Fucking Christ. This timeline gets stupider and stupider.

Something changed culturally between Usenet and the things that came after.

Me, who only started into online communities in the early 2000s:

But the extent to which the fediverse seems to like to do this stuff just seems really extreme to me, and a lot of times what it’s based on is just weird petty bullying nonsense.

Not saying that it isn’t a problem, but as someone who’s been Around™ online, this is pretty par-for-the-course stuff.

Ah, to remember the glory days of Livejournal and Tumblr… and don’t get me started back in the days when every fandom had a dozen sites which all hated each other for vague and extremely personal reasons.

As someone with limited exposure to leftists outside the Fediverse I can’t confirm or deny that statement, so I guess I’ll just take it with a grain of salt, but it seems to me that there’s room for nuance between unquestioning participation in the system and unquestioning denial of the system.

As noted in the last-moment edit I slipped in, hoping to get it done before anyone read the comment, the non-insane (and much more widespread) version is harm reduction.

Here on the Fediverse, MLs and fellow-travelers of that sort are much more widespread than IRL, and they tend towards more… uncompromising positions. At least when their least-favorite bourgeois democracies are concerned.

As someone who’s been predicting Harris would lose since August, both are true.

… not unless you think that the election of Harris would have resulted in the same scenario we’re facing now?

Also rather than “in this society” it’s “everywhere”. The way I like to put it is that electoral politics is only the victory lap; you go out and do activism work, build a base of support, spread your ideas, create a movement, negotiate with or (metaphorically or literally) come to blows with the establishment and finally ask people to vote for you or your ideas in the election. So with that in mind, nobody anywhere is saved by electoral politics alone because whether you win or lose in the election hinges on doing the actual hard work before and during campaign season.

That’s generally not what people mean when they say ‘electoral politics’ though. When they say ‘electoral politics’, they are generally talking about the entirety of electoral politics, not just election day. “You will never destroy the master’s house with the master’s tools” is how they usually put it. They are not advocating for a more robust participation in bourgeois democracy, they are advocating for revolutionary action and, quite explicitly, the total rejection and nonparticipation in civic affairs under current government structures.

The non-insane version is ‘harm reduction’, wherein participation in bourgeois democracy is permissible so long as you don’t confuse it for an end goal or a primary means.

“Nobody is saved by electoral politics” for example is, well… that’s exactly what happened.

“Nobody is saved by electoral politics” pretty clearly implies “Nobody can be saved by electoral politics, by the nature of electoral politics in this society”, not “Nobody will be saved by electoral politics in this election, because I believe firmly in the inevitable victory of the immeasurably worse candidate to win by 2% of the vote”

https://lemmy.world/comment/14674367

We were going to end up in the same place whether democrats or republicans won. It’s just more pleasing to you draped in blue instead of red. I thought maybe TDS democrats would finally start fighting for Palestine once Trump came into office, but they instead turned their derangement on the people who don’t want American to fund and safeguard a genocide. Crazy times we are witnessing.

https://lemmy.world/post/12247352/7775795

This, but unironically. No point in electing a different fascist. We have to cut the tumor out of the body.

https://lemmy.world/post/21302719/13116088

My honest feeling, and this is just speculation, but it seemed like it was easier to organize large protest movements under trump than under Biden. Once Biden got into office all the liberals stopped supporting protest and started defending the status quo.

I doubt it will be as easy in a fascist police state.

America is a fascist police state right now

Police reaction to protests was about the same under both trump and Biden

https://lemmy.world/post/21302719/13108379

The point is nobody is saved by electoral politics instead do actual organizing and actions.

https://lemmy.world/post/20205865/12584685

To leftists that have been paying attention to the DNC’s politics and how they serve the American empire, a DNC win is the “bad guys” winning. Just the same way a GOP win would be.

https://lemmy.world/post/20720227/12824714

If you vote for the lesser of two evils, you deserve to get the greater evil.

https://lemmy.world/post/20720227/12824370

Voting for Trump or Harris is the same result. Some rich ass who doesnt give a rats ass about me or my community and just wants to funnel money to their rich friends. Its like two-faces double headed coin. Neither gives a shit. Fuck both parties and their candidates.

My blood pressure is rising looking back through them, and Lemmy.world having its first outages in two weeks isn’t helping me search, so I’ll leave it here.

Unfortunately, if you’re seriously interested, I can give you a long list of examples from pre-election arguments I had with people.

Some were just garden-variety idiots.

Don’t worry, I was assured by many Very Serious Leftists on here that nothing would change under a Trump presidency and that I was just fearmongering.

Bartell, who remains supportive of Trump’s immigration stance,

Fuckwit.

What if you get hundreds of thousands of subs

Maximum donation cap: $500 CAD.

Dammit!

Just a joke about the Trump administration being immensely compromised by Russian intelligence, not thinking of any person in particular.

Shares a name with the codename of a Russian asset, that’s all, innocent stuff.

Ability, yeah, but likelihood goes to Russia.

Nice feature!

Then share your citation. That’s a broad specious claim. There absolutely are some like that yes. But I have yet to see any studies showing anything remotely similar.

My citation for… the fact that people with the entire internet at their fingertips must, necessarily, choose right-wing sources in order to receive right-wing sources, and are not constrained by the availability of other sources, since the internet has a vast selection of sources to choose from, and right-wing media constraints a la cable or satellite don’t play into it?

… are you being serious right now?

Again, citation for this?

90% by broadband subscription in 2021, 96% by usage in 2024

Which is why, if you’ll note. I never suggested that.

Right now many of these people are struggling with the biggest case of cognitive dissonance they’ve ever had. It’s the perfect time to strike. And plant the concept that they’re being lied to, by all their local broadcasters. The evidence is there, they’re seeing it. We could talk to them about it like adults.

I never claimed otherwise.

Or we could accuse them of things they aren’t doing.

I know for a fact that ridiculing those acknowledging the cognitive dissonance. Will 100% divide us and push them back into the arms of the propagandists.

Oh, cool, so what will asspatting those experiencing cognitive dissonance do?

Oh, it reminds them that there are no consequences for believing things that make them feel good? And it signals to others that there are no consequences to believing in things which make them feel good, no matter how terrible those things are?

But only to those average people who acknowledge a Divergence in what they were told and reality. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. And while this leopards/faces thing is silly and cathartic. It absolutely will not reach any of the reasonable still reachable ones. Of which there are plenty. Just making enemies of them all the more sure

You seem to think that, after a decade of open fascism, there are reachable ones left.

The fucking Cheneys are out of the cult. The Cheneys. The. Fucking. Cheneys. Romney and McCain (Rest in Peace/Piss) are RINOs to most in the party. There are literal golden idols set up to Trump.

The number of ‘reachable’ ones left are very small, and live in a fucking hole in the ground. And attempting to reach them by normalizing the vast majority of conservatives with polite discourse about how it’s okay that they were wrong and they can still change will create more unreachable converts with normalization of fascism, far more than any number of the 5%> that you find who were really just ignorant, and not feigning ignorance to fit their ideological urges.

You’re still arguing past the point though. What does the internet do for most of these people that local radio and TV technically hasn’t or couldn’t?

Nothing. That’s my point. They have access to other news sources. They choose the ones that they like to hear.

Also possibility of access is drastically different from actually having access.

Nowadays, ~95% of the country has internet access - in actuality, not ‘could get it if they wanted’.

Further, people can and often do still live without owning a computer or accessing the internet.

Some 5% in this country. I somehow doubt they’re the majority of conservatives in this country. I, in fact, would go so far as to doubt that they’re significant politically at all.

Right now many of these people are struggling with the biggest case of cognitive dissonance they’ve ever had. It’s the perfect time to strike. And plant the concept that they’re being lied to, by all their local broadcasters. The evidence is there, they’re seeing it. We could talk to them about it like adults.

That’s the line that I’ve been hearing for at least 20 fucking years now. It didn’t work when Iraq was proven to be based on lies, it didn’t work when Obamacare fearmongering was proven to be based on lies, it didn’t work when Trump’s entire first administration was proven to be built on lies. It didn’t work with COVID - it didn’t work with antivaxxing, it hasn’t worked with jack fucking shit.

We’ve tried talking to them like adults. Again and again and again. “One more time” is the motto of the fucking Dem Party on this issue, and that’s been failing for 30 years.

Maybe “We just need to sit down and have a talk with literal Nazis” isn’t the winning strategy it sounds like.

Or we could accuse them of things they aren’t doing.

Bruh, every accusation I’ve leveled thus far is absolutely things they are doing.

Gloat and ridicule them for internet points. Causing them to retreat and double down, being just as bad as they are. Letting the oligarchs continue to divide us and win.

Maybe validating the ones simping for the oligarchs isn’t actually fighting “The oligarchs continue to divide us and win”, but actually strengthening their hand? Just a thought.

Plenty of places can only get satellite and it’s spotty at best. Even then if that is also an extreme luxury.

Satellite was always the expensive option where I lived, in one of the poorest regions of the country. Satellite, furthermore, covers less than 10% of households, and that includes people opting for satellite as the more expensive option in cable-accessible areas.

Nowadays, ~95% of the country has internet access - in actuality, not ‘could get it if they wanted’.

At some point you have to accept that people are choosing the information sources they want to listen to, not simply restricted by the machinations of others.

Man, where I lived, the most basic television package had multiple non-conservative news channels, and people always tuned into Fox anyway. They didn’t turn on the radio and tune into nerd shit which was available like NPR, they tuned into Rush Limbaugh screaming about how Muslims were treated with kid gloves in this country (in the mid-2000s, no fucking less).

At some point, you have to accept that these people are not choosing conservative news sources because they don’t have alternatives; they’re choosing conservative news sources because they like what they’re listening to, and because they dislike hearing the opposite.

We’ve got Decades of evidence that contemplation and ridicule is only going to make it worse.

What ridicule? Fuck, man, conservatives have been given nothing in this country but asspats and ‘agree to disagree’ for as long as I’ve been alive. “T-the mean liberals made fun of people like me on a liberal show…” as all the liberal talking-heads and community members gather 'round and tell them how fucking valid and wholesome they are doesn’t mean jack fucking shit.

Humiliation and isolation is the only weapon that works against fascists, other than violence. We learned that in the 60s and 70s, and then got told otherwise by Very Important People in the 80s, looking for reconciliation with fascist cunts in order to share in the power during a brief revival of right-wing power - which then turned that brief revival into an enduring trend.

The Nazis in Germany weren’t suppressed because the post-war order joined hands with them and told them that they were good boys and girls who just made some mistakes. The Nazis in Germany became verboten when the generation of the 1960s looked at the former generation and said, “My God, you were monsters.”