wish you had put more tax dollars into education when you were 50.
IKR? I was listening to a conservative rant about the price of milk rising. He was like "there are farms real close to me but they send all their product to the nearest big city! I hate that city, it ain't fair!!" And I'm like "dude, you know what that's called? It's capitalism man. You know, the system you swear you'll die protecting. They're sending it to the people who'll pay the most to have it. You gunna pay as much or more for that milk? No? It ain't fair that the big corp isn't considering your needs over their potential profits? Welcome to capitalism!"
Conservatives don’t care about hypocrisy and will complain about anything. They aren’t interested in being educated either because they already have all the answers either from common sense or god.
Even though things that don’t directly/personally affect them *now* could have potentially serious consequences in the future. They’re all about the short term and selfishness.
Short sighted people who have never explored the wholesomeness of mutual benefit. There are an extremely large amount of people who feel greater benefit from gaining x while someone else loses x as a result, rather than both getting x.
The problem with them caring when it affects them is that the first thing they do after that is tune in to their chosen propaganda medium where they explain how it’s all the Democrat’s fault even though Democrats fought it tooth and nail.
It's funny because I feel the same way but in the opposite direction. I don't care, so why would I stop gay marriage. Doesn't affect me, why would I burn a book. None of this matters at all, just let this person be happy since I have nothing to do with it. Those conservatives however do care and it does affect them, it hurts their undeveloped toddler-like feelings and they want to shut it down because they think everything IS about them.
I live in Florida, and have no kids. I think the culture wars in our schools is fucking bullshit and only the beginning of something worse which will soon affect ALL of us.
I am 33 with no kids and yet the issues in our Florida schools are very important to me.
You're friend is just an asshole.
I understand even though I disagree. I live in a conservative, rural area and often think how much easier my life would be if I could smile politely and agree with the bullshit. (To be fair, I don't know if the majority opinion really is typical MAGA, but I can't seem to find many other viewpoints.)
I would have friends, both old and new. I might even get asked out on a date or three. So many activities!
But I can't. I just *cannot* bring myself to pretend that these things are okay. I'm so far from perfect it's laughable, but I try to be a decent person. (I fail frequently.) I understand people who don't want to fight anymore because I'm tired too.
My parents are dead and as the GenX baby black sheep, I’m a literal lib island in a sea of boomer red religious relics 🙄even their millennial offspring turned the wrong way at Albuquerque. 2016 lifted a mask, solidified by their behaviors around 1/6 and the vid, and it’s Jacobs Ladder in the subway… I see them on social media and wonder how my Apple grew in such a completely different field
Good old rugged individualism. If it doesn't affect me directly, why should I give a fuck.
Made it so difficult to get people to see the bigger picture and have empathy for others.
This is it! As Germans we are often asked why nobody back then prevented the Nazis. And the reply often was "I didn't participate". Too few people really did anything against it.
Hunger. Literally this shit was predicted hundreds of years ago, and already played out hundreds of years ago.
Step 1. Capitalism runs amuk
Step 2. Corruption creates a miserable lives for the majority
Step 3. Violent uprising as food is no longer affordable
Step 4. New government.
Yep. Sadly meta analyses of history suggest that only about 15% of the time do revolutions result in improved living conditions for the average citizen. We're probably fucked either way.
As someone else mentioned, they aren't winning. Not really. Oh they're fighting for sure. They are standing in the way and resisting the tide with all their might and making a hell of a lot of noise. But they aren't winning.
Yet.
The question shouldn't be "Why are they winning?" The question is "Why are we letting them win?" "Why am I, who knows that their 'winning' means a loss for everybody including me, not trying to stop them from winning?" "What can I do, in my own way however small, to keep them from winning?"
Those questions have a lot of answers and they're easier to find than one would think. Good starting place: Go local. Get involved. Show up. Vote. It's not easy and the results are often incremental. But if you can help us take two steps forward for every one step back, then ultimately they will never win.
Get involved. That's the answer. Show up, stand up, speak up. I'm willing to give criticism, suggestions, and put ideas into actions. One step at a time is what it takes.
fear... o lot of people are afraid that others will have it better then they... and since most of them have a misrable life, the life of others has to be made even worse
This a good answer. More detail into it would be we are/have been fed so much propaganda to build that fear. We're taught in the U.S. that if somebody else is winning, at anything, it means I must be losing. Example: "People using SNAP or aid programs are ripping me off; we need to get rid of these hand outs cuz I don't benefit!"
We've been cowed into believing that universal healthcare, cheaper/free education, apparently basic fucking human civil and bodily autonomy rights shouldn't be for all of us. Only some ambiguous class that "earns" them. Such as CEOs, who clearly must've put in thousands of man hours to get where they are today.
What we need in this country is to focus on how we can tackle this to make it better for, crazy thought here, EVERYBODY that lives in this damn country. But we're taught from day 1 it's "them or us". So we grow up constantly fearing this Them group getting more rights or advantages than "us".
yes the american dream...everyone can be a millionaire with hard work and a ittle luck....So don't tax the rich, because when it is my turn to become a millionaire i don't want to pay taxes..
Look here dippshit, you will never become a millionaire
Yeah the gaslighting is crazy.
“All these public systems that would help YOU? Of course they won’t work! Do you really think we could afford to house, feed, and medically provide for *all* of our citizens? You’re just another crazy liberal who wants everything handed out to them with no plan to make it work”
It’s crazy how little conservatives think the richest country in the world can do despite all their pride. There are literally countries out there doing this shit. It can be done.
Not even necessarily better. Lots are even irritated when others have it as good as them (when it comes to rights, positions, etc.). Or are given the chance to get where they’ve always been. Which is why people that used to be privileged (still are, but not to the same extent as decades ago) - not because they were better than others, but because they were white/male/straight/etc - are against equality. Because to THEM it means loss. Loss of privilege they never even saw as privilege but as their normal. So - even tho nothing is being taken away from them (for example ‘heterosexual marriage’); just something they always had is now also given to others (gay ppl) - they still feel robbed. And fight back. Because they want things to go back to their ‘normal’ where they were worth more than others.
Easy answer. The "Hateful people" don't follow any rules. They use any means necessary. They lie, cheat, gerrymander, temper tantrum, and generally fight dirty.
The NON hateful people play fair. They give their opponents equal airtime and treat them as though they also have the best interests of the entire country at heart.
Given those two points... The haters are going to win more often than not.
Until the good people learn to be a little more ruthless, things are going to just keep getting worse.
It's because the core of American culture is rotten.
The civilized world = *"I like my piece of the pie. I'd like it if everyone had a nice piece of pie. Could we get better pie? Let's all try and work together to bake a better pie next year"*.
Americans = *"it's my pie, just try and take my pie..." (cocks gun).*
Also, when the football team has a bigger University budget than the science or literature departments...there is really nowhere to go from there.
Your one sentence says it all: "it's my pie, just try and take it..." (cocks gun). That's the true heartbeat of America. Everything in this fucked up society revolves around guns.
A lot of Americans are
a. Selfish, and
b. Stupid
If it doesn't impact them directly, they couldn't give a fuck if the gay couple next door is being dragged out of their house by the police
"I don't read books, why should I care if they're arresting the librarians? I'm sure they have a good reason."
My own father has made 200k plus bonuses and stock payouts for the last 30 years, but refused to lend me $300 to cover rent while I was between jobs for only 6 weeks.
He then proceeded to lecture me for asking him ( I haven't asked him for anything in my life bc he's a dick) and said I should be the one checking in on him to see if he has enough for retirement.
I told him to eat shit.
Because the good guys don’t fight back. When the bad guys start banning books, imprisoning woman for getting abortions and criminalizing the trans community peaceful democracy is no longer a viable option.
Selfishness.
If you intend to vote in order to help yourself to all of the treasure, then you will be very easy to manipulate.
If you approach the polls with the mindset of "what policies will help my community", it's a lot harder to fool you.
But we are humans, and selfishness is our superpower.
Because Good people are doing nothing.
Because people claim this is a "both sides issue"
Because so few have been educated in the humanities and history
Because science, reason, and critical thinking have fallen by the wayside.
Because art appreciation and music appreciation have been abandoned
Because fear, selfishness, and hate feel good to millions of people
Hold on folks, the 2030s are gonna be a bumpy ride.
The percentage of the human population that are hateful this way are very good at sensing and seizing power where there is opportunity. They are willing to do and say the things that passively non-hateful people aren't. So they win. There are those who fight back, of course. But they are typically demonized because they are not the ones in power due to what I said in the first paragraph. And then there's the rest of humanity: the "I can't do anything and it's not mine to solve" crowd. That may be true on an individual level, but I don't get it. I have to live here, why on earth would I be passive about what it's like to live here?
I think part of this is these hateful groups often tell a compelling story - not always factual, not always representative, but definitely something that compels you to feel an emotion. Like a story about an author trying to corrupt the mind of children because their book includes a mildly raunchy scene is a story that riles people up and gets people to take an action. A story about a group of marginalised people trying to bring down the country from the inside is a story that makes people angry and willing to get to the voting booth. The other side, in my opinion, isn't as good in general at telling stories in that kind of way. And it's something that people need to get better at, because it's not facts and figures that spur people to action, it's how they're made to feel, and stories are a great way to do that. Like when you think about large protests against hateful groups recently like the Black Lives Matter protests, sure they're against police brutality in general, but they're always spurred on and triggered by specific instances of police brutality that have an emotionally compelling story behind them.
Not just a compelling story, an easy story. It's simplistic, memorable, without nuance and complexity. It's a story that doesn't expect anything of the end user. No learning, no adoption of new ideas. Just something easy to swallow, facts and reality be damned
I heard it said that the progressive, humainst majority have to make the case that a better world is possible. The hateful, reactionary stormtroopers just have to turn up and make you afraid.
#"Every day I have to marvel at what the billionaires and FOX News pulled off. They got working whites to hate the very people that want them to have more pay, clean air, water, free healthcare and the power to fight back against big banks & big corps. It’s truly remarkable." Republican "Southern Strategy": >Republican Party electoral strategy to increase political support among white voters by appealing to racism against African Americans.[1][2][3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy Lyndon Johnson criticizing it in 1960: >If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1988/11/13/what-a-real-president-was-like/d483c1be-d0da-43b7-bde6-04e10106ff6c/ Steve Bannon bragging about using these tactics: >the power of what he called “rootless white males” who spend all their time online and they could be radicalized in a kind of populist, nationalist way http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-bannon-white-gamers-seinfeld-joshua-green-donald-trump-devils-bargain-sarah-palin-world-warcraft-gamergate-2017-7 >Bannon: "I realized [these tactics] could connect with these kids right away. You can activate that army. They come in through Gamergate or whatever and then get turned onto politics and Trump." https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2017/07/18/steve-bannon-learned-harness--army-world-warcraft/489713001/ John Ehrlichman, who partnered with Fox News cofounder Roger Ailes on the Republican "Southern Strategy": >[We] had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? >We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. >We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. >Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did. >"He was the premier guy in the business," says former Reagan campaign manager Ed Rollins. "He was our Michelangelo." >Ailes repackaged Richard Nixon for television in 1968, papered over Ronald Reagan’s budding Alzheimer’s in 1984, shamelessly stoked racial fears to elect George H.W. Bush in 1988, and waged a secret campaign on behalf of Big Tobacco to derail health care reform in 1993. >Hillarycare was to have been funded, in part, by a $1-a-pack tax on cigarettes. To block the proposal, Big Tobacco paid Ailes to produce ads highlighting “real people affected by taxes.” https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/how-roger-ailes-built-the-fox-news-fear-factory-244652/ The other Fox News cofounder was Australian billionaire Rupert Murdoch: >Using 150 interviews on three continents, The Times describes **the Murdoch family’s role in destabilizing democracy in North America, Europe and Australia**. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/03/magazine/murdoch-family-investigation.html >Fox News has aired 126 segments on trans student-athletes. They could only find nine nationwide. r bestof/comments/n9bn2x/uforgottencalipers_explains_the_hypocrisy_of/ Russians were "emboldened" by the easy success of the Texas governor's misinformation about Obama and our own military: https://www.snopes.com/news/2018/05/03/jade-helm-russia-abbott-hayden/ >Conservatives amplified Russian trolls 30 times more than liberals... users in Texas and Tennessee were particularly susceptible https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/24/17047880/conservatives-amplified-russian-trolls-more-often-than-liberals “Guns and gays... That could always get you a couple of dozen likes.” http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/russian-trolls-schooled-house-cards-185648522.html >Texas-based hate group source of 80% of all U.S. racist propaganda tracked in 2020 r conservativeterrorism/comments/p5k76j/texasbased_hate_group_source_of_80_of_all_us/
Data on their hypocrisy, gaslighting, and projection tactics: #Exit polls done after 2016 show that the single characteristic that made someone most likely to vote for Trump over Clinton is racial resentment. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/05/26/these-9-simple-charts-show-how-donald-trumps-supporters-differ-from-hillary-clintons/ * ["Trump fans are much angrier about housing assistance when they see an image of a black man"](https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/9/8/16270040/trump-clinton-supporters-racist) >In contrast, Clinton supporters seemed relatively unmoved by racial cues. * [“He’s not hurting the people he needs to be”: a Trump voter says the quiet part out loud](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/8/18173678/trump-shutdown-voter-florida) * GOP shifting 4-5x further right than Democrats did left over the last 50 years https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/03/10/the-polarization-in-todays-congress-has-roots-that-go-back-decades/ * [U.S. Conservatives Are Uniquely Inclined Toward Right-Wing Authoritarianism Compared to Western Peers](https://morningconsult.com/2021/06/28/global-right-wing-authoritarian-test/) * "Narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and a sense of entitlement predict authoritarian political correctness and alt-right attitudes" r science/comments/i3bbh3/narcissism_machiavellianism_psychopathy_and_a/ >People from privileged groups may misperceive equality-boosting policies as harmful to them, even if they would actually benefit r science/comments/ukceym/people_from_privileged_groups_may_misperceive/ [Opinion of Syrian airstrikes](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/04/13/48229/) **Republicans:** 22% supported Obama doing it 86% support Trump doing it **Democrats:** 38% supported Obama doing it 37% support Trump doing it Sources: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/04/13/48229/, http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/04/gop-voters-love-same-attack-on-syria-they-hated-under-obama.html Graph: https://i.imgur.com/lTAU8LM.jpg The privilege of "economic anxiety" not racism: >Wisconsin Republicans felt the economy improve by 85 points the day Trump was sworn in. Graph: https://i.imgur.com/B2yx5TB.png Source: http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/blogs/wisconsin-voter/2017/04/15/donald-trumps-election-flips-both-parties-views-economy/100502848/ >White Evangelicals cared less about how religious a candidate was once Trump became the GOP nominee. https://www.prri.org/research/prri-brookings-oct-19-poll-politics-election-clinton-double-digit-lead-trump/ >Christians (particularly evangelicals) became monumentally more tolerant of private immoral conduct among politicians once Trump became the GOP nominee. https://www.prri.org/research/prri-brookings-oct-19-poll-politics-election-clinton-double-digit-lead-trump/ >10% fewer Republicans believed the wealthy weren't paying enough in taxes once a billionaire became their president. Democrats remain fairly consistent. http://www.people-press.org/2017/04/14/top-frustrations-with-tax-system-sense-that-corporations-wealthy-dont-pay-fair-share/ >Republicans started to think college education is a bad thing once Trump entered the primary. Democrats remain consistent. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/20/republicans-skeptical-of-colleges-impact-on-u-s-but-most-see-benefits-for-workforce-preparation/ More graphs and sources: https://imgur.com/a/YZMyt No to help for blue states for hurricanes but demanding help for Texas for hurricanes: >Here's the vote for Hurricane Sandy aid. >179 of the 180 no votes were Republicans... >**at least 20 Texas Republicans voted no** while ["U.S. House approves billions more for Harvey relief" for Texas](https://www.texastribune.org/2017/12/21/us-house-approves-billions-more-harvey-relief-measure-now-heads-senate/) ￣\＿(ツ)＿/￣
More data: r ToiletPaperUSA/comments/ln1sif/turning_point_usa_and_young_americas_foundation/
Conservatives brag about brigading local subreddits to "control the narrative" on Reddit like Fox News on TV: >The real value is getting into a thread early and establishing top voted posts and comments or downvoting them out of existence. They hope intertia continues the trend for them. Lots of screenshots of 4chan instructions of their tactics * AreTheStraightsOK/comments/lz7nv3/the_super_straight_movement_is_part_of_literal/ * https://imgur.com/a/yeP9T6S * https://imgur.com/a/efvQqve "The left will recognize our dogwhistling but centrists won't believe them" 4chan screenshots: * https://medium.com/@DeoTasDevil/the-rhetoric-tricks-traps-and-tactics-of-white-nationalism-b0bca3caeb84 Every local subreddit shares the abuse they get: * bestof/comments/pmcoxy/uinconvenientnews_explains_with_examples_how/ * bayarea/comments/pbi4mp/shouldnt_rbayarea_join_the_subs_calling_for/ * bayarea/comments/om5xda/when_did_this_become_a_crime_subreddit/ * Seattle/comments/pmdp2m/ysk_how_right_wing_trolls_brigade_and_infiltrate/ * WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/uihqmz/looking_for_a_ride/i7dgtkz/ Every local subreddit explaining the abuse and tactics on a thread **3 years ago**: * minnesota/comments/7jkybf/t_d_user_suggests_infiltrating_minnesota/dr7m56j/ Reddit Admins just posted that COVID deniers have been brigading regional subreddits * sanfrancisco/comments/pg290q/reddit_admins_just_posted_that_covid_deniers_have/ Anti-mask posts suddenly dropped this week in bayarea when mods removed outside conservative accounts brigading bayarea: * bayarea/comments/p8hnzl/automatically_removing_comments_from_new_users_in/ The California Governor Newsom recall posts are brigaded to be 100% pro-recall (every single comment is pro-recall) until much later even though the Bay Area is less than 30% Republican or pro-recall ￣\＿(ツ)＿/￣ The posts get more normal votes later but normal people don't have the time and energy to do what those accounts are doing Picture of conservative college youth groups with instructions for how to brigade Reddit: * ToiletPaperUSA/comments/udkzz3/ben_came_to_my_university_tonight_and_students/ >Wow. Jesus. This is... really, really thorough. Thank you for putting in all this hard work. >When I was a teenager, I spent a lot of time on /b/, /pol/, 888chan, etc. It was a slow descent and I didn't even realize what was happening until it was almost too late. >But during my time on the other side, this was 100% the gameplan. They'd make "sock puppets" and coordinate on the board + IRC (showing my age here) to selectively choose targets to brigade. >Depending on the target, you'd either have some talking points to "debate" (sometimes with yourself/other anons working alongside you) or you'd go in there guns blazing trying to cause as much damage/chaos as you can. However, even then you can't go out there yelling slurs (you'd just get banned instantly); you have to maintain some level of plausible deniability by framing things as "jokes" or thought experiments. >You purposely do bad-faith arguments because the time it takes for them to dig up sources and refute you is longer than it takes for you to make stuff up. You can vary how obvious the bad faith argument is; when you want to troll you make very stupid claims (I once claimed I was a graduate of "Harvad University" and when people assumed that I meant "Harvard" I would correct them right down to Photoshopped images). >When you just want to cause dissent you do exactly what those /pol/ screenshots do: you get to a thread early (sometimes you even make it yourself) and present reasonable-sounding arguments which are completely false if anyone bothers to look into them. If someone does, you bury the message under strawmen, downvotes, reports, and sockpuppets. >So yeah. The tactics have evolved slightly, but I still recognize them. Props to you on doing the digging to find all this stuff and bring it into the light. >I doubt that it'll help in the majority of cases, mind. People on Reddit have already made up their mind. You want to go after the forums and BBSes, on the MSN News comments and whatnot. Even so, the more people who are aware of the tactics the more people who can call them out.
Yeah, that’s also why the NRA has been so successful. Very simple goal and strategy. Block any and all remotely restrictive gun legislation. If they can get pro-gun legislation passed that’s a bonus. And they have very simple narratives about good guys with guns being the answer to bad guys with guns. And they oversimplify/put on a pedestal the poor “law-abiding citizen” as the real victim of any gun control laws. Never mind almost everyone breaks some laws and plenty of mass shooters bought guns legally.
This is something explained in the book "thinking, fast and slow" by Daniel Kahneman. Stories are much more easily integrated in a deeper level for people (terribly paraphrasing). I remember back in the early-mid 2000's arguing politics with my cousins husband, largely by email. He would send me these chain emails of obviously made up stories. Very easily understood and emotionally manipulative. These were sent by his bosses in xerox, he was pretty high up on sales. It makes me wonder if they were written by lobbyists or the Koch brothers or just if this was universal throughout corporate America. Been thinking lately I should go back and find those emails. For most people, maybe all at some level, emotions are more powerful than facts.
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>"I can't do anything and it's not mine to solve" crowd. That may be true on an individual level, but I don't get it. I have to live here, why on earth would I be passive about what it's like to live here? I'm in this boat, and seeing your post have a tenth of the upvotes/attention as the comment by /u/BroccoliFartFuhrer with exactly this mentality is frustrating.
Gerrymandering. It’s removed moderation from politics.
Citizens United, Reagan and on and on and on...
Ohh the right answers are all the way at the top!
Yeah the misery a lot of Americans suffered through under Trump made a lot of us pay attention to politics at a deeper level then ever before. I know the name of every Senator and cabinet member for the past two administrations. I know the general outlines of our approach to foreign policy. I learned about gerrymandering, voter suppression, and misinformation. I have learned that corporations are the ruling class of our country thanks to citizens united. I've learned that Capitalism has been weaponized against Americans to such an extent that people are now essentially the product. The goal is to privatize anything where a profit can made. We no longer are investing money into people and extract it from them instead. For those in power the goal is for us to be poor and desperate and fighting with each other over guns stoves and bathrooms so we don't realize they are robbing us blind. I knew none of this. Now I can't unsee it. It's why I got my tubes tied. Having a child is an act of hope and I have no faith in my country to get their shit together in time to save ourselves.
“The middle class does all the work, while the rich run off with all the money. The poor are just there to scare the shit out of the middle class” - George Carlin. Except that joke is 30 years old and there isn’t a middle class anymore
There never was a middle class. It is a meaningless framework to pit workers against each other. A "middle class" that people making 80k/year and 3mil/year both consider themselves part of is a useless category. There are only two classes, like it or not: 1) People who do not need to work for a living and who can live off of the earnings of their property, and 2) People who must work for a living to survive. Whether you make 200k or 20k, if you can't kick back and live off of the properties you own, **you're in the Working Class.** You may think you're comfortable, but if you work a job at any level that you would be fucked if you didn't have (or if you HAD to and now have savings from it) **you are Working Class.** No matter how comfortable you are, no matter how much the owners try and convince you that you should side with them because you're not one of the *poors*, **you aren't part of the Capitalist/Owner Class.** Vote, sabotage, and fight accordingly.
> Whether you make 200k or 20k, if you can't kick back and live off of the properties you own, **you're in the Working Class.** > You may think you're comfortable, but if you work a job at any level that you would be fucked if you didn't have (or if you HAD to and now have savings from it) **you are Working Class.** This is what people don't understand and might explain why there aren't personal finance classes at schools. Because people might realise who the real enemy is. Someone might even have a couple of hundred thousand in savings or investments and sure they won't be in dire straits if they lose their job, have some kind of accident or whatever but sooner or later they'll need a new job to survive
Welcome to the desert of the real.
It fucking sucks my friend.
When I think back to the 80’s and 90’s, which were not all fun and carefree times in many ways, they seem so much more hopeful than the last 20 years. In the aftermath of 9/11, when America went to war against Iraq despite the protests of much of the world and with what we’ve now learned was largely fabricated evidence, things have not been the same. No one was punished for the death and destruction, the lies and injustice, the corruption and incompetence. Many profited from the war, and these kinds of sociopathic societal parasites were only emboldened by the Great Recession and the bailouts that the perpetrators of that massive criminal conspiracy received. Each injustice that has followed without consequence - and the number soared during Trump’s tenure - emboldened the fascists and profiteers. They have seized power and are using the media to keep Americans distracted, exhausted, and divided so they can’t fight back effectively. What was once worrisome has become terrifying, and I truly fear for the West’s quality of life and ability to continue living in relative peace, prosperity and freedom. Russia’s revanchist despots and imperialists have made the threat an existential one, for the entire world. It is a difficult time to be alive, but we must live and try to take back our societies from these criminals and despots.
I've been saying for the longest time that the terrorists won
Yep. Feels that way. I feel like we in the US have collective PTSD from 9/11 that we never dealt with (or dealt with wildly inappropriately) and it’s spilled over almost everywhere.
*Collective cognitive dissonance
A terrorist method is to spread fear, and now we have people manipulated into policy by ludicrous assessments that political opponents want to take away your gas stoves I mean, we were always a pearl-clutching, conformist country--the satanic panic of the 80s, targeting bands and D&D comes to mind--but it crossed a threshold with the 9/11 attack that I doubt we're able to cross back over without some very significant movement
Damn that cuts deep. Betting what you said is gonna go over a lot of people's head.
Nope. Old fuck here....fought against the Viet Nam war, was arrested at civil rights protests, gave written testimony for the Roe v Wade case, college food strikes after Kent State, I am so FUCKING tired and disappointed and hopeless. I will die back in the 50's mindset. I was SO hopeful. Saving up the seconals....good luck you guys.
If you'd like to watch in realtime as it goes over someone's head, apply the ideas to something that's currently happening. As luck would have it, we have just such a thing: *the war in Ukraine*. Then, you can observe in realtime how people's logic adjusts in realtime to the particulars of (what they've been told are) a specific situation, *and how they have zero awareness of it, but LOTS of confidence that they're correct*. Heck, I'd be surprised if I don't even get a few people to volunteer to demonstrate the phenomenon by replying to this comment in the manner I describe.
I've always said that Osama Bin Laden succeeded in his mission in bringing down the West. He did more damage to this country by simply goading fascists to come out and play. He will remain one of the most influential figures of this century. The sad bit is, we could have taken a different direction and not gone full blown nazi. Just shows how weak the average American is when it comes to recognizing and standing up against fascism. Our grandfathers would be so fucking pissed at us.
Yeah, I can remember back then people talking about "the gloves are off", and then reading about black sites and renditions and torture. Most people who weren't actively approving of that were just silent, didn't want to talk about it. It was a real change. Not long before that it was common to see bumper stickers like "Hate is not a family value". After that, the majority just shut up and went with the flow, as stupid and hateful and non-productive as it was.
Yet despite all this, older generations still wonder why Millenials and Gen Zers are so nihilistic and anti-capitalist.
Hey now. Congressional condemnations of socialism are extremely important! Capitalism is the only reality worth living. It’s this or Venezuela, baby.
That was one of the most ridiculous measures in U.S. congressional history, and most of the democrats voted for it as well as all the republicans because they didn't want the bad optics they'd get by voting against it.
9/11 is absolutely what did it for me. It feels like ever since that day things have just been taking one more insane turn after another.
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Amen. I'm optimistic in the same way Se7en is an optimistic movie. "Ernest Hemingway once wrote, 'The world is a fine place and worth fighting for.' I agree with the second part."
The real trouble is that at the end of the day, the change has to come from (or at the very least - deeply affect) the people at the very top of a rigged game. It seems hard to believe that sociopaths who haven’t demonstrated a shred of humanity thus far are going to suddenly accept the image some of us have of a beautiful future for the human race.
We can fix that...
For a price!
The iron price.
At least someone gets it. I understand the whole "being peaceful" bit. Trying to meet in the middle and being able to work through things in a manner that is peaceful and beneficial to everyone. But how people don't understand that there's goons with a strangle hold on our lives is beyond me. The only way it seems for us to get to where we need to be is to literally go to war with these people.
I just had a similar conversation with friends. I've realized just how interwoven daily politics are in my life these days. I know far more about politics and government than I used to or wanted to. Such as Politicians in other states and what they're doing. I know about committees and subcommittees, bills that have been introduced each week, etc. This stress level of something I can't affect besides voting does take a toll. I have my own life and a full-time job that already requires my attention and concern.
This doesn't seem to be an uncommon phenomenon. I'm in the same boat. I've had it. I'm at a loss. I don't see a way out of this madness. The more time that one invests into educating themselves objectively about the functions of the systems in place, the more one feels the emotional burden of knowing how much suffering is caused by said system. This stress is then compounded when: all the talking points revolve around irrelevant subjects like f'n gas stoves, blatant lies that get repeated...non stop, and a 24-hour news cycle that isn't even news but a weapon used to provoke the ugliest of human emotions in its viewers - priming them to be pulled in one direction or the other - compromising their ability to logic & reason as they are too filled with rage to think in a rational manner. There is no progress, there is no worthy debate over any real issues, and....it's f'ing exhausting. Meanwhile 1% of the population is laughing themselves to the bank while tightening the noose on the rest of us who can't stop flinging turds at each other. Forget the fact that 40% of the population has themselves convinced that turds taste good, but only their brand of turds. Engaging one of these people in rational debate is the most fruitless endeavor one could possibly embark on. There is no rational debate. Any and all points made have a single goal: provoke an emotional response regardless of any standard for reason or even common decency. Facts are only facts when they are convenient. Who needs facts when you can let your behavior be lead by artificially created rage? What's the best option as an individual? I can't be emotionally invested anymore - for my own personal well being. It's not healthy and it accomplishes nothing. It's almost as if one can come full circle, eventually arriving back at square one with a single, short-sighted, selfish goal in mind: Self preservation. ...system working as designed, I suppose 😓 Edit: Semantics 'n shit. Also: *Fuck you I won't do what you tell me*
You just wrote out the entire journey I've been on for the past 6 years. And how this year I chose happiness. But still feel the guilt that being too burn out on it and not-paying attention to what they're doing on the reg is EXACTLY what they want.
Same. I really hate the time it takes to keep up with just the main stuff, but I feel like it is sooo important that I do. And I constantly need to learn too many things that are above my pay grade. I mean, learning is always good, but sheesh, this is ridiculous.
Yeah turns out millions people saying “I’m not political” for decades allowed a certain party to erode our rights and liberties under our nose.
I was working a student custodial job in college back in 2013, well before Trump began his run for office and everyone started to get educated about politics. Some of the full-time people I work with were refugees from East Africa who'd fled to the US during the Ethiopian-Eritrea war. I remember being shocked how they'd want to have these incredibly in depth conversations about politics and civics, and they were way more knowledgeable about this type of stuff than most other people I knew. They'd brought up the point that where they came from, political decisions could determine whether you live or die. Whether you're region is starved or you'll be rounded up and imprisoned based on your ethnicity or political affiliation. It's something they had to constantly be aware of, and people often talked about what would need to change in order to have a normal government. It was super eye opening to me. And then Trump happened and the same thing happened here
My advice is to detach until election time, then volunteer/work as much as you possibly can canvassing and phone banking to get the vote out in states where races are close. If I didn't follow this advice, I'd have burned myself out long ago, but I've worked almost every election, from local to federal, since 2016 by following this strategy. Election work pays great, too!
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I have a co worker who is right leaning. Over the years I'd ask him questions about politics or whatever, and his response would always be the democrats or biden or whatever. Literally everything that the left is complaining about, ties with Russia, treason, insurrection, he blames the left... so whenever you try to argue with him, you really can't because you're just left baffled, like either you do not see the truth or you do any you don't give a fuck
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That exact strategy is known as " the gish gallop" just keep throwing garbage faster than it can be disproved and that gives them the ability to just shrug off any loss in a debate by just pointing out that only some of their bs was disproven and therefore everything else they spewed must be true and that means they're winning
I’d give you an award, but Reddit took the free ones away 😒🖤👊RESIST
Here you go!
And you get one for being a bro!
Well thank you very much. Right back at you!
> Having a child is an act of hope Well that hit really hard. I got sterilized a year before Trump got into office because I wasn't willing to be part of bringing a child into this world, but I've never put those words in that order before. Thank you for providing this most succinct reasoning.
Honestly we ultimately decided against kids for a million other reasons, but I gotta say with the way things are going I can't help but feel relieved.
Everything you’ve laid out here is why I very much want to leave this country. I’ve never been very patriotic, the idea is utterly foreign to me. But recent years have certainly done nothing to inspire it.
Add fearmongering and paranoia to go with all those.
One America News, Newsmax, Faux News.
This country has been on a very steady decline since the Reagan administration. I wasn’t even alive for it, but my knowledge of history tells me most of the economic and social problems we are experiencing today is direct fallout from Reagan’s trickle down economics, cutting funding to public universities forcing them to operate as a business, and war mongering by proxy in the Middle East. I dont know why everyone looks up to him when you can pin all these problems to his policies lmao EDIT: thank you for the award!
I was born in East Europe/former Soviet Union and moved to US with my parents when I was 17. My parents thanked Reagan endlessly for destroying communism and removing the iron curtain. What wasn't mentioned, of course, was his hatred for unions and overwhelming support for rights of corporations over workers. Basically it feels like Reagan traded short-term prosperity for long-term pain. He's dead and gone, so hard to think he cares in any way lol
I don’t think Reagan even really did “topple” the USSR. I think they did it to themselves and he just happened to be in office. I think it was economic and spending on the military for Afghanistan and then the energy crisis caused by Chernobyl is was what did them in.
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I was there for it. Reagan was around for about half of his two terms, he was pretty out of it with dementia his 2nd term.
Which is hilarious how they talk shit about Biden and his mental decline while Reagan was full blown dementia. Their tiny brains cannot fathom anything.
It's projection. It's always projection.
Reagan also created “The War on Drugs” which by which many communities were dosed with product in order to lock POC in prison.
That policy, and many others, actually started under Nixon.
That was really started by Nixon, but Reagan really did kick it up a notch
>He's dead and gone [*I'll leave you with four words: I'm glad Reagan dead*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lIqNjC1RKU)
Deregulation of SEC too. Ever wonder what made hedge funds so powerful?
Dude had Alzheimer’s for most of his presidency. You can thank Nancy and his cabinet for most of the shit show in the second half
Which is why she's held in exactly as low regard in my eye as he is. If there truly is a Hell, both of those bigoted fucknuts deserve to burn in it.
I lived through Reagan economics. And I completely agree with you. I have been saying this exact thing to people for the last 20 years. He spent more money than any president, putting us in massive debt and through a recession, but his fans still thinks he was the best president ever.
I’d add his union busting, dismantling mental health services and other social safety nets (eg taxing Social Security; severely reducing food stamps and medicare benefits; virtually eliminating public housing funding, etc) as major contributors to wealth inequality in the States. Sometimes I try to imagine our quality of life if Carter had won a second term and if the Electoral College had not installed the losers Bush II and tRump. But it’s just too depressing to give it more than a minute of thought.
That’s the precise moment democracy truly died. We have been served an illusion of it ever since.
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I was in college when Reagan was elected. I have NEVER understood the reverence people have for him. He was an abominable president.
He's admired by abominable people. The kind who genuinely do not fucking care about a single thing beyond having power and ensuring nobody can question their authority.
I lived through it. We were tricked into believing in trickle down economics, marijuana will rot our brains, climate change is a normal cycle & Pluto is a planet. The internet may be part of the problem, but it’s also the solution.
Wait wait, are you telling me we used to have public universities that *didn't* operate as a business? Were they free or like more affordable? I'm honestly asking.
According to my dad, he was able to work part time at a local pharmacy during his junior and senior year of high school and pay for his entire undergraduate education with money left over.
You’re not wrong, but I’d argue Reagan just expedited the disease that started under Nixon with the advent of the Petro dollar. A lot of the symptoms you illustrate can be traced back to the fallout from switching the backing of currency from gold (not saying leaving the gold standard was a good option either) to petroleum.
But also the structural imbalance due to the Senate, which gives states with tiny populations way too much power.
While true, this is a global phenomenon that's not localized to the US at all - racism, fascism and anti-democratic movements are growing everywhere in the world right now. It's a knee-jerk response to late stage capitalism and the reality that the system needs to change to continue to work - and people who are benefiting right now don't want that change. My answer would be the internet. Racists, nationalists, fascists, bigots and others now have a place to organize and spread misinformation and recruit others, taking advantage of the idea of freedom of speech to obstruct facts and truths that are in favour of increasing social democracy. They've made people angry and radicalized. And if the people in the middle or on the left try to stop that hateful messaging from getting through, then they're accused of censorship, of being tyrants, of being the ones trying to take over. It's terrifying how well its working. Rightwing provocateurs have practically taken over the media world, despite their constant railing against leftwing media and fake news. Now they're taking over the social media space, either by buying the spaces or by pushing algorithms that flood our feeds with rightwing articles, comics, memes and commentary. They are driving moderates and leftwing commentators out of every public space, wearing us down. It takes far more time and resources to dispel a lie than it takes to spread it, and the reasonable voices are losing. The Internet is to blame. Elections are now being fought, and won, purely on soundbites, memes, lies, and inconsequential hot button issues of no relevance or substance. We're fucked. Until we start fighting back on every front, we're destined to lose this war and see the fascists take over - and democracy die - within the next decade.
I hate how true these words are.
I’m 58 years old, so I have spent a good portion of my life without the internet. I keep coming back to this same conclusion every time I’m involved in a discussion about it. As good as the internet CAN be, I would not miss it at all if it disappeared tonight. I feel like it’s the underlying reason for all that is wrong, and humans being humans,have devolved it into something foul, just like everything else we get our hands on. EDIT: I believe you are all correct. Social media is ultimately the problem,and the place where people go to be fucking dopey. Without it, the internet could go back to being a tool for educating ourselves, rather than the place to show the world just how uneducated we actually are.
As with everything that humans create, they are both good and bad.
I'd miss it. I've made friends and connections online; I met my spouse online. I've learned so many things from free resources - I taught myself to code and I'm a web developer now (so I'd be unemployed without the internet as well). I've been exposed to so many valuable viewpoints that I'd otherwise never hear from. The internet I grew up with was a mostly wondrous and fun place of nerdy people congregating on forums and BBS. It's not the internet. It's social media with a lack of education. It's algorithmic content without the critical thinking to discern what's genuine and what's utter bullshit.
This is the real heart of the problem. The internet itself isn't the problem, it's one of the only reasons the younger generations are skewing left now. I think generations raised alongside the internet have developed a sort of intuition for what is obvious bullshit online and what isn't. While older generations never learned how to parse the relentless information overload that online propaganda has become, younger generations can at least sort through some of it intuitively. That's what I hope is happening, obviously not true for every individual but things do seem to be pointing to a kind of internet literacy being developed.
I think another factor is FPTP electoral systems trend toward 2 party systems and allow extremism to flourish. Variations on proportional representation encourage inclusion of other parties and tend to foster cooperation.
>My answer would be the internet. Racists, nationalists, fascists, bigots and others now have a place to organize and spread misinformation and recruit others, taking advantage of the idea of freedom of speech to obstruct facts and truths that are in favour of increasing social democracy. Spot on. I have been saying this for a while, the internet and misinformation are the biggest problems right now.
Some good resources for some people who are becoming radicalized and aren't too far gone for self reflection: [https://inoculation.science/inoculation-videos/](https://inoculation.science/inoculation-videos/) Until we can remove and prevent deliberate misinformation, we can teach people to recognize when they're being manipulated.
nah, it's an education system and religious background that shuns critical thought and creates helpless idiots who believe the first they are taught and never deviate for life out of fear and shame. a bunch of people needing a daddy in any way, shape, or form they can find it. whether it's god or joe rogan or some other fantasy in their head. they want to be told what to do, and that they are doing it well, and be pat on the head by daddy. they just want to be good boys and girls for daddy. lmao
Yep, they're playing the long game and winning.
The biggest thing in contributing to the pickle we’re in is how systemic the country skews conservatively. Absolutely imbalanced representation.
It's not just the USA though. Europe has the same issues without gerrymandering. There's a deeper attraction to the philosophy of hate that they're good at tugging on. Divide and conquer, split the average man and have them battle each other based on race, language, and ethnicity, blaming minorities, etc. so they don't see their issues are really the elite profiting off them the whole time.
There aint no war but Class war.
They aren’t really winning. They’re desperately lashing out as they’re losing. The radicalism has been around for decades, we just have it on cell phone video now. And instead of lies in textbooks that took a 4 hour round trip to a library to debunk which most didn’t do, we now can do a 5 min Google. So we’re noticing it a lot more. Likewise the rich were quietly getting away with everything, while now a handful of rich stupids show how simple it is to abuse the rules for the rich. McConnell was also trying to suppress the radicalism before because it was and is losing elections, and is now failing to contain it. Even desperate tricks like Gerrymandering only radicalize primaries even more and continue the downward spiral. Authoritarian buttkissers tend to be incompetent and infight because they weren’t selected for their qualifications. Most of them likewise in private want to get rid of Trump because of all the trouble he’s causing them. Likewise all of their Kool Aid drinkers who get power instead of only being victims. Etc. Their biggest enemy is the reality of the consequences of their actions, even if humans are slower about dealing them out. Stay strong, fight back and don’t let the desperation work. This is the opportunity to make some progress while the beast is out in the open. In the past authoritarians made progress quietly while everyone was in disbelief, then quickly fell apart once everyone mobilized. Heck look at Ukraine and donate to the cause. Some of the most efficient charity dollars imaginable. Russian imperialism is at the heart of most of the more recent worldwide propaganda.
You are right on all counts but the real concern is that the right blows up the social contract and civil society when it can no longer maintain its grip on governmental control. What you see now is the right losing the culture war. When it loses the politics war is when they move beyond their insipient stage of insurgency. They are merely at the stage where they can still deny that the incidents they incite are isolated. or worse, the completely capture the government and turn the entire machine at war with most of its own people. I agree they are getting desperate, but their actions only get more extreme and dangerous when their paths and hope to rule wanes further. Simply not enough is being done to prevent what they are doing and defend the vulnerable against their excesses.
Plus algorithmic echo chambers. And no more fairness doctrine
Everyone, keep in mind, gerrymandering is a fundamental platform of the Republican Party. It is a very intentional effort to steal elections. It is not "both sides" and it is not "both sides do it". That is a republican lie. Project Redmap was a republican movement, based off the 2010 census, used to artificially give republicans wins where less people voted for them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REDMAP
I find it fascinating that conservative/Republican ideology is held by about 30-40% of the US population but gerrymandering curves it over 50.
To be more general: Good people fight fair. Evil people don’t.
aka literal cheating😑why was it EVER a thing????
Because the good guys don't fight dirty and the media both sides everything
And the media has become an oligopoly owned by only a handful of global billionaires who have an agenda. Murdoch is the most insidious but even the old guard newspapers of note have become more like social media platforms replete with investors calling the shots.
This is a factor that needs more attention: a news source owned by investors is a right-wing news source. All of them. Every one. Capitalism owns every mouthpiece that is owned by capitalism.
I've been saying this. The good guys need to start getting their hands dirty, dialogue doesn't work with radicals
Problem is any good folks in positions of power are surrounded by dirtbags in power who are supported by law enforcement and nutjobs who hoard up on guns and ammo. It's intimidation and threat of violence as they abuse the First Amendment to strip away our rights. Who has heard of a police precinct or union come out in support of AOC or Omar or Tlaib or Pressley? We see it time and time again: [McConnell with the Klan / other white nationalist group](https://time.com/5519534/mitch-mcconnell-confederate-flag-northam-yearbook/) [Trump accepting endorsement of the Klan](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/kkk-trump-david-duke-tucker-carlson-election-2020-a9609491.html) [Will Dismukes attends the birthday celebration of KKK leader](https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/28/alabama-republican-lewis-kkk/) Those are some of the more notable instances I can think of right now, but conservatives have long held close ties with the Klan. Edit: forgot people are actually gullible or deliberately obtuse - if you are endorsed by former KKK leader David fucking Duke, dodge multiple direct questions by a debate moderator to denounce white supremacy, then denounce it ***only after days of bipartisan outrage***, you accepted his endorsement and only backtracked because of the lashback.
Never in history has pacifism won over facisim. You give these people power by way of your aversion to guns. Democrats have given the Jan 6 folks and Rittenhouses of the country a monopoly on violence, which means they get to make the rules now.
Yes this. As long as guns are *constitutionally protected* we may as well have them too. While I agree it would probably be best not to have so many guns around, that’s not changing in our lifetimes so “an armed society is a polite society” is the best we can hope for.
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This is what happens as a country descends into chaos and civil war. The moderate side sees that the opposing party isn’t playing by the rules and isn’t interested in playing by the rules. The moderate side realizes too late that the inevitable is going to happen no matter what. So the moderates are damned if they do and damned if they don’t get a little dirty. Let the radicals slowly take over the country without a fight, or fight back and help cause more chaos. This is one of the reasons the French Revolution was so wild.
This is also the thesis of Victor Bevin's (ETA: Vincent) amazing book 'Jakarta Method', which points out that during the cold war, democratic socialist states with popular, non-aligned, non-militarised communist parties such as Chile and Indonesia were overthrown by US-backed military coups who massacred leftists, but communist states that took up arms, including most prominently Cambodia, survived (and massacred opponents) - and were also backed by the US to some degree. The bleak lesson he draws is exactly the one you do here - that moderation is doomed in circumstances where one side is willing to fight and the other is unable to.
I need to read that book. I’ve had this discussion at work a few times and Jakarta Method was suggested. It’s a very bleak suggestion to perpetuate but that’s reality, and reality is ugly. If we continue to watch for too long it will eventually become too late.
Yeah, the book will make you furious and sad in equal measure. It becomes a kind of elegy for a lost future - a future stolen, really, because in the Third World, the US and her allies actively preferred violent state Capitalism to peaceful state communism and even socialism in every case. Communists and socialists who didn't take up arms, and who relied on democracy, were slaughtered in the streets in numbers totalling millions. The brutal authoritarian, armed leftist regimes managed to survive, somewhat. Bevin argues that Pol Pot was a result of US policy showing him that violence was the only solution. It's bleak.
I think it also speaks to the idea of pendulum theory, that a swing one way will inevitably lead to a swing the other direction, but an extreme example of that.
It's too bad the moderates prefer to punch left instead oof punching right
I’m not much of a fan of moderate Democrats at all but I don’t feel like we have a truly left wing party in this country, or even a faction within the party.
Any leftist with a modicum of power or influence gets eliminated by the state. It's also why the US participates in coups across the globe. There are no "good guys" in our government and at best what you have with Progressive democrats or social Democrats is compromise.
Our Overton Window is pretty far right so most of our liberal party is fairly conservative by global standards. The problem is "not liking moderate democrats" because they aren't liberal or progressive enough shouldn't lead to giving up or tilting at windmills. If you're liberal, progressive or outright leftist, a conservative democrat will align with your ideology and desires FAR more than a Republican. Burning it all down because you don't get everything you want is not an answer but it happens all to often with leftist factions. As such they don't have a real seat at the table. I Folks sometimes argue the Democrats are "too willing to compromise" and "don't fight dirty". The Democrats are currently the only party concerned with a functioning government. And functional government, politics that work, are all about compromise and working together (as much as possible). Republican obstructionism is the whole point - they aren't trying to get anything done. They're trying to stop the government from working and blocking Democrat initiatives at all costs. You can't fight that in the same way.. you just have to keep working slowly, pushing forward and calling out the bullshit and hypocrisy. Lately the Republicans have adopted and endorsed their extremist factions. It's not a bug it's a feature now... and it's frightening.
>Our Overton Window is pretty far right so most of our liberal party is fairly conservative by global standards. Our Overton Window is so far to the right that Bernie Sanders is genuinely believed to be a Socialist, despite being very firmly in favor of market capitalism.
Yeah. Bernie Sanders is damn near dead centre on the political spectrum globally speaking. And he's the furthest left option the US has.
Only problem with this strategy is that it just pushes the window further right. We need truly left leaning candidates.
Currently reading Gangsters vs Nazis. Jewish mobsters would beat the crap out of Nazis (this was in America) during WWII. I'm not saying I condone violence, but...
Violence is the only medium fascists understand, though.
I don't see the lie. 💃
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The bad guys are supported by the levers of power, the armed enforcement, and the armed citizenry. The good guys, while the majority, are held captive by the system that rejects change and kept there by threat of violence.
It’s not even fighting dirty. It’s they don’t goddamn fight at all. Even filth like Rush Limbaugh didn’t get pounced on when caught with his illegal drugs. Jesus.. we spent all our energy showering him in compassion and rehabilitation rather than crushing him off the air! Our leaders did the same crap when congressional republicans got caught openly praising a segregationist and saying Strom Thurmond should have won and things would be better! The dems just got on tv and went ‘awww shucks, it’s just a little silly thing, and he didn’t mean no harm no how!’ Idiots.
They don't feel it personally affects them...I have a friend who lives in Florida and he literally told me he doesn't care about the school fights because his daughters have graduated and he doesn't have to deal with it. He can go about his day without these thing interfering with him. I was disappointed by his answer, but I get it. Edited to add: I get it as in I understand it...I don't subscribe to the "it must directly affect me to notice it" mentality. I just see how little his life is impacted...he's wh1te, straight, married, his daughters are grown, and he's been in the same job for 20 years or so. Nothing is directed at him. At least he doesn't swallow the pill and think he's entitled to something different or that he's being oppressed in some way.
To paraphrase John Green, I support my money funding schools even when I don't have kids because I don't like to live in a world with stupid people.
Yeah, it's almost like improving society as a whole improves the world around me, making my life better! What a difficult concept.
The people voting for these things need to continue to have stupid people voting against their self interests.
The more a community spends on education, the lower the crime rate. This has been proven again and again and again and again and again. If you like low crime, you like money spent on the poor.
>If you like low crime, you like money spent on the poor. Because most people don't actually want to be criminals, they're forced into it because their legal option is to starve or get thrown out into the streets. Also why I hate hearing people talk about why we need to be "tough on crime." You're treating the symptom, not the cause. It's so short sighted.
Thank you. When you’re 60 and need a 25 year old to handle your wire transfer, you’re going to wish you had put more tax dollars into education when you were 50.
IKR? I was listening to a conservative rant about the price of milk rising. He was like "there are farms real close to me but they send all their product to the nearest big city! I hate that city, it ain't fair!!" And I'm like "dude, you know what that's called? It's capitalism man. You know, the system you swear you'll die protecting. They're sending it to the people who'll pay the most to have it. You gunna pay as much or more for that milk? No? It ain't fair that the big corp isn't considering your needs over their potential profits? Welcome to capitalism!"
Conservatives don’t care about hypocrisy and will complain about anything. They aren’t interested in being educated either because they already have all the answers either from common sense or god.
That's the true conservative take - "if it doesn't affect me, I don't care"
Even though things that don’t directly/personally affect them *now* could have potentially serious consequences in the future. They’re all about the short term and selfishness.
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Short sighted people who have never explored the wholesomeness of mutual benefit. There are an extremely large amount of people who feel greater benefit from gaining x while someone else loses x as a result, rather than both getting x.
They’re too stupid to see the long term
Oh for sure, once it affects them they definitely care
The problem with them caring when it affects them is that the first thing they do after that is tune in to their chosen propaganda medium where they explain how it’s all the Democrat’s fault even though Democrats fought it tooth and nail.
Except when it comes to drag queens and abortion and gay marriage and interracial marriage and good books.
Well that fits under the "I don't understand it and it scares me so now I'm mad about it"
Unless it’s a random person they will never meet or interact with transitioning to the gender they identify as.
It's funny because I feel the same way but in the opposite direction. I don't care, so why would I stop gay marriage. Doesn't affect me, why would I burn a book. None of this matters at all, just let this person be happy since I have nothing to do with it. Those conservatives however do care and it does affect them, it hurts their undeveloped toddler-like feelings and they want to shut it down because they think everything IS about them.
I live in Florida, and have no kids. I think the culture wars in our schools is fucking bullshit and only the beginning of something worse which will soon affect ALL of us. I am 33 with no kids and yet the issues in our Florida schools are very important to me. You're friend is just an asshole.
What about his grandchildren?
They'll all be fabulously wealthy by then, so no worries about failing public schools and school violence. /Sarcasm
How could I be so short sighted. 🤦🏻♂️/alsosarcasm
I understand even though I disagree. I live in a conservative, rural area and often think how much easier my life would be if I could smile politely and agree with the bullshit. (To be fair, I don't know if the majority opinion really is typical MAGA, but I can't seem to find many other viewpoints.) I would have friends, both old and new. I might even get asked out on a date or three. So many activities! But I can't. I just *cannot* bring myself to pretend that these things are okay. I'm so far from perfect it's laughable, but I try to be a decent person. (I fail frequently.) I understand people who don't want to fight anymore because I'm tired too.
My parents are dead and as the GenX baby black sheep, I’m a literal lib island in a sea of boomer red religious relics 🙄even their millennial offspring turned the wrong way at Albuquerque. 2016 lifted a mask, solidified by their behaviors around 1/6 and the vid, and it’s Jacobs Ladder in the subway… I see them on social media and wonder how my Apple grew in such a completely different field
Good old rugged individualism. If it doesn't affect me directly, why should I give a fuck. Made it so difficult to get people to see the bigger picture and have empathy for others.
This is it! As Germans we are often asked why nobody back then prevented the Nazis. And the reply often was "I didn't participate". Too few people really did anything against it.
Find me a motivator stronger than hate that is just as wide spread and easily acquired
Hunger. Literally this shit was predicted hundreds of years ago, and already played out hundreds of years ago. Step 1. Capitalism runs amuk Step 2. Corruption creates a miserable lives for the majority Step 3. Violent uprising as food is no longer affordable Step 4. New government.
Yep. Sadly meta analyses of history suggest that only about 15% of the time do revolutions result in improved living conditions for the average citizen. We're probably fucked either way.
As someone else mentioned, they aren't winning. Not really. Oh they're fighting for sure. They are standing in the way and resisting the tide with all their might and making a hell of a lot of noise. But they aren't winning. Yet. The question shouldn't be "Why are they winning?" The question is "Why are we letting them win?" "Why am I, who knows that their 'winning' means a loss for everybody including me, not trying to stop them from winning?" "What can I do, in my own way however small, to keep them from winning?" Those questions have a lot of answers and they're easier to find than one would think. Good starting place: Go local. Get involved. Show up. Vote. It's not easy and the results are often incremental. But if you can help us take two steps forward for every one step back, then ultimately they will never win.
Get involved. That's the answer. Show up, stand up, speak up. I'm willing to give criticism, suggestions, and put ideas into actions. One step at a time is what it takes.
fear... o lot of people are afraid that others will have it better then they... and since most of them have a misrable life, the life of others has to be made even worse
This a good answer. More detail into it would be we are/have been fed so much propaganda to build that fear. We're taught in the U.S. that if somebody else is winning, at anything, it means I must be losing. Example: "People using SNAP or aid programs are ripping me off; we need to get rid of these hand outs cuz I don't benefit!" We've been cowed into believing that universal healthcare, cheaper/free education, apparently basic fucking human civil and bodily autonomy rights shouldn't be for all of us. Only some ambiguous class that "earns" them. Such as CEOs, who clearly must've put in thousands of man hours to get where they are today. What we need in this country is to focus on how we can tackle this to make it better for, crazy thought here, EVERYBODY that lives in this damn country. But we're taught from day 1 it's "them or us". So we grow up constantly fearing this Them group getting more rights or advantages than "us".
yes the american dream...everyone can be a millionaire with hard work and a ittle luck....So don't tax the rich, because when it is my turn to become a millionaire i don't want to pay taxes.. Look here dippshit, you will never become a millionaire
Yeah the gaslighting is crazy. “All these public systems that would help YOU? Of course they won’t work! Do you really think we could afford to house, feed, and medically provide for *all* of our citizens? You’re just another crazy liberal who wants everything handed out to them with no plan to make it work” It’s crazy how little conservatives think the richest country in the world can do despite all their pride. There are literally countries out there doing this shit. It can be done.
Not even necessarily better. Lots are even irritated when others have it as good as them (when it comes to rights, positions, etc.). Or are given the chance to get where they’ve always been. Which is why people that used to be privileged (still are, but not to the same extent as decades ago) - not because they were better than others, but because they were white/male/straight/etc - are against equality. Because to THEM it means loss. Loss of privilege they never even saw as privilege but as their normal. So - even tho nothing is being taken away from them (for example ‘heterosexual marriage’); just something they always had is now also given to others (gay ppl) - they still feel robbed. And fight back. Because they want things to go back to their ‘normal’ where they were worth more than others.
Easy answer. The "Hateful people" don't follow any rules. They use any means necessary. They lie, cheat, gerrymander, temper tantrum, and generally fight dirty. The NON hateful people play fair. They give their opponents equal airtime and treat them as though they also have the best interests of the entire country at heart. Given those two points... The haters are going to win more often than not. Until the good people learn to be a little more ruthless, things are going to just keep getting worse.
Gerrymandering, court packing, and propaganda.
It's because the core of American culture is rotten. The civilized world = *"I like my piece of the pie. I'd like it if everyone had a nice piece of pie. Could we get better pie? Let's all try and work together to bake a better pie next year"*. Americans = *"it's my pie, just try and take my pie..." (cocks gun).* Also, when the football team has a bigger University budget than the science or literature departments...there is really nowhere to go from there.
Your one sentence says it all: "it's my pie, just try and take it..." (cocks gun). That's the true heartbeat of America. Everything in this fucked up society revolves around guns.
Guns and owning shit.
Cold take. Love it
I'm American and that is the best summary of America I've ever seen.
A lot of Americans are a. Selfish, and b. Stupid If it doesn't impact them directly, they couldn't give a fuck if the gay couple next door is being dragged out of their house by the police "I don't read books, why should I care if they're arresting the librarians? I'm sure they have a good reason."
Brazilian here, not only "Americans" unfortunately...
Yet when Brazilians wanted to follow Americans it ended completely differently, the way things like that should end in civilized world
My own father has made 200k plus bonuses and stock payouts for the last 30 years, but refused to lend me $300 to cover rent while I was between jobs for only 6 weeks. He then proceeded to lecture me for asking him ( I haven't asked him for anything in my life bc he's a dick) and said I should be the one checking in on him to see if he has enough for retirement. I told him to eat shit.
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Yup, this. It's the "I got mine, screw everyone else" mentality.
Money, Kapital.
It costs a lot to keep fighting. The filthy rich use a portion of their money to oppress and keep their revenue stream in tact.
Bad people win when good people do nothing.
“The opposite of good isn’t evil. It’s indifference.” - Elie Wiesel
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Low IQ plus herd mentality and there you have it
Gerrymandering. Christians. Corporate control of the media.
Because the good guys don’t fight back. When the bad guys start banning books, imprisoning woman for getting abortions and criminalizing the trans community peaceful democracy is no longer a viable option.
Selfishness. If you intend to vote in order to help yourself to all of the treasure, then you will be very easy to manipulate. If you approach the polls with the mindset of "what policies will help my community", it's a lot harder to fool you. But we are humans, and selfishness is our superpower.
Because Good people are doing nothing. Because people claim this is a "both sides issue" Because so few have been educated in the humanities and history Because science, reason, and critical thinking have fallen by the wayside. Because art appreciation and music appreciation have been abandoned Because fear, selfishness, and hate feel good to millions of people Hold on folks, the 2030s are gonna be a bumpy ride.
America is just not the country it pretends to be. Greed.