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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
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And you wonder why I’m pessimistic about the future of American democracy. In spite of everything, out of the people who bother to vote at least 40% will be voting for Donald Trump warts and all. To make matters worse, if not for the pandemic I’m fairly confident Trump would be winning. Even if Biden wins and Trump’s talk of contesting the election turn out to just be another case of him talking big, that divide isn’t going away.
Try as I might it genuinely hard to connect with that 40% as fellow human beings, much less comprehend how they came to their beliefs. I recognize that they clearly view me in the same way, but I have no idea how to mend that gap in a way that doesn’t involve throwing the groups under the bus who have fought so long and hard to have their own humanity recognized, and are still fighting to this day.
Edited by CaptainCapsase on Sep 30th 2020 at 12:30:31 PM
I mean, I can imagine and understand a number of reasons why they come to support people like Bolsonaro or Donald Trump, it's just that I don't find it makes me sympathetic to them or means I think validating them is an option, so the impasse still exists.
At the risk of doomsaying, I think it's fair to be concerned about how this will all work out longterm since the only real viable path forward is winning enough elections consistently that the political power of the GOP shrinks considerably and larger swathes of the public turn against them. Not exactly an easy prospect, but it's one of those bridges people have to cross when they come to it since there's enough to worry about with just getting trump removed in the first place.
Thiel is a Republican, and a particularly obnoxious one. It's always about projection...
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"You should always prioritize your own mental health. I can't look at this BS for very long either before i want to scream into the void.
Ultimately though, there are two dynamics absolutely critical in this:
The first is that these are the dying spasms of an obsolete party. It's quite telling they don't want to see PR or DC become a state because it'll never turn red. Or that they don't want refugees or immigrants because they'll never vote red. They've given up on conventional means. All the US needs to do is survive this storm. It'll suck for a while, but these ideologies are built to self-destruct. We then will probably see the conservative arm of the Dems split off and form a new GOP, which will be conservative in the non-insane way. Kinda like what happens in a normal democracy. But the GOP as it is now isn't built to last.
The second is that these ideologies in themselves are volatile, unstable and suicidal. It's where the danger lies, but we can also see the danger coming. It's mostly a matter of time of how many times Q will fail to predict anything. The danger lies in that they might try to force the end they envision, but this also tends to be fairly self-destructive. It's not an ideology capable of holding real power.
Ultimately, the thing you can do about this is not give up. A worldview based on science and facts is a coherent worldview. Insane alternative realities aren't. Endure, and you win by default. Fascists know they can't win, it's why their methods are so crude. It's why they love violence. it's why they try to silence others, to intimidate. But withstand that, and you will find that they were always a loud but minor group.
Edited by devak on Sep 30th 2020 at 6:38:33 PM
@Nord: That’s based on some Huckster starting up a young blood clinic based on some
tangentially related research that in no way suggested transfusions of “young blood” would be in any way beneficial. The supreme irony is that the latest evidence strongly points towards dilution of so called geronic factors in old blood as opposed to anything special in the blood of infants that would account for the physiological effects we observe in parabiosis experiments.
Given the caliber of people we’re discussing, I feel like this is more a straight up rebranding of the old Blood Libel myth.
Edited by CaptainCapsase on Sep 30th 2020 at 12:38:55 PM
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I remind you that the period from 1939 to 1944 was not exactly a "last gasp of a fading ideology". There's still plenty of room for this to get worse before the march of reason carries the day.
@ Redmess - First, I'm really sorry about my posts earlier. I should not have been so hostile.
But I also want to comment that you are right on about the frequency of conspiracy theories being antisemitic at their core. Or at least racist (i.e. Ancient Aliens). Incidentally, as I understand it, that's basically why Umberto Eco wrote The Prague Cemetery as a different take than his earlier Foucault's Pendulum, which is more about conspiracy theories being ridiculous.
But yeah, there's a fair amount of rhetoric going around from Trump and supporters about elites/Soros controlling protestors (including some recent things about Bernie Sanders being a puppet master over Biden). And it's pretty clearly IMO a slightly laundered version of racist rhetoric about Jews controlling Blacks (and/or whatever other races the speaker hates).
As far as Qanon goes, I hate the fact that Jeffrey Epstein is Jewish and is a pedophile, but it doesn't make the overall Qanon conspiracy theory any less antisemitic. And I really dislike how some online leftists seem to semi-ironically co-sign it (i.e. the highly popular slogan of "Epstein didn't kill himself"), presumably in part because they see any anti-elite rhetoric as good and because it tangentially involves the Clintons.
Edited by Hodor2 on Sep 30th 2020 at 11:43:18 AM
The humorous thing about the GOP is that in theory they could get many immigrants to vote for them if not for the whole white supremacy thing. A lot of immigrant groups like latinos and middle-eastern people have conservative social and economic values, especially the older ones who are more likely to vote anyway. So if they wanted they could theoretically build as new and more diverse coalition, but they also shot themselves in the foot since the right-wing media like fox kept appealing to white supremacy for so long they basically have to engage in it to keep their white voters. Meaning the non-white immigrants feel they have to vote democrat as a matter of principle.
Edited by Draghinazzo on Sep 30th 2020 at 1:45:22 PM
The most batshit insane "send them all back to their country for being worthless shits" rant i ever heard was from a guy whose parents were immigrants. When i pointed out the conflict of interest , he said that if he sucked that hard they should send him back too.
I also could not convince him that Theresa May sucked as prime minister for what she did. Cause he thought she sucked because she was a woman. Like, no other reason than "she's a woman so she's a bad PM".
Edited by devak on Sep 30th 2020 at 6:43:59 PM
Well, obviously Jewish people are not exempt from evil, just like any other religion or ethnicity. The damn Buddhists reminded me of that with their anti-Islam crusade.
It's interesting that you mention the "Biden is Sanders' puppet" theory. That suddenly puts Trump's constant confusion of Biden and Bernie in a very different light.
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Well, at least it is intellectually honest, I guess.
Edited by Redmess on Sep 30th 2020 at 6:50:05 PM
Hope shines brightest in the darkest times"I remind you that the period from 1939 to 1944 was not exactly a "last gasp of a fading ideology". There's still plenty of room for this to get worse before the march of reason carries the day."
Sorry, i was talking about the current Trump Party there.
And yes, i agree that it could get much worse before it could get better. But what's important is not that this is a triumphant return, but rather a dying grasp at straws.
No, he's right. Down to the whole "immigrants as LOTR" orcs thing.
If you ask me though, that is not even the most insane part. The insane part is how it is normalized especially by the "normal people". Here we have a standing President of one of the largest, most politically, economically, and militarily relevant nations in current history falling a centimeter short of needing a Nanny to ask him if he is fussy and wants a bottle (Of Diet Coke) as she wipes off his chin.
And his opponent stands there giving him well founded answers like it's ever worked before, convinced anyone on his party to not act like a raging fuckhead, or like it's not some sort of twisted reality show where the punchline is existential nihilism, and the moderator refuses to shut him the fuck up because it would be some sort of "rude". And millions of people support him unironically.
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothesIt's honestly quite disturbing how normalized antisemitic conspiracy theories have become. Like even down in Brazil, Bolsonaro's (horrible) campaign plan mentioned cultural marxism in universities as a problem. It's not that surprising given how racist and anti-intellectual a lot of his rhetoric was anyway, but it feels like a lot of these conspiracy theories like Q are spreading even outside of the US.
@Redmess -
Yeah. I was thinking of an add I remembered hearing about. Ah. it was a Trump ad
. And was also somewhat confusing that with a Qanon and Trump supporting candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene, who besides the Qanon stuff, has shared openly antisemitic and racist stuff
.
But yes, besides Bernie Sanders' popularity and Trump's desire to appeal to "Bernie or Bust" types, there's a reason why Trump says that Sanders is the one "controlling" Biden and not say AOC.
Edit -
Good point. That phrase "cultural marxism" has become pretty normalized in conservative circles, and it is pretty much just a nicer way of phrasing the "evil Jews controlling minorities" thing.
Edited by Hodor2 on Sep 30th 2020 at 11:56:58 AM
I don't think the anti-Semitism ever went away, really. It just went off the radar for a long while after WWII.
The interesting thing is that it seems to be resurging right as the last generation that actually remembers the war is starting to die out. This, if nothing else, shows the importance of living history, and keeping history alive.
I think it is pretty clear Trump wanted to have Bernie as an opponent, not Biden. Bernie is much easier for him to fight, at least.
Edited by Redmess on Sep 30th 2020 at 6:55:58 PM
Hope shines brightest in the darkest timesThe antisemitism thing will not go away because it is just part of something else. "The Jews" exist as the excuse to why the uneducated, poor, abused by the system masses are uneducated, poor and abused by the system: despite being white.
"The Jews" will exist so long as an entitled white guy exists, as "The Jews" are the "perfect" excuse to why they are not treated like royalty. It's white supremacy.
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes@devak: I would not be so sure that it is that last gasp. The right have set up quite the infrastructure to keep a steady flow of new right-wingers coming, and with a path open towards open authoritarian control seemingly available this so called "dying ideology" may see a true renewal.
Victory for American Fascists may be much closer then some would like to believe, while the left still have many more battles to fight even if they win here.
@Captain Capasese: I would be careful about dehumanizing your enemies in such a fashion. Not so much because it is morally or ethically bad (even though I would consider it so), but because it paints a false view of what a "normal human" is capable of and can keep us from understanding what they may or may not do.
Edited by Mio on Sep 30th 2020 at 1:03:35 PM

"I honestly can't tell any more what is real and what isn't from your posts, Devak, not because I don't believe you, but because it all sounds like insane ramblings to me. "
It makes no sense to me either. But it ultimately all moves to the same basic fascist worldview. White people good, things better when only white people, things must go back to white people. Some have the decency to ask god for the genocide, but groups like the Proud Boys are itching to give god a hand.
The thing is, despite all the talk of dog-whistles in the media, these groups aren't particularly hiding their views. It's really just loud screaming. Hell, i first heard the "dems open the floodgates to refugees who will perpetually vote dem" version in 2016 when Trump was still a crazy guy who could never be president. From a guy i watched morph into a trumpster in real-time.