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Five years ago civil society was in general agreement that racism was bad and that we should respect the democratic process instead of seeking to violently over
by Quinner 6y ago
Five years ago civil society was in general agreement that racism was bad and that we should respect the democratic process instead of seeking to violently overthrow it. Of course there were people who disagreed but they were at the margins and their voices were isolated to a few forums most people never heard of.
A demagogue came along and used mass media platforms to destabilize the norms of civil society and give a large platform to previously marginalized views. Being able to air those views on mainstream outlets perpetuates the problem and shifts norms.
We need to at least try to put this genie back in the bottle. Most people will revert back to previous mainstream views. The significant segment needs to go back to an insignificant segment. That insignificant segment will be angry that they didn't win, and likely some of them will be violent. But they've always been that way anyway.
- nnspired 6y agoThere is no going back. It is because the “winning” side is actively doing their best to demonize everyone who doesn’t fit into their mold. So much for reconciling differences.
- jackson1442 6y agoI don't think I need to reconcile my differences with Nazis or racists, sorry.
- kzrdude 6y agoEither way time to look into denazification and how it was done historically (Germany). Rewriting school textbooks and more.
- nnspired 6y agoNice strawman argument there. Believe it or not, not everybody who likes Trump is a nazi or racist.
- diveanon 6y ago"Not everybody who supported Hitler was a Nazi." Do you see how rediculous that is? I know it is hard to swallow, but you are on the wrong side of history here. Just admit you made a mistake and try to move on. You aren't alone, he lied to the entire world and at least 74 million people in the the US bought it.
- jbboehr 6y ago> you are on the wrong side of history here And, probably, you were "on the wrong side of history" in 1930s Germany.
- diveanon 6y agoWhat exactly are you trying to say?
- jbboehr 6y agoYou can say "the wrong side of history" because your ideas happen to be in alignment with the current zeitgeist, but there's no guarantee this will hold true. In other words, it's a poor argument for anything and only interesting when used ironically.
- kmbfjr 6y agoYou might want to do a little introspection as to why the “winners” want you to be remolded.
- noofen 6y ago"A Kafka trap is a fallacy where if someone denies being x it is taken as evidence that the person is x since someone who is x would deny being x."
- jessaustin 6y agoRepublicans will take back both houses of Congress in two years. So, the overblown rhetoric that Democrats have to stage in order to hide the fact that they are basically Republican by most policy measures ("why don't we have affordable healthcare like other nations have, especially in a pandemic?" "Because fasciststs!1!") only has to last until then.
- treeman79 6y agoSo long as mass mail in ballots is a thing. No republican is going to trust the system.
- jessaustin 6y agoRather than fixating on the mailed ballots, which are used in many places and by which Republicans have been elected in the most recent election and before, concentrate on designing an end-to-end system which could safely incorporated mailed ballots. Two years of lots of shouting and no accomplishments by Democrats, with more covid deaths in 2021 than in 2020, is going to powerfully depress their turnout in 2022. Also there is a new thing called "Movement for a People's Party" [0] that will take more votes from Democrats than from Republicans. Don't be discouraged about Republican political prospects! [0] https://peoplesparty.org/ https://peoplesparty.org/
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- dogwhistle111 6y agoAgreed on mail ballots. Thanks for sticking to the facts too. But are you rooting for more people to die to further your political agenda? Thats morbid. Thats what Republicans did when Obama was in office BTW, which arguably caused a slower, more painful and incomplete recovery from the great recession than was necessary. I was disgusted voters rewarded that behavior by giving Trump the win in 2016. Republicans legit STOLE 2 supreme court seats too and voters almost rewarded them again in 2020. That's put me firmly in the anti-Republican independent camp, if such a camp exists
- handedness 6y agoYou have a rosier view of five years ago than I do. Anyway, demagogues are products of their respective times. To focus on them and their personalities and their rhetoric is to completely miss the forest. Edit: In fact, that approach is part of what gives them their power. And it certainly makes avoiding their ascent nearly impossible.
- bun_at_work 6y agoMiss what forest, specifically? I agree with you about demagogues being products of their times. In this case it seems the forest being missed is social media platforms allowing intolerant content and the organization of domestic terrorism. If that is your point, then I agree. Social media companies need to do more to fight against the pressures that allow demagogues rise to power. Deplatforming them seems like a good place to start.
- dumpsterdiver 6y agoI think the parent poster means that if you focus on the proclivities of a leader, then you’re missing the point that they won a democratic election and that you might have bigger problems on your hands than a blowhard.
- walleeee 6y agoOne forest few seem to want to take seriously is: why do we pay so much attention to social media that all this is happening in the first place?
- jolincost 6y agoStraw man. Pretending it's racism
- twirlock 6y agoYou might as well just say "they bad me good."