I have a close friend that I’ve known 20 years who became obsessed with right-wing politics. even though I’m liberal, I don’t make it my entire personality and life. But anyway… I was talking to him this morning casually like friends do.
Me: “Hey man. Do you have off today for MLK day?” Friend: “No, I have to work today.” Me: “Damn, sorry to hear. I have off today since it’s a company holiday.” Friend: “Yeah, I work for a living. Guess that’s the difference me and people who live in an ivory tower.” Me: “Uhh I work for a living too. Idk why you’re acting like I don’t?” Friend: “I didn’t mean you specifically. But you’re off and I’m not so it shows that you get to relax at least. You should be able to handle the truth lol. There’s no shame in admitting that I’m a harder worker than everyone else. you shouldn’t be so sensitive”
Honestly, he’s not unique, either. I’ve met so many people who are conservative, obsessed with right-wing stuff, and they’re all like this. They act like they’re special and the whole world is lazy, “no one wants to work anymore” attitude.
If you’ve known him for 20 years he should respect you enough that you can tell him he’s being a cunt. Coming from you it should mean something, and maybe he’ll take a look at himself. I’m friends with some right wingers who are decent people but folks like that need to be called out.
?
“right wingers” or “decent people”
Choose one, because they are mutually exclusive.
You can still be charismatic, a good neighbor, someone who stands up for friends when things start getting rough, a caring person that worries about those around them, and still hold the most batshit insane political ideas. I happen to know multiple people like this.
People are complex, and plenty are good people who have been led to believe the most outlandish shit. They are gullible and don’t put enough thought into what they accept as truth. It is just as attractive to people on our side of the fence to paint everyone else with broad assumptions. It is the nature of Evil, because evil is ultimately a boring thing that we all do every day without thinking about it.
I think the difference is between our definitions of “decent people”, because I don’t think a person gets to be called “decent” simply because they can be nice, pleasant, thoughtful, or helpful to only the people who abide by their personal world views while actively trying to make life worse for people who don’t meet their bigoted qualifications.
Yeah, they can sure seem like “decent people” if you’re not on the receiving end of their bigoted ire.
It’s not even that they only accept people that abide by their views - it’s just that they are oblivious to those outside the scope of their lives. They are not people who hate immigrants or other minorities, they’re people who never interact with minorities at all and so get no pushback when they just passively accept the idea that they are stealing all the jobs in the US. They don’t know any trans people and so when they hear that trans people are groomers, they just go “that’s horrible! Someone should do something about that”.
We need to remember that these people are a large portion of half the US we constantly have to fight against. They’re not all just a hateful swarm, there’s variety within that mass. They’re our relatives and our neighbors. A large amount of these people are really just insanely gullible and don’t see past their own noses. That gullibility is a mark on their quality, yes. They can still be decent human beings, despite that. They can also be corrected if you get them to understand, which I’ve done before. Many others have done the same.
This attitude makes liberals lose elections.
Of course there are decent people on “the right”. What would you call them if theoretically, they voted for what you want? Would they still be terrible people, just voted correctly?
What exactly is the logic of your comment? The attitude of people judging right wingers based on their own actions makes “liberals lose* elections”? Where exactly is the information you’re basing this on? Your gut feeling? None of what you said made any sense.
The actions of voting for people who want to remove people’s rights. The actions of supporting a rapist convicted felon liar. The actions of spreading lies that cost people their lives. The actions of spreading hate towards LGBTQ+ people and anyone who is not willing to be a bigot towards them too, like library workers who get so many death threats they have to leave their job and town. All of these of their own actions are what makes them no longer decent* people, not the label itself. Their hateful, disgusting actions.
How does that exactly cause liberals to lose elections?
People who are willing to do and/or support any or all of the aforementioned behaviors had already made up their mind on who they would vote for. When logic and reason was never even involved in their decision in the first place, then logic and reason is not going to magically start working suddenly.
You’re judging people based on some flaky righty-lefty dogma that attempts to put people in teams. Stop doing that, and think a bit more logically. People have a million different reasons for thinking a certain way about different subjects, and they might still be kind people. Of the top of my head, i remember the pair of guys who let Borat stay with them. They had the most insane ideas about politics that i’ve ever heard. But they let a random “immigrant” stay in their house, and didn’t utter a single word of complaint. So you’d think they are pretty tolerant. Much more tolerant than a lot of people who vote left that i’ve mer. Those are the kind people that you lose to the other side. Especially when you call them evil, or whatever you think they might be.
My gut feeling? You did lose the election. Are you not living in the same world I am? You have lost touch with what people want and prioritize.
Judge people on action, but don’t fucking label half your country as evil. Many of them have been spoonfed lies like religion since birth.
Can we skip right to the part where we show them films of the atrocities they voted for (precursors for many of which area already in today’s headlines) or do we have to wait for all those atrocities to happen first?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5307007/Clip-shows-Germans-walk-Nazi-camp-WW2.html
https://www.thevintagenews.com/2015/09/25/this-is-how-the-german-soldiers-reacted-to-footage-of-concentration-camps-1945/
There you go again. Nazis. This isn’t the same. Find a new angle, because whatever is going on in the US isn’t working.
1932 was a pivotal year in the Nazis’ ascent. It’s a terrifying parallel for today
Leading Civil Rights Lawyer Shows 20 Ways Trump Is Copying Hitler’s Early Rhetoric and Policies
Here’s the list from that second article. Article goes into detail for each.
Neither was elected by a majority. (not relevant now this was 2019 - but if you are trying to pick these apart one by one instead of looking at the picture they paint, you are still doing it wrong)
Both found direct communication channels to their base.
Both blame others and divide on racial lines.
Both relentlessly demonize opponents.
They unceasingly attack objective truth.
They relentlessly attack mainstream media.
Their attacks on truth include science.
Their lies blur reality–and supporters spread them.
Both orchestrated mass rallies to show status.
They embrace extreme nationalism.
Both made closing borders a centerpiece.
They embraced mass detention and deportations.
Both used borders to protect selected industries.
They cemented their rule by enriching elites.
Both rejected international norms.
They attack domestic democratic processes.
Both attack the judiciary and rule of law.
Both glorify the military and demand loyalty oaths.
They proclaim unchecked power.
Both relegate women to subordinate roles.
Though if you can’t see it for yourself by now you aren’t paying attention or don’t want to see it.
Talk about missing the point.
I’m not the one you need to convice, you fucking tool. You need “the other people” to agree with you. The fact that you live in a #problematic democracy doesn’t change that you need votes.
The parallells fall apart immediately, since that happened pre-information age. Whatever the nazis did to undermine the educated is borderline impossible to do today. Whatever is happening today is different. It’s probably worse in that no information can be trusted, in comparison to no information being available at all.
Do you keep this copy-pasta to actually try to convince people?
I literally listed actions of individuals. I did previously also very clearly provide logic explaining how the right has defined their party as “all or nothing” themselves. If you don’t want to be a part of a party that wants that, then don’t support that party.
Additionally, you’re the one spouting brainless “left bad” nonsense without anything to back it up:
Then you’re trying to put words in my mouth:
I never even said the word “evil”. I think you just outed yourself.
I never said anything about not losing “the election” (Note how that’s different from “elections” like you said earlier. Now you’re shifting the goalpost). I was specifically asking about your claims for the cause of lost “elections” (again, different from “the election”). You made a very specific claim about the cause of lost elections, and you also said “elections” which claims like these need backing data and information, otherwise you’re talking out of your ass.
But again, it seems you’ve outlined the disconnect there in that you’ve decided to live in a different world where you get to choose what I said and what I meant. Good luck in that little world of yours, kiddo. Keep me out of it.
Your words. Literally. Stop labeling people.
I love your method of completely ignoring my point that I’ve very clearly outlined and just replace it with whatever you’ve decided my point is.
You’re the living embodiment of “I reject your reality and substitute it with my own.”
It must be exhausting and lonely seeing the world in black and white.
Those mental gymnastics you perform daily to justify being friends with hateful morons must be twice as exhausting.
Must be nice to be able to not be a subject of people’s bigotry and think that people who are actively trying to remove other people’s rights and even have a hand in causing people’s deaths could be considered “decent people”.
Considering you immediately turned on me for having a different opinion on who could be considered “decent people”, you are likely to be similar to them in their lack of empathy towards people who are different. Maybe you’re not exactly the most qualified person to determine who is “decent people”.
But please, prove me wrong and show me that empathy you seem to have for your so-called “decent people”. I’d suggest starting with treating me like a person and asking “why do you feel that way?” instead of spewing negative comments towards me.
Apparently you project your toxicity onto the decent (eventhough you’re a leftist) Nuance is clearly, not your forte
I can’t think of a single Conservative social talking point that would make them good people. You have to remember these are the same people who want to ban abortion, gay marriage, remove rights from minorities, and have ‘in’ and ‘out’ crowds. There’s no ‘good people’ there. They may perform good actions, sure, but their belief system is entirely about stagnation and dogma.
Everyone I know who voted for trump did so because they’ve been crushed by inflation under biden and disagree with his awful foreign policy. NONE of them are of the christofascist conservative variety. Most of them voted split tickets.
Left aren’t any better, they have stallin apologists for one, in your quest to “give rights to minorities” you end up marginalizing the majority for two & three your open border policy causes massive economic damage
Plus I am talking about those said good actions, also there’s a world outside of politics
You’re a naive fool if you think democrats have an “open border policy”. Go talk to your right wing business owners and suggest that if we really wanted to stop illegal immigration, we would jail business owners who hire them. Surprise surprise, those right wing owners exploit these people but don’t really want to stop any illegal immigration.
Funny because, those right wing business owners never said that They would rather employ their own people, rather than those immigrants
You’re talking about corporations, who don’t really have any political affiliation & try to suck up to anyone who is currently in charge
Again you assume all right-winger are the same, People are very nuanced & it’s naive to go “Leftists = bad & Rightists = scumbags”
I imagine this is the kind of nonsense political take one develops when they go through life only skimming a few grade school social studies textbooks and actively disregarding all other reality or thought.
Sounds like you’re projecting your lack of insight into humans onto me Unlike your priviledge ass, I come from a minority & worked my way to a stable job
my fellow minorities (along with me) mostly never got the welfare that they deserve. You’re too busy crapping on Right-wingers & not actually putting in the work
Keep that up & you’ll lose even more footing, you need to clean up the opposition (As in the democrats), but judging from this Thread It’s not going to happen (I’ll be glad if it did though)
Those are called tankies and nobody likes them. Especially those of us on the left.
“Marginalizing the majority”. Yeah, because white Americans are so marginalized with their hegemonic control over the state and capital.
Oh, no! The economy is tanking because Juan from Chiapas got a job picking oranges for a Dole contractor in California for less than federal minimum wage because his shitbird boss pays him under the table. Do you know how fucking stupid that sounds?
No, there is no world outside of politics. The personal is political. Choosing to associate with ignorant bigots says more about your values than any half-cocked appeal to moderation.
What hedgemonic control ? People have been losing jobs left & right
The right knows how to mask their hatred when it counts, while the left is busy virtue-signaling, Anyone half-intelligent will use whatever tools effective & honestly so will
Rightist policy of exclusion is pretty good you know, I want to exclude capitalists from society for e.g
The Stalin apologists are mostly an online phenomenon and a tiny but loud minority. I’m leftist and anarchist. Authoritarian communism/socialism (since USSR was never communist…) doesn’t interest me. And theory from the turn of the 20th century is nice but doesn’t apply well to the extreme tech advancement of the 21st.
So I’m going to skip the obvious Russian talking points here (open border policy causes economic damage? What the fuck are you talking about? Stalin apologists–like Putin? He’s not Left wing) and go straight to
“you end up marginalizing the majority”
No, you don’t. One of the key socialist ideals is that when one person suffers, we all suffer. There are arguments about how to reach true equanimity, but until then just by being ‘the standard’ you are impossible to marginalize. Conservatism puts men first, especially in our movies:
Room temperature? Designed for middle aged white men.
If men are ‘demonized,’ why are only 8.2% of CEO’s women? Why are abortions controlled, but not vasectomies?
I understand why you are saying these things though, people on ‘the Right’ fall for Russian propaganda far more than ‘the Left’ do:
noooo you HAVE to enforce borders with violence!!! How else will you keep out all the cretins from nations whose infrastructure you’ve destroyed and resources you’ve plundered!!! You can’t possibly take care of all those people, think of tHe EcOnOmY!!!
hahaha that’s so funny guy you really think this is a normal and well adjusted view of the world. Those scare quotes around uplifting minorities is a cherry on top. You’re so devoid of empathy you can’t even fucking imagine a world of people that actually care about each other for the sake of their humanity.
I’ll take a “stallin apologist” over a capitalist that cares more about his stocks than his fellow man. Any fucking day of the week.
And this is where the left fucks up. I live in a state full of ski resorts (and work for one) where they import cheap legal immigrant H1B and J1 labor rather than pay living wages to locals, depressing area wages and leading to a two tier society - the servants of the rich tourists (myself, literally), and the rich tourists. The rich tourists buy up all the housing and we have no housing for essential workers. I’m right now going through a nightmare healthcare situation because healthcare in vermont is virtually non existent - young people can’t afford to stay here, so it’s full of high medical needs retirees and wealthy second home owners and tourists. I had to call every single dental office in my area and up to an hour away to find one that would take my emergency situation.
During the 2020-2021 season, they couldn’t import labor because the borders were closed over covid. Guess what? I got a $4.00 an hour raise instead of a $0.40 raise. It’s simply not fair that corporations can arbitrage their labor costs but I can’t just get up and leave and go to Europe or some shit for better living conditions without jumping through a million difficult hoops meant to exclude me.
I support refugees coming here, I do not support the current immigration system that abuses cheap foreign labor and treats them like slaves because they have very few rights and if they meaningfully speak up at their work place asking for better work conditions they get sent home.
Liberals support that bullshit because it fuels their treat economy. Leftists should not.
Absolutely, I fully agree with you. We are experiencing the same depression of wages in the engineering sector because of these abusive practices. I still live quite comfortably as an engineer but I am watching the conditions develop for it to be taken from me as it has from others.
I question how it can be that I interact with more foreign nationals than the marginalized peoples of my own country, especially those like myself whom I grew up with that have all the same drive I do if not more. I am watching as the ladder that got me here is being stuffed with exploitable labor and pulled back up, when more should be going down and leading to more diverse careers that actually serve humanity. Unlike my industry whose entire business model is taking an essential service from our countrymen so they could sell it back to us in a form that regularly kills and financially burdens us.
Sorry about your health situation. It really sucks that we live under such oppressive conditions, with leaders would allow our needs to be deprived from us simply because we do not have the wealth that they are accountable to. It feels like a cliché to say money is the root of all evil but every day it gets harder to avoid such an apparent truth.
One of my favorite things is watching trumps base lose their fucking shit over musk and ramaswamys support for importing cheap foreign labor to enrich themselves.
I’ve always suspected the learn to code rhetoric was to cheapen the labor force on behalf of capitalists. I think the same thing now about trade work. Our rulers just want cheap exploitable labor and they don’t care how they get it. They’ll reinstate slavery (not that it ever fully left with the 13th amendment and all) any day now.
I don’t think it’s an accident that so much of that cheap foreign labor in the tech industry originates from India - a place with strict social hierarchy (caste system) and an undercurrent of fascism.
I do care about empathy, just not for people who keep saying “Right wing bad, Left wing good” When have you actually done something for the working class ??
Oh & reminder Stallin apologists are class traitors, if these are the people you’d chose then you are basically killing your own movement you’re too busy marginalizing the majority, which can be turned to your side
I march in solidarity with striking union workers while the Conservatives in my area call for them to be ordered back to work.
🐶😙
Who told you that? The American capitalist class? You really trust what they have to say about the leader of a socialist country they were trying to justify a war with, and prevent their own working class from getting any ideas, at all costs?
I invite you to challenge all beliefs that have been formed under a state which finds itself threatened by socialist revolution.
You went pretty quickly into insulting me simply because I don’t agree that hateful bigots should be considered “decent people”.
You’ve shown plenty of evidence that you are not qualified to determine who are “decent people” and who is “toxic”. Seems I was able to determine the toxic nuance embedded in your comment just fine.
Yeah when you go Leftist good, Rightist bad, well let’s say that, that kind of dumb thinking is what makes you lose strength in the eyes of apolitical people & invites trouble , the world of politics is too murky for you behave like that
Oh & as for rudeness, you’re the very definition of hateful since you cannot compartmentalize, You have made your politics into your entire identity & as for rooting out things; Leftists have been losing a lot of potential recruits lately haven’t they (you couldn’t root out your own toxicity)
I’m “hateful” because I disagree that people who support a literal felon rapist get to be called “decent”?
It’s clear you’re just a troll, because you don’t even make an attempt at logic and immediately jump to insults to try to disguise that. Your post history proves that you desire downvotes like it somehow validates your pathetic child behavior.
The right has shown time and time again that they specifically want to define the entire party as “all or nothing” and we can only accept that as truth. Yet, when people treat them that way we are making things black-and-white, “Leftist good, Rightist bad”.
You can’t hide your true face, troll.
Have you ever IRL had a conversation with a trump supporter face to face? Ever? And what state do you live in. I’m so curious about this. Because you’re totally wrong and your wholesale dismissal of roughly half the country is an idiotic strategy if you ever wanna win an election again.
Absolutely. I live in a very red state. I constantly see racism and bigotry personally, and also my area is far too often in the national news due to the right’s actions. I’ve personally seen:
And that is not adding in smaller everyday examples of general hatred and bigotry.
Not only do I constantly interact with right wingers, as they are the vast majority of the population here, but I also have family that have been elected to state positions (as Democrat). I helped make that happen, as well. I have also been involved with other’s campaigns.
I have no idea how or why you are somehow connecting with my own personal judgement of people by their own actions with a “strategy” of winning elections.
This is the main disconnect. Right wingers either don’t want to believe that these horrible things are happening, or they simply like the behavior.
Ok I see the problem. You think all people who vote for trump are like the christofascists you’re unfortunately surrounded by. You’re wrong, they’re not. And that’s a terrible mistake to make.
I’m convinced that most online liberals have never had a conversation IRL with someone who voted for trump.
All my coworkers voted for trump despite the fact that I live in a deep blue state (purple locally). Why? Because the cost of living is out of control (and then brilliant biden gaslit everyone by saying this is the best economy ever… for whom?! maybe the coastal liberal elite work from home laptop class bubble but not the rest of us who punch in and out of work every day at blue collar jobs) and they don’t approve of the wars. They’re cool with minorities, gays, trans people. They’re not “deplorables.” A whole lot of them are swing voters - voted for Obama twice, voted for Bernie in the primary that the democrats fucked over, and then switched to trump. Some even voted for Hillary in 2016 despite the fucking over, biden and then trump. They’re actually the perfect people to swing back to the left if one uses the right language to persuade them. They hate that billionaires own everything and that we spend endless money on war but can’t feed the poor.
I’m originally from NY, outside the city. When I talk to my friends at home they live in a goddamn fucking bubble. I live in vermont and people here are far more politically independent than there.
One of my coworkers, who I consider a friend, is a 30 something straight woman who voted for trump. I asked her if she was worried about reproductive rights. She said no, she’s protected by Vermonts constitutional right to it. I asked her well what if that’s removed? She said she would regret her vote if that was the case. She doesn’t like trump but she hates how hard she’s been struggling under biden like ALL my coworkers. We had a nonbinary person at work (who has since left) and everybody treated them respectfully and used proper pronouns. Hell, they were better than me, I have no problem with gender diversity but I struggle to remember. And I’m a gender non conforming lesbian woman who uses she/her pronouns but I honest to god don’t give a fuck what people call me and when I get misgendered I think it’s funny.
Btw my state lost the highest number of democrat seats and when I talk to liberals online they’re like nuh uh we didn’t lose in a landslide I’m not listening! about as good of a strategy as fucking over the left.
Democrats and their vote blue no matter who! supporters would rather lose to a fascist TWICE than listen to the left, or the working class, or anyone outside their pretentious elitist bubble.
Where I’m from calling someone a cunt is term of endearment.
In North America it’s like domestic violence in a word. Cunt doesn’t really have a positive connotation here.
More seriously in the U.K. it matters whether the people you’re talking to are posh or working class, and also context.
To be fair though, I think it’s a sexist term, and I shouldn’t have said it.