5 ms·

All of America's neonazis would probably fit in a 200sqm hall, with room to spare. Why worry about a statistical anomaly? Just because they have Voat accounts?

by arkh 9y ago

All of America's neonazis would probably fit in a 200sqm hall, with room to spare. Why worry about a statistical anomaly? Just because they have Voat accounts? :)

oblio 9y ago
As an outsider, I don't see the far left having an influence on American politics. The far right, on the other hand, does seem to have one. Or am I mistaken?
- leereeves 9y ago
  I think the far left's primary influence in 2016 was in pulling Hillary to the left during the primary, which caused lasting damage to her campaign (as she said) and helped lead to Trump's election.
- arkh 9y ago
  They sure have some influence on medias. Also, a lot of events thought as right-leaning get disturbed: MRA conventions, speech from "not the right people" in gaming conventions etc. which have security prices jacked-up because of bomb threats, fire alarm pulled to interrupt it. Also you get the antifa violence which everyone seem to have forgotten.
- gspetr 9y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries,_2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_presidential_... A literal socialist reaching 43.1% of votes not influential enough?
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    American democratic socialists like Sanders aren't far left, and are really more social democrats than “literal socialists”. (Sure, DSA is part of international socialist fora, but so is the UK Labour Party, and no one sane is calling Labour “far left” either.) Someone, therefore, from the moderate left getting a sizable minority of votes within the left-most party of a two-party system where the most votes in that party went to a center-right neoliberal is not evidence of the far left having much (or any) influence, especially when it's the best anyone not from the center-right has done in that party for at least a quarter century.
    - gspetr 9y ago
      The man literally visits Soviet Union as his idea of honeymoon after his wedding. There's circumstantial evidence he was even a Stalinist at one point: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=sanders+stalinist+kibbutz https://duckduckgo.com/?q=sanders+stalinist+kibbutz You do realize how closely your argument resembles a "No True Scotsman" in this case, yes? Person A: "No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge." Person B: "But my uncle Angus likes sugar with his porridge." Person A: "Ah yes, but no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge." EDIT: Here he is, calling himself a socialist without any qualifiers in 1989: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_QLek6Qvzg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_QLek6Qvzg
      - oblio 9y ago
        Were any policies he actually proposed socialists? 1. People can change. 2. People might moderate their actions when faced with reality (heck, even Trump does/is forced to). From what I remember back when he was campaigning, most things he was proposing would definitely fall under socialist-democrat in Europe.
        gspetr 9y ago
        If he became president and succeeded at first he might have been widely celebrated, as comrade Chavez was. Then he would have likely won the re-election in a landslide that dwarfed Reagan's victory and implemented policies further to the left. And then a decade in the future (might even be more than that, US is resilient) it would have blown up in everyone's faces, just as it did in Venezuela. The general public has a short attention span, it seldom thinks of what would happen 10-15 years down the road.
      - dragonwriter 9y ago
        Sanders is certainly a socialist by some definitions; and there are certainly definitions of socialism by which it is exclusively a far-left ideology. The problem is that they aren't the same definitions, and the game being played of pretending that they are is the fallacy of equivocation.

by arkh 9y ago

All of America's neonazis would probably fit in a 200sqm hall, with room to spare. Why worry about a statistical anomaly? Just because they have Voat accounts? :)

oblio 9y ago

As an outsider, I don't see the far left having an influence on American politics. The far right, on the other hand, does seem to have one. Or am I mistaken?

leereeves 9y ago
I think the far left's primary influence in 2016 was in pulling Hillary to the left during the primary, which caused lasting damage to her campaign (as she said) and helped lead to Trump's election.
arkh 9y ago
They sure have some influence on medias. Also, a lot of events thought as right-leaning get disturbed: MRA conventions, speech from "not the right people" in gaming conventions etc. which have security prices jacked-up because of bomb threats, fire alarm pulled to interrupt it. Also you get the antifa violence which everyone seem to have forgotten.
gspetr 9y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries,_2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_presidential_... A literal socialist reaching 43.1% of votes not influential enough?
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  American democratic socialists like Sanders aren't far left, and are really more social democrats than “literal socialists”. (Sure, DSA is part of international socialist fora, but so is the UK Labour Party, and no one sane is calling Labour “far left” either.) Someone, therefore, from the moderate left getting a sizable minority of votes within the left-most party of a two-party system where the most votes in that party went to a center-right neoliberal is not evidence of the far left having much (or any) influence, especially when it's the best anyone not from the center-right has done in that party for at least a quarter century.
  - gspetr 9y ago
    The man literally visits Soviet Union as his idea of honeymoon after his wedding. There's circumstantial evidence he was even a Stalinist at one point: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=sanders+stalinist+kibbutz https://duckduckgo.com/?q=sanders+stalinist+kibbutz You do realize how closely your argument resembles a "No True Scotsman" in this case, yes? Person A: "No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge." Person B: "But my uncle Angus likes sugar with his porridge." Person A: "Ah yes, but no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge." EDIT: Here he is, calling himself a socialist without any qualifiers in 1989: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_QLek6Qvzg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_QLek6Qvzg
    - oblio 9y ago
      Were any policies he actually proposed socialists? 1. People can change. 2. People might moderate their actions when faced with reality (heck, even Trump does/is forced to). From what I remember back when he was campaigning, most things he was proposing would definitely fall under socialist-democrat in Europe.
      - gspetr 9y ago
        If he became president and succeeded at first he might have been widely celebrated, as comrade Chavez was. Then he would have likely won the re-election in a landslide that dwarfed Reagan's victory and implemented policies further to the left. And then a decade in the future (might even be more than that, US is resilient) it would have blown up in everyone's faces, just as it did in Venezuela. The general public has a short attention span, it seldom thinks of what would happen 10-15 years down the road.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      Sanders is certainly a socialist by some definitions; and there are certainly definitions of socialism by which it is exclusively a far-left ideology. The problem is that they aren't the same definitions, and the game being played of pretending that they are is the fallacy of equivocation.