[dude with glasses in a communist t-shirt, arguing] I’m the only leftist here, your opinions are TRASH

[dude holding a theory book on smug, arguing] Read theory you losers, you’re all WRONG

[dude in an anarchist hoodie, arguing] Nuh-uh, I’m the only leftist here, you’re SHITLIBS

[the three dudes are now caught in a cartoon fight, glasses gone flying, punches everywhere, while a firing squad of nazis are targeting them with rifles]

[a confused nazi asks] Why… why are they still arguing?

https://thebad.website/comic/infighting

  • inbeesee@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    15 hours ago

    I feel like the nazis should be congratulating themselves on sowing discord, distracting those that could resist with bullshit

  • Zenjal@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    15
    ·
    22 hours ago

    People, people, people, we can kill each other AFTER the fascist are gone, please and thank you.

  • ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    8
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 day ago

    This thread keeps popping up and it just clicked and I had to ask:

    Is the guy in the red shirt supposed to be Vaush?

    • Bad@jlai.luOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 day ago

      It’s the factory preset look for these pseudo-tankies that show up in my local activism group every now and then.

      Always the big earring, unkempt beard, this specific shape of glasses, and the cheap aliexpress t-shirt with a political message on it.

      Not my fault Vaush stole the look!

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        10
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        23 hours ago

        pseudo-tankies

        I’m not even sure whether this is supposed to be an insult anymore. Is a “tankie” better or worse than a “fake tankie”?

        In a thread complaining about leftist infighting, there’s a special irony in liberals singing out a leftist who is simultaneously too far left and not far left enough.

        • Bad@jlai.luOP
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          11
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          23 hours ago

          It’s a specific type of leftist we have in my country, french communists are a… special breed, let’s say.

          In the 1980s our communist party bulldozed a migrant worker dormitory because they hated migrants that much. Red MAGA or something. The party recovered from that era, but french communists are still chauvinistic, xenophobic, and strangely not that much into anti-imperialism (which is meant to be the redeeming quality of tankies). They do however share with tankies the traits of applying “class first” logic to a lot of conversations, which makes them deathly allergic to intersectionality, and being terminally online and way into infighting. Thus they usually end up booted from actual activist groups, since they tend to hold us back and prevent us from actually getting shit done in the streets.

          Hence me calling them pseudo-tankies because it’s hard to label them. We just call them tankies here: they’re members of a party that supported the crushing of the hungarian uprising with soviet tanks, and is ambiguous about tienanmen (no denying it happened but very alt-history about it), so pro-tanks they are.

          I have an easier time getting along with the average online american tankie than with our local communist party’s members.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            8
            ·
            edit-2
            22 hours ago

            The party recovered from that era, but french communists are still chauvinistic, xenophobic, and strangely not that much into anti-imperialism

            Yeah, that’s been a problem in the US as well, under “Patriotic Communism”. But it’s also largely artificial - a product of party decay to the point that fascists can sock puppet the leftist labels without actually pursuing leftist policy.

            Hence me calling them pseudo-tankies because it’s hard to label them.

            One problem that really does plague leftist organizing is state espionage. It has become almost a running joke that half your local DSA meeting is going to be NYPD and FBI informants fighting for front row seats.

            But that’s also more a legacy of Nixon/Reagan Era COINTELPRO, with the modern state security forces scrambling to invent incidents to thwart from whole cloth.

            What I see labeled “Tankie” in the modern moment is anyone championing AES. For some reason, the greatest betrayal of any kind of revolution is… winning? So every socialist politician from Fidel Castro to Hugo Soto-Martínez is doing authoritarian stateism by being inside the halls of power, rather than outside waving a paper placard.

            I have an easier time getting along with the average online american tankie than with our local communist party’s members

            That’s a shame.

  • abbotsbury@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    53
    ·
    2 days ago

    The only thing that matters is policy, I’ll work with anyone as long as it’s toward an egalitarian society with wealth redistribution.

    Labels are nice for classifying, but not for executing. I don’t care if you identify as leftist, or liberal, or progressive; I care if you support good policies.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      4
      ·
      edit-2
      23 hours ago

      I’ll work with anyone as long as it’s toward an egalitarian society with wealth redistribution.

      Okay, but here me out? What if we just privatize the mechanism of wealth redistribution? Also we’re going to be spending a bunch of money on foreign wars, but don’t worry - this time the people were fighting are ontologically evil, we promise. Yes, we will have to make deep cuts to social services in order to pay for the war (while still running enormous deficits because haha, psych, deficits don’t matter), but it will be vital to get the Moderate Conservative on board with our program.

      Also, we control every branch of government, but we still need to compromise with fascists in the opposition.

      Okay, why are you leaving? You’re clearly not serious about progressive reforms.

      And STOP SAYING NICE THINGS AND CHINA! This is a red line we will not tolerate!

      You know what? You’re not serious. We’re forming a coalition with Liz Cheney. See you in the losers bracket next year.

      You’re the reason we lost control of the government.

      Okay, now stop voting for a popular leftist mayor, or we’ll burn this whole party down.

    • TheCleric@lemmy.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      1 day ago

      Yeah, but the question ultimately lies in how many bad and straight up harmful policies are worth the small step toward an egalitarian society? Where does it become ignoble to vote for one policy, when there are ultimately many more harmful ones outweighing the positive? Because it’s kinda rare that we get to vote on policy. We vote for people, with the vague promise of policy ideas that face an uphill battle and watering down— not to mention the straight up bastardization of those good policies, turning them into terrible ones.

      I wish it were so black and white as us getting to vote on policy. The policymakers surely seem to be unable.

  • drunkpostdisaster@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    14 hours ago

    The nice thing about the two party system is that there is no one else to vote for. Its how we got here. But at least we will have a chance of putting someone who has an idea how to run a country in charge

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      7 hours ago

      You should try the every time somebody gets unhappy they splinter off and form their own party political system. It essentially amounts to the two-party system in any case but provides more entertainment.

      • squaresinger@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        7 hours ago

        Such an american comment. So indoctrinated into the two-party system that it’s impossible to even imagine anything else.

        Have you heard of the concept of coalitions?

        • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          5 hours ago

          Americans informally create coalitions. That’s why you hear the term “caucus” a lot more often, like Bernie Sanders “caucusing” with Democrats. Many libertarians may not like Trump and the fascist Republicans, but they still caucus together. The problem with caucusing with Democratic party is that they sideline the left, especially Bernie Sanders, in favour of more corporate friendly candidates. As for the Republican party, well the right always act right and value group cohesion and appeasing the rich more, even if they become fascist.

          Caucusing is hardly working and here is the hard to swallow pill for Americans: organise grassroots campaigns and plant actual progressives into primaries. Americans used to be good at doing that. That’s how they got the Roosevelts, ended the first Gilded Age, and third party candidates being elected more. The duopoly system became entrenched sometime after the early 1900’s, probably when Theodore Roosevelt ran third party and split the vote of progressives, which handed the presidency to the racist Woodrow Wilson.

          • squaresinger@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            4 hours ago

            Caucausing isn’t really comparable to coalitions in my opinion, because all the formalisms are missing.

            Bernie Sanders has no actual power within the party, no matter how many people voted Democrats because of him.

            Compare the situation to an actual multi-party system with coalitions. Sanders would have his own party and there would be 1-3 other parties that are currently part of the Democratic party. Each of these parties would collect separate vote shares which would lead to some of these parties being larger and others smaller. Voters would have to choice to express which exact political direction they prefer instead of just having a binary choice.

            After the election, coalitions would be formed. These coalitions wouldn’t have to be along the current party lines, but e.g. moderate republicans and moderate democrats could form a coalition with eachother. This way, coalition-based multi-party systems tend towards moderate compromises, while two-party systems tend towards extremism.

            In a multi-party system centrists represent reason and compromise, whereas in a two-party system they represent boring blandness.

            In a coalition, each of the coalition partners hold power, because everyone of them can end the coalition. This means, more compromise is necessary and someone like Sanders cannot just be ignored for decades.

  • ChicoSuave@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    81
    ·
    edit-2
    2 days ago

    It’s why ranked choice is the only sane voting approach. First past the post heavily favors right wing authoritarians.

    • azertyfun@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      edit-2
      16 hours ago

      Ranked-choice voting is a decent choice for uninominal elections.

      Proportional elections are a popular alternative, and they are arguably fairer than even RCV because they are not susceptible to gerrymandering or votes otherwise being weighted by geography (i.e. your vote still matters just as much as anyone’s if you live in Redneckville, Mississippi). They do have other downsides though.

      Unfortunately here in Belgium we do proportional voting and the Prime Minister is nonetheless a far-right separatist in charge of a right-wing coalition so, uh, maybe FPTP is not the only thing that stands between the citizenry and a communist utopia lol

    • Bad@jlai.luOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      35
      ·
      2 days ago

      Hell yea I would love to vote for the people I actually want to vote for

      • SLVRDRGN@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        7
        ·
        13 hours ago

        This is why far “left” and “right” are itself misguided labels. It’s more like far opposite on the other end where they meet.

        • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          2 hours ago

          For almost all of human history, the current center of the the western Overton window would have been considered far, far left. Does that mean that monarchism and feudalism is the true center, and liberalism is actually the same as being to the far right of monarchism?

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          8
          ·
          4 hours ago

          Horsehoe theory is misguided itself, it was pitched purely to distance liberalism from fascism when historically they are linked, and to demonize those who support collectivization over privatization. Read Blackshirts and Reds.

      • ameancow@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        23
        arrow-down
        12
        ·
        edit-2
        13 hours ago

        “My own entitlement and vindictive emotional state is far more important than broad policy measures to make the best outcomes for the most people.” - Tankies 🤝 Nazis

        edit: I will forever smirk that over a third of the people who read this felt “Well they don’t understand that MY emotions are special, the unrealistic things I want are more important than any of those other things! How dare they equate my feelings with those of nazis, those creatures weren’t even human, unlike me!”

  • kattfisk@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    51
    arrow-down
    8
    ·
    2 days ago

    The idea that all “leftists” should just work together is stupid.

    Leninism, Anarcho-primitivism and Social democracy (for example) are not different approaches to “leftism” that ultimately want the same things; they are completely separate ideologies that naturally come into conflict. The people who follow them disagree with each other because they want and value completely different things. If they were to put aside their differences there would be nothing left.

    That doesn’t mean arguing on the internet about ideology is meaningful, or that there can’t be common goals or enemies, just that you should give up the idea that all “leftists” are somehow natural allies, because it doesn’t make any sense.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      22 hours ago

      Leninism, Anarcho-primitivism and Social democracy (for example) are not different approaches to “leftism” that ultimately want the same things; they are completely separate ideologies that naturally come into conflict.

      In a fascist dictatorship, they have a lot more in common than opposition. What’s more, there’s ample room for compromise when members of these caucuses are able to communicate and collaborate freely.

      The biggest hurdle to Left Unity I consistently see is Liberal Wreckers stepping in to insist any one ascendant philosophy is unserious and counterproductive, right before they form a coalition with corporationists and fascists.

      you should give up the idea that all “leftists” are somehow natural allies

      There’s a material basis of alliance that stems from the communities that form the base of each faction.

      The idea that a Social Democrat like Lulu or Sheinbaum can’t form coalition with Anarcho-Prim native people in the rural Brazilian/Southern Mexican territories is demonstrably untrue.

      The idea that a Leninist like Castro or Mandela couldn’t lead a popular Socialist revolution in Cuba or South Africa is demonstrably untrue.

      The idea that Bookchin-style Eco-socialists can’t find allies in Xi’s China or among the Maoist factions of North India is demonstrably untrue.

      It takes work and it takes the right historical moment, but not everything has to end like the Spanish Civil War. Left Alliance isn’t some impossible dream.

      • kattfisk@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        6
        ·
        5 hours ago

        In a fascist dictatorship, they have a lot more in common than opposition.

        But if the dictatorship is a communist one they have more in common with the nazis! Or if your country is invaded by Russia you might find yourself fighting side by side with the Azov battalion.

        There are libertarians who genuinely care about free speech and might make useful allies on those issues.

        Just because someone is the enemy of your enemy, or an occasionally useful ally, doesn’t mean you want to unify with them.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          2 hours ago

          the dictatorship is a communist one

          A dictatorship of the proletariat and a dictatorship of the bourgeois are actually the same thing, you idiot, you imbecile.

    • Fjdybank@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      48
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      2 days ago

      I believe you are missing the forest for the trees. First, I acknowledge your examples are separate ideologies.

      That concept also applies to the right… social conservatives, right-libertarians, and neoliberal ideologies are equally separate. However, those practitioners have no qualms about banding together to suppress dissent (or until such time they are the only voices).

      Where the left leaning practitioners are unable to do so, they will be forever tyrannized by the banded majority.

      To put it more succinctly, the enemy of my enemy is my friend (when freedom is on the line).

      • Tiresia@slrpnk.net
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        42 minutes ago

        Where the left leaning practitioners are unable to do so, they will be forever tyrannized by the banded majority.

        You are assuming no ideological changes of opinion are possible or useful.

        People that vote right wing aren’t better off just because they voted that way. They’re not tyrants oppressing the left, they’re fellow citizens who get oppressed just as much. Their vote for the winning team doesn’t win them anything.

        The solution to right-wing banding isn’t left wing banding, it’s disbanding the right wing by showing its voters that they’re being had. And that takes a cohesive and functional alternative.

        Leftist “infighting” is healthy. It’s a process of discovering these alternatives, and it regularly churns out consensus issues such as consent-based queer rights, veganism, not funding genocide, and how the US government is now fascist.

        Over time these issues get normalized through leftist action until liberal centrists rewrite the histories as if they are responsible for producing them through liberal democracy.

        To put it more succinctly, the enemy of my enemy is my friend (when freedom is on the line).

        Daily reminder that the DNC does not acknowledge that the US government is now fascist. Uniting under a common front doesn’t mean we fight fascism together, it means we canvas for votes until we’re black bagged one by one.

        Ultimately it is important to vote in every election for a candidate that has a good chance of actually getting in to represent you, but that is just one day every year or two. Everything else should be dedicated to finding and testing these alternatives.

      • Soup@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        1 day ago

        It does help that the overarching theme of the right is centered around taking as much for yourself as possible and not caring about the collateral damage. The right is full of single-issue voters who might, say, not actually explicitly hate gay people but who also don’t give a shit about their rights and safety if it means they can keep their guns. The left, almost definitionally, needs to consider the complexity inherent in not being able to ignore the effects that any given policy might have on others and this means that there is so much more opportunity for conflict.

        You’re correct, of course, I’m just pointing out the difference such that it might help attack the issue from a better perspective.

        • SLVRDRGN@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          23 hours ago

          There’s the nuance the original post relies on ignoring. But it’s supposed to be a humorous joke-post anyway.

      • Quadhammer@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        11
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        2 days ago

        This. They act like they’re giving up fringe beliefs to keep the consensus more left. It’s isolating and alienating

  • alliswell33 @lemmy.sdf.org
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    121
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    2 days ago

    The antidote to infighting in my experience is organizing in ideologically diverse spaces. I’ve organized with liberals and all types of different leftists. It has left me with the perspective that all these people are good people that just want better for the world. It’s hard to get angry at them once you know them. Per usual the solution is to touch grass.

    • ameancow@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      20
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      2 days ago

      The antidote to infighting in my experience is organizing in ideologically diverse spaces.

      You are saying (correctly) that we need to organize in ways that appeal to more median voters, moderates, liberals and even conservatives around much broader initiatives that appeal to more populist ideas like wealth inequality, social programs to help poor neighborhoods, rebuilding infrastructure and creating more livable communities.

      But people who read this are going to translate it as:

      “They’re saying I should reach out to the Green/Primitivist Anarchists I banned from my discord server” or “Maybe we should include the Orthodox Marxist–Leninists even though we hate them”

      Or even worse: “HOW DARE HE SUGGEST I COMPROMISE WITH MY OPPRESSORS I WILL RIP THROATS OUT”

      We all have to live next to each other even if we get the best policy results and I think everyone on either side forgets this. This isn’t centerism, this is understanding that we have to rebuild together even if we don’t share objective realities, we have no choice in the matter. I think too many people get stuck in their algorithmic ideology bubbles and think “the revolution/race war is coming, and everything will be great after.”

      Nobody is coming. Nobody is going to make it better. There is no secret cabal or underground movement, there will be no socialist revolution. What we see is what we get and if we want it better, we need to get a LOT better about getting our shitty emotions under control, learning to socialize and using our energy wisely.

      • wia@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        22 hours ago

        Amazing posts! This is the correct approach. 99.9% of people want the same thing salvo’s all the time, it’s tiny issues that divide us and we’ve allowed that divide to grow and grow. People surround themselves with echo chambers and become more and more extreme hating each other and just making things worse.

        We have an enemy. We always have. The mega rich. The billionaires, the grifters, those taking advantage of other people. That’s who we need to go after.

    • RedPandaRaider@feddit.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      1 day ago

      The opposite is the case. What worked historically is organizing in an ideologically united platform.

      Vanguard parties won revolutions. Ideologically diverse big tent organizations have always eventually broken apart and none has brought a revolution thus far.

      And working with liberals has never been a good idea. They’re not a part of the left, they belong to a right wing ideology. That would be like saying we should work together with Nazis, because after all they have socialist in their name.

      • Eldritch@piefed.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        10
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        2 days ago

        The truth about many republicans, is that they want good things for society as well. However they are some of the most gullible, ignorant, uneducated, even miseducated people you will ever care to meet.

        It is possible to reach them. But it is one of the most Herculean tasks you will ever undertake. One of the hardest parts of it is to avoid triggering their programming. Starting small with basic concepts you can both agree on. And working from there.

        • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          8
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          2 days ago

          How do you find common ground when “wanting good things for society” to them means “enslaving all the n****** and killing all the f******”?

          • ameancow@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            11
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            2 days ago

            It’s shockingly easy to reach people of different political ideology if you view them as humans. Don’t interact with the people who have punisher tattoos and roll coal, but that’s not everyone right of center. Most conservatives are just ill-informed working people with no emotional intelligence or no capacity to care about larger problems than their next utility bill and resent progressive messaging because they’re struggling so hard.

            You can break through with class consciousness, almost every conservative I’ve talked to, and turned, started with educating them where their tax money goes, so get educated yourself how the tax code works, what the federal budget actually looks like, what your state’s work laws are and such, and teach them why they can’t afford food AND electricity some months.

            You also need to be social and hospitable, do not have the intention of changing people, have the intention of teaching ONE thing and stick to it. This is what Bernie did for decades.

            Edit: I will reemphasize for anyone reading down this far, PLEASE STOP TRYING TO CHANGE EVERYTHING. You’re not going to get Bubba and Sheila down in the trailer by the scrapyard to suddenly start promoting trans rights and advocating for a free Tibet. Just let it go, our focus on micro-problems and social issues that don’t impact the majority of people has been a deliberate sabotage of progressive movements to make people turn away. If we can turn people against Republican politics the rest falls in place and we get a better tomorrow, maybe not today but eventually and we have to start planting trees and stop expecting to have all our desires satisfied in our lifetimes.

          • Eldritch@piefed.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            2 days ago

            They think that “those people” must be controlled and enslaved even for their own good. They have been programmed and indoctrinate so deeply they actually believe that those people are the problem. That it wasn’t systems Etc that kept them disadvantaged and down. But somehow something in there very being

            Similar to those sneaky manipulative immigrants. Who are on the whole often far more abiding than your average American citizen. Somehow thinking they have forced employers to pay them less and take advantage of them just to hurt law abiding americans. It’s not logical, it’s honestly fucking insane. But a lot of it comes from a similar place. They are hurting too. Much like the rest of us. They just can’t see everyone else. It’s always about them. So the best way to start in on them. Is to point out how the exact same systems have victimized them. And how those they support have enabled and supported it.

            Don’t get me wrong there are absolutely many you are shitty people to their core. Whom you shouldn’t bother with. The plenty of them have no concept of class 4 or how much they are being manipulated by Elite bourgeoisie. They just want things to be better. But have no clue about what that would look like or how to go about it. Often times having been completely indoctrinated against it.

        • ameancow@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          7
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          2 days ago

          It is possible to reach them. But it is one of the most Herculean tasks you will ever undertake.

          If we’re talking about the stereotypical cartoon characters that you see hired by Jubilee to drive up hate and “engagement” then yes, they are real and they are almost impossible to exist around.

          But they’re not the majority of people who identify as “conservative” or to be more correct, they don’t tend to identify as anything. The large swath of America’s conservative movement has been just uninformed people who work all day and night and don’t even have time to watch the news and believe earnestly that one out of five people are now trans and they’re trying to shape public policy… because this is the reporting they see on their two hours of downtime they get on Sunday night while scrolling Facebook. These are the tens of millions of people who say “I didn’t know who to vote for, I would have voted for Bernie if he ran, but I picked Trump just to see if he would be better than Harris, at least he’s gonna do something about [problem X].”

          If you want to change people and reach hearts and minds, you become better at socializing, you make people like you, then you introduce actual progressive politics to them slowly and gently, starting with class-consciousness. Teach people where their tax money goes first and you will create Marx’s greatest warriors in a week.

          I was a conservative, I found my way on my own but I have reached many people, I have turned many people to community consciousness and equality and even equity, because I know what it really looks like, I understand that the stupid unwashed masses just need guideance and they fall so very fast.

          • Eldritch@piefed.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            2 days ago

            Oh God yes Jubilee and that surrounded bs. Though the recent one with Jordan Peterson was somewhat cathartic. Yeah they get some of the most toxic ones.

            Yep the majority of them are more like my brother-in-law or my SO. She at least realized back in February the mistake she made. Though I can understand it. As a military daughter who spent her life going from Base to Base as her father moved them around the world. Republican bullshit is sort of ingrained in her family. And she doesn’t actually engage with a lot of the news personally. Instead it gets filtered to her through family.

            Brother-in-law came from a privileged bougie family. They own a number of stores in the area. All the fancy tchotchkies as a child. Summers and other regular holidays throughout the year at the lake. Started out from 3rd and thought he made a home run. With a very similar story. Hereditary republicanism. No critical thinking. For One Shining Moment talking about how Democrats and Republicans both suck. On which we could agree. Only to inevitably return back to the Republican talking points. That situation is a whole other shit sandwich unfortunately though.

            • ameancow@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              5
              ·
              2 days ago

              Just as a tangent, Jubilee and ALL the related content-farmers on Youtube, Tiktok and other social media platforms are radically skewing our own perceptions as well as that of the right. They are the enemy of our better tomorrow.

              We’re all getting lost down ideological, algorithmic bubble-worlds but the worlds look so different it’s hard for us to identify that we’re also being manipulated.

              This is another area you can find common-ground with the right, and a way to get them to start realizing they’re being played and cucked by corporate elites. (Use that language.)

        • plyth@feddit.org
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 day ago

          But it is one of the most Herculean tasks you will ever undertake.

          So follow his lead. Divert a river and float the shit away or make them run in snow until they are tired.

      • yucandu@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        2 days ago

        You pretend, for a little while, then slowly introduce truth to them drip by drip. Like an undercover propaganda agent.

        Since that’s probably what they’re doing to us.

        • RedPandaRaider@feddit.org
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          edit-2
          1 day ago

          This strategy is dishonest though. We cannot use all the same methods of the far right and ruling class.

          There’s a conflict of interest between wanting people to think critically and then lying to them and only slowly letting them learn parts of a truth. In another example, you can’t have a democracy when all parties try to deceive the voters. That will damage the concept of democracy and the existing supposed democracy.

          There is also the danger of falling your own rhetoric and propaganda. Prime example of this is how fascism was created. Mussolini actively engaged in nationalist pro-war propaganda as he thought the continued war would lead to the conditions necessary for socialist revolution. He wasn’t wrong about that as then revolutions broke out in several successors / breakaways of the Russian Empire, in Germany and in Hungary. But eventually he fell to his own propaganda and created fascism.

        • AmbitiousProcess (they/them)@piefed.social
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          8
          ·
          2 days ago

          I’ve seen this type of tactic really well displayed in this video by SquidTips.

          This man talked to a fucking Proud Boy wearing a rainbow shirt that said in large letters “GAY” on it with a button that had the hammer and sickle in trans colors, mentioned his partner was trans, and got the guy to agree with him on the fact that he should be focusing on the class war rather than the culture war.

          Even Proud Boys and people on the far, far right still think that what they’re doing is good for society. You don’t have to convince them to “stop being evil, switch to being good” you just have to convince them that “this is a more effective method at making society better than what you currently believe is the best.”

          Will it work for everyone? Of course not. Some people are just going to be too far gone for you to reach, but there’s a lot more people than you might think that could be swayed, despite what the flood of media coverage of the extremes of society can make you believe.

          • greenskye@lemmy.zip
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            14
            ·
            2 days ago

            I’ve found that even if you do this, it doesn’t really alter their behavior. A moment of consensus is never going to be enough.

            People need to treat this kind of stuff like breaking someone from a drug addiction or helping someone lose weight. Without addressing the lifestyle factors that drove them down that path, you’ll never get them to actually change.

            That’s why the brainwashing is so terrifying. People can fall into it pretty quickly and then it can take years and years to deprogram them.

            • AmbitiousProcess (they/them)@piefed.social
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              2 days ago

              Fair enough, though I do think this can still help with any broader approach to changing their overall mentality.

              A moment of consensus on its own might not be enough to sway someone, but if they hear someone try and contradict what they had recently agreed on, it can then make them feel more cognitive dissonance, and potentially make them at the bare minimum just stop and think for a second.

              If someone else is later trying to sway them in some way, it’s going to be easier when that person says something, and they can think “I remember saying something similar” rather than “this is the opposite of what I already believe.”

              Plus, there’s also just the sort of “exposure therapy” factor to it, as well. A lot of people are radicalized to believe that the “opposing side” is pure, limitless evil, and that they hate you and want you dead, so just interacting with them can be enough to help slowly deradicalize them.

              For example, this Pew Research article states, regarding the likelihood of people to support trans people’s existence:

              “Though Republicans who know a trans person are more likely than Republicans who don’t to say gender can be different from sex assigned at birth, more than eight-in-ten in both groups (83% and 88%, respectively) say gender is determined by sex at birth. Meanwhile, there are large differences between Democrats who do and do not know a transgender person. A majority of Democrats who do know a trans person (72%) say someone can be a man or a woman even if that differs from their sex assigned at birth, while those who don’t know anyone who is transgender are about evenly split (48% say gender is determined by sex assigned at birth while 51% say it can be different).”

              But of course, that isn’t just limited to acceptance of people by gender. It also applies to race, social and economic status, recipients and non-recipients of welfare programs, people working in different industries, etc.

              Again, not saying it’s at all some magic universal way to change someone’s mind, or that on its own it’s necessarily a factor that can override their overarching condition, (hell, that quote from before shows that it had a much smaller impact on republicans than democrats even given the same exposure) but the more and more this happens, the stronger and stronger an effect it has overall, and I’d say that alone makes it worth doing.

              • greenskye@lemmy.zip
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                24 hours ago

                True. And I’d expect you’d need fewer of these moments for younger people than older ones. Every little bump might be the one that diverts someone to a different path. I know it hasn’t worked well on my older family members, but it was those kind of moments that helped my diverge from my religious upbringing when I was younger.

  • Psythik@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    arrow-down
    15
    ·
    edit-2
    11 hours ago

    If you’re throwing the word “liberals” around, you’re an authoritarian, which is no better than being a fascist.

    This is why I can’t stand Tankies and establishment Democrats. You can’t claim to be a champion of human rights, while simultaneously supporting the governments that egregiously violate peoples’ human rights. Complete and utter hypocrites.

    Edit: See what I mean? All of you suck.

    • orrk@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      8 hours ago

      idk man, looks to me like Liberals (the political ideology, not the US term for leftwing people) seems to side with the Nazis almost as a rule whenever the faschists come about

    • trxxruraxvr@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      9 hours ago

      Edit: See what I mean?

      No. Using the word for a any political group does not make you anything. Also, your comment is extremely US centric, (neo-)liberalism has done a lot of damage on the other side of the pool.

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      7 hours ago

      Perhaps you should broaden your horizons somewhat. Tankies are an international group whereas democrats only exist in the US, so you can’t really compare the two. For one thing, they have different ultimate goals and motivations.

    • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      14 hours ago

      If you’re throwing the word “liberals” around, you’re an authoritarian, which is no better than being a fascist.

      Deeply fucking unserious person

  • Cyrus Draegur@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    12
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    1 day ago

    I don’t care what someone calls themselves as long as they oppose fascism and understand that the only place where Pedophiles are welcome is the inside of a wood chipper.

    • A Wild Mimic appears!@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      14 hours ago

      I can understand the emotional impulse, but i would change it to “active pedophiles”. They can’t really choose what arouses them, but they can choose not to act on those impulses - that is what counts. This distinction is important, because i would very much prefer if inactive pedophiles (who probably beat themselves up constantly, leading to emotional instability, depression and therefore a higher risk of becoming active) had easy access to ressources to help them stay inactive like therapy or the equivalent to Narcotics Anonymous.

  • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    11
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    2 days ago

    Yeah, pretty much this.

    Going over the comments I already see boat loads of people completely missing the point where right wing extremism is taking hold thanks in part due to the constant bickering.