“My enemy is simultaneously too weak and too strong”
Straight up fascism from conservatives
This is the same grouping fallacy as the vaccine arguments. A lot of these people have trouble understanding nuance. The vaccine can be harmful to some and beneficial to others, it’s on a scale and it’s impossible to know who falls where on the scale. That doesn’t mean overall it’s a bad thing to do.
For op’s example there are some leftists who are lazy and weak, there are also some who are ruthless and there are some that are ruling class elites. The problem is when their groups are applied to the whole to suit whatever narrative they want it becomes nonsensical and dangerous.
What all these gentlemen lack is dialectics.
To be fair, as a democrat, I generally view conservative voters as easily-misled people - essentially “dumb,” I view conservative leaders as thugs trying to overthrow America, and I view conservative corporate heads as ruling class elites. When you’re using such an overarching term as “Conservative” or “Left” it comes with the unsaid caveat that there are many subgroups that can differ greatly from one another.
I don’t know how anyone wants to self identify as a conservative whose platform is currently:
-
The dumbest with Donald Trump slurring and stumbling over his speeches
-
The thugs trying to overthrow America with “Project 2025”, war on WOKENESS, book burning and being anti-choice
-
The constant meddling of oil companies, cable companies, news companies into what information we get - along with dark money getting funneled to politicians to suddenly say moronic shit like “we can’t take gov money to feed school children”
The conservative voters I know all stand for one thing: stubbornness. They make a decision to do something, they do it until they die, and they take great pride in doing so.
It’s essentially vikings if, instead of needing to die in battle to get to Valhalla, you needed to die of an easily-preventable disease because you never got that weird lump checked out, because if you’d admitted you had a problem you’d be weak, which is worse than death.
I live in a very conservative neighborhood and can say that stubbornness seems to play a huge, huge part of it. But I also wouldn’t discount the insecurity that plays into a lot of conservative men as well. The kind that buys huge trucks, just to commute to an office job. The kind that tries overly hard to impress you in weird “manly” ways, like always having a beer in their hand when they know you’re coming over for something.
Basically half the guys around here are either stubborn dickheads who do things like refuse to tell their wives when they’re going out of town for work - and the other half are dudes constantly trying to validate their manhood by projecting a flimsy aura of toughness. Frankly, it’s exhausting.
dickheads who do things like refuse to tell their wives when they’re going out of town for work
lol wait what?
Sorry, that was a very personal reference to a neighbor of mine. He does it all the time, so she’ll do stuff like make dinner and then he just doesn’t come home. When she texts him to find out if he’s working late, he’ll be like “I had to fly to Montana for work.”
He’s the most stereotypical stubborn Republican that I can imagine. He considers himself a libertarian because he doesn’t want to pay taxes for pesky things like roads and schools. But he also has very strong feelings that women shouldn’t be able to get abortions, which shouldn’t really jive with the small government thing. He’s a solid red voter down ballot every election.
This reminds me of a coworker I had who used to call the Department of natural resources and try to convince the poor clerk that he shouldn’t have to pay for a fishing license for him and his wife because gay people have the right to get married. I still don’t understand the logic on that but that’s what I overheard.
He then went on to attempt to abduct the governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer.
He then went on to attempt to abduct the governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer.
Well that certainly took an abrupt, if not entirely unexpected, turn.
like always having a beer in their hand when they know you’re coming over for something.
I mean, there’s an alternate explanation for this one - it’s not only when they know you’re coming over, they just have a problem.
Nah. I have friends that are alcoholics and this guy ain’t one. But a beer in his hand and a giant truck in the driveway might make you think he’s a blue collar bad ass instead of a skinny nerdy engineer.
“Shouldn’t you be trying harder to convince me?” is the new “You should smile more.”
A Viking on Every Hill.
Now you’re reminding me of my uncle and his multiple hernias. He waited for years to get them taken care of because he didn’t want to have to deal with the recovery time.
Because of propaganda.
-
A Self-made Business Man™ is miles better than Bumbling Biden the fascist communist.
-
WOKENESS IS KILLING AMERICA. Books brainwash you into being woke. Project 2025 will save us from woke.
-
Thats the liberal media, “my guys” are normal working men, they wear plaid shirts sometimes and pose for pictures in a workshop.
No I don’t actually believe any of that, but that’s your list in conservative language served to the masses by your friendly
thousands of miles awayneighborhood newscasterpropagandist.-
Oh, they just relate to the poor speech, lack of coherent sentences, and overwhelming pride.
They just shout “one of us, one of us” a bit louder with each misstep.
-
Yeah. The leadership is #2 and #3 while the rank-and-file are #1.
The Jan 6 insurrection was both Antifa leftwing crisis actors and also patriotic Americans doing the right thing.
J6 was all undercover antifa agents out to discredit Trump, that’s why Trump is promising Day One blanket pardons for any and everybody involved.
Also a peaceful tour group.
That’s my favorite paradox so far!
Joe Biden is running an international money laundering operation with Ukraine right under our noses.
Joe Biden is senile and doesn’t know where he is or put together complete sentences.
Well… which one is it?
Am high functioning sleep deprived this is basically what my life feels like
You should join a therapy club
The first rule of therapy club is that you talk about therapy club.
First read this as therapy cult.
Am also sleep deprived.
A therapy cult sounds exhausting.
Is that really how you feel? *pamphlet*
Joe could literally kick puppies and still won’t be half as much of an evil fascist dick as Trump.
both actually
Oh we are safe, no way in hell Trump reads Dostoevsky
Ahahahaha. Nice one.
Thanks, it is good to know a few people got my niche reference.
Amazing to me that Trumpists have zero self awareness.
These “signs of fascism” docs should add “a blind and ignorant base”.
They read it as a recipe not a warning.
Fascism requires an enemy that is too strong, to unify a base; and too weak, to convince the base of their superiority.
“The Left is everyone we don’t like.”
And the “liberal news media” controls all the information. You know, that media that is all owned by about six corporations.
Look up “news consolidation” sometime. In the 1980s, all the news outlets were ultimately owned by about 30-40 companies.
Honestly I wish the proud rigged market capitalists who don’t believe in progressive wealth redistribution, or a society with any equity, would stop calling themselves the “left.”
It’s nice that you support 2 homeless people being allowed to get married regardless of gender identity and live in the same refrigerator box in the same gutter, but the fact remains that no one should be homeless in a society that generates such wealth. This neoliberal mindset shouldn’t pass for left-wing. Our entire effective political spectrum has been reduced to “give rich people all the money and let people do what they want socially” and “give the rich people all the money and torture any non-white conservative Christians socially.”
And yes, i’m voting for Biden to stave off Jerry Lewis Hitler, just as I did last time and Clinton before, full well knowing it solves nothing and only slows the rate of descent into oligarchal madness and dystopia. It’s just voting to keep the water pumps running on the Titanic, it buys time, it is not a path to survival in itself.
USA is a multi-party democracy, and as such laws and programs need to be approved by representatives with opposing views. Currently, republican governors are refusing to accept free federal money to feed children. There is absolutely no way they care about giving the homeless homes. I absolutely agree with you that this is an “orphan crushing machine” issue but unless the GOP implodes we’re not going to have such progressive policies.
Then we will fall to fascism in the near future. Maybe not this election, but soon.
You can’t get people en masse to support you on the message of “Your tangible situation will continue to be horrible, but letting those guys win will cause unimaginably worse horror” cycle after cycle and continue to get them to care, and it is understandable to for them to eventually wash their hands of it, because at the end of the day, voting associates you with this system, and it feels dirty to participate because it makes it feel like you bear responsibility for what a Faustian bargain it is every cycle.
I will keep showing up with a funeral dirge in my heart to vote for the lesser evil and attempt to hold back the bloodthirsty fascist horde yet again without hope for things actually improving, but I’m not the norm. Most sane people will eventually just walk away from it sooner or later because the reality is too unpalatable.
Ive also seen people who praise Elon Musk and Trump who said that the left is far right
the left is all. the left is life
What I think is hilarious is when conservatives call Joe Biden of all people the radical left.
Nice. Needs more AI hands.
My views on Republicans are similar. The voters are both ignorant and poor, as well as selfish and wealthy. Those are two subsets of the same group. The leadership tends to fall into the latter category, with a few idiots thrown in for good measure.
Most comments make this conclusion.
But none mention that at this point, hating on the left, the right or anyone other than those shoveling money is helping the status quo stay like it is.
Any radicalization is a direct effect of financial despair (slowly creeping up). The fascists are a symptom but the greedy are the disease.
It is what brought hitler to power and it is the same for trump. Please unionize and start striking, your life depends on it.
If I had to guess what the conservative attitude is here, they notice that both poor and rich people (occasionally) disagree with their social project. Their news bubble presents all violence as left-initiated. Assume a binary mindset of “disagree with me = leftist” and you are left with what’s in the meme
