6 ms·

The most ironic thing to me is just how fast the political pendulum swings. One day you have kente cloths and taking the knee everywhere, and before you know i

The most ironic thing to me is just how fast the political pendulum swings. One day you have kente cloths and taking the knee everywhere, and before you know it, right-winger bloggers are running the law enforcement. This is no way to live, 80%+ of the population is neither committed progressives nor committed conservatives/reactionaries, but they rule (or ruled) the social networks and thus dominate(d) in elections. By the grace of the algorithm, you majesty the king.

refurb 11mo ago
Don’t mistake what you see online or in the news as evidence of broad agreement. Plenty of people might disagree but choose to keep their mouth shut.
- truckerbill 11mo ago
  Never underestimate the amount of people that just go where the wind blows
nosianu 11mo ago
This did not happen fast though, but over decades. On one side, the right preparing by slowly taking over positions, on the other side people ignoring the problems of many. Here in Germany I fear the AfD too may get into power, because instead of fixing the problems that people complained about for decades (costs, bureaucracy, rents, no vision apart from "consume and work") people are fixated on that right wing party itself. When I did some skydiving in my youth I was fascinated by watching sooo many skydivers barely avoiding the lone single tree near the landing zone. Turns out, if you concentrate on something ("I must avoid that tree I must avoid that tree...") you end up steering towards it. The winning move is to instead concentrate on where you do want to go. There are precious little positive ideas in our politics, it's mostly about what we don't want, or distractions on things that while it sounds nice and it's definitely okay when it gets done should never be the main focus.
- inglor_cz 11mo ago
  Well, roots of everything are long. We are a long-lived species and our political attention spans decades or longer. People still think of the Roman Empire and write in Latin alphabet, after all. But the actual short-term jumps in policy are absolutely wild now. That wasn't the case in the 1990s.
  - throwawayqqq11 11mo ago
    Imagine left leaning orgs being as organized and funded as the right. GP made the same mistake by putting the AfD on the right and anything else on "the other side that ignores problems". This other side is not the left, its the center or the non-left, which gets good funding too. The decades of political development were always meant to bolster the current power structures, and i am not talking about pol. parties or the interests of the many and their problems. From that angle, the current political swing is not suprising. Musk and Co are winning their war on the left mind virus, which is much older then them.
    - inglor_cz 11mo ago
      The left has a nasty problem with autophagy. If you are left (I am not, but I have observed it) and you agree with 90 per cent of the ideas of some group, but disagree on the remaining 10 per cent, they will turn on you in fury, denounce you as a traitor, hate you more than an actual opponent. Deviation from orthodoxy is a capital sin. (This is not new, see how Trotskyists were extirpated by their Stalinist comrades 100 years ago. Heresy is simply not tolerated.) The right wingers of today are a lot more capable of building a bigger tent, at least right now. Personally, I am somewhat rightwing, but very secular, as usual in Czechia. I still get invited to Christian events even though they know that I am not a believer, and they won't grill me to convert.
      - throwawayqqq11 11mo ago
        The same can be said about the right, but you are correct, infighting is stronger on the left. But... Orthodoxy (or better: tribalism) is actually stronger on the right, the key difference is, the right has less political complexity to argue over. "Our pure native culture will fix our problems and the other left outgroups must be suppressed" is pure identity politics, which is imo the core of the right. The left has, tribalism aside, at least identity independent topics like wealth distribution. Which, unfortunately, threatens the existing power structures. I can confirm the left ostracizing their own. It happened to me too, but i still consider myself left, because my political ideals are based on more than a group membership.
pjc50 11mo ago
> One day you have kente cloths and taking the knee everywhere, Voluntary actions including a protest against police brutality .. > and before you know it, right-winger bloggers are running the law enforcement. .. versus the pro-brutality side of the argument. Social media has made it more acute, but the same line runs through e.g. the pre-social-media Rodney King riots. I think people mistook a suppressed problem for stability. Of course, suppressing problems works quite well for stability. We can see in Hong Kong how having several tower blocks burn down might be destabilizing. There were calls for accountability. Accountability would be destabilizing to the political and real estate elite, so that can't happen and now everyone is quietly agreeing that it was just a tragic accident, no need to investigate further.
- inglor_cz 11mo ago
  There is no society without suppressed problems, but that does not rule out the social media contagion either. Every real problem can be made worse by putting histrionic personalities in charge, and the current digital environment promotes and rewards hysteria.
Terr_ 11mo ago
> taking the knee Taking the knee to say what though? 1. Before: People warning about a problem of corrupt police forces of power-tripping fools and bullies that routinely get away with murder. 2. After: A corrupt police state has metastasized onto the national state age, with its own fools and bullies, including illegally imprisoning and murdering people. I wouldn't label that a "pendulum swing" between opposite situations.
- inglor_cz 11mo ago
  Taking the knee because everyone around you is taking it as well. Pure social pressure. Remember the soccer matches in places like the UK, where some continental teams or players were booed for not doing so? Political theatre by people who wouldn't be able to tell you who was the Prime Minister, how much does milk cost etc. Even well-meaning US liberals overestimate the count of black people shot by the police by three orders of magnitude. That is some serious divergence from reality, and it was hyped by social networks.
  - aprilthird2021 11mo ago
    > Taking the knee because everyone around you is taking it as well. Pure social pressure Pure social pressure. Whereas now everything is completely political pressure dictated from the top down. Idk social pressure seems more organic at least. Biden didn't order that anyone who didn't take a knee will be deported to a torture prison in Guatemala
  - FatherOfCurses 11mo ago
    > Even well-meaning US liberals overestimate the count of black people shot by the police by three orders of magnitude. That is some serious divergence from reality, and it was hyped by social networks. Definitely gonna need a citation on that
  - Terr_ 11mo ago
    > who was the Prime Minister > how much does milk cost > the count of black people shot by the police Whoah, hold up: One of these things is not like the others. (♫ One of those things just doesn't belong.♫) The Prime Minister's name shows up regularly in news stories, and the price of milk is literally in front of you as you buy it... So why are you expecting anybody to be decent at "estimating" even the easier version of "all people shot by police this year"? It's not like there's a daily figure shared after the weather-report.
UncleMeat 11mo ago
Right wingers have always run law enforcement. While there was some performative stuff from left wing lawmakers, nobody really defunded the police.
Yizahi 11mo ago
By the grace of first past the post, winner takes all. This ancient system prevents people from picking shades of grey parties, since they simply don't exist in any significance. And from the other end it doesn't allow parties to split, since it will mean than the smaller block is immediately equal to zero (zero votes, zero seats). In when parties aren't allowed to split, they trend towards reactionism and radicalism, when radicals can hold the whole party "hostage". Applies to both sides btw.
- bryanlarsen 11mo ago
  The standard complaint is the opposite. In a generic first past the post two party system you should end up with two barely distinguishable centrist parties. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotelling%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotelling%27s_law But the US system is far from generic. Instead it has several tweaks that make it tend towards extremism. The primary system is probably the biggest factor.
csb6 11mo ago
> One day you have kente cloths and taking the knee everywhere, and before you know it, right-winger bloggers are running the law enforcement. How are these at all comparable? One is a photo op at the Capitol, and one is leading a massive immigration raid campaign full of civil rights violations. Even if you believe these raids are lawful, they are not performative like the photo op stunt was - they are massive operations that greatly affect millions of lives. If you are making a “both sides are bad” argument then that is a pretty poor comparison.

refurb 11mo ago

Don’t mistake what you see online or in the news as evidence of broad agreement. Plenty of people might disagree but choose to keep their mouth shut.

truckerbill 11mo ago
Never underestimate the amount of people that just go where the wind blows

nosianu 11mo ago

This did not happen fast though, but over decades. On one side, the right preparing by slowly taking over positions, on the other side people ignoring the problems of many. Here in Germany I fear the AfD too may get into power, because instead of fixing the problems that people complained about for decades (costs, bureaucracy, rents, no vision apart from "consume and work") people are fixated on that right wing party itself. When I did some skydiving in my youth I was fascinated by watching sooo many skydivers barely avoiding the lone single tree near the landing zone. Turns out, if you concentrate on something ("I must avoid that tree I must avoid that tree...") you end up steering towards it. The winning move is to instead concentrate on where you do want to go. There are precious little positive ideas in our politics, it's mostly about what we don't want, or distractions on things that while it sounds nice and it's definitely okay when it gets done should never be the main focus.

inglor_cz 11mo ago
Well, roots of everything are long. We are a long-lived species and our political attention spans decades or longer. People still think of the Roman Empire and write in Latin alphabet, after all. But the actual short-term jumps in policy are absolutely wild now. That wasn't the case in the 1990s.
- throwawayqqq11 11mo ago
  Imagine left leaning orgs being as organized and funded as the right. GP made the same mistake by putting the AfD on the right and anything else on "the other side that ignores problems". This other side is not the left, its the center or the non-left, which gets good funding too. The decades of political development were always meant to bolster the current power structures, and i am not talking about pol. parties or the interests of the many and their problems. From that angle, the current political swing is not suprising. Musk and Co are winning their war on the left mind virus, which is much older then them.
  - inglor_cz 11mo ago
    The left has a nasty problem with autophagy. If you are left (I am not, but I have observed it) and you agree with 90 per cent of the ideas of some group, but disagree on the remaining 10 per cent, they will turn on you in fury, denounce you as a traitor, hate you more than an actual opponent. Deviation from orthodoxy is a capital sin. (This is not new, see how Trotskyists were extirpated by their Stalinist comrades 100 years ago. Heresy is simply not tolerated.) The right wingers of today are a lot more capable of building a bigger tent, at least right now. Personally, I am somewhat rightwing, but very secular, as usual in Czechia. I still get invited to Christian events even though they know that I am not a believer, and they won't grill me to convert.
    - throwawayqqq11 11mo ago
      The same can be said about the right, but you are correct, infighting is stronger on the left. But... Orthodoxy (or better: tribalism) is actually stronger on the right, the key difference is, the right has less political complexity to argue over. "Our pure native culture will fix our problems and the other left outgroups must be suppressed" is pure identity politics, which is imo the core of the right. The left has, tribalism aside, at least identity independent topics like wealth distribution. Which, unfortunately, threatens the existing power structures. I can confirm the left ostracizing their own. It happened to me too, but i still consider myself left, because my political ideals are based on more than a group membership.

pjc50 11mo ago

> One day you have kente cloths and taking the knee everywhere, Voluntary actions including a protest against police brutality .. > and before you know it, right-winger bloggers are running the law enforcement. .. versus the pro-brutality side of the argument. Social media has made it more acute, but the same line runs through e.g. the pre-social-media Rodney King riots. I think people mistook a suppressed problem for stability. Of course, suppressing problems works quite well for stability. We can see in Hong Kong how having several tower blocks burn down might be destabilizing. There were calls for accountability. Accountability would be destabilizing to the political and real estate elite, so that can't happen and now everyone is quietly agreeing that it was just a tragic accident, no need to investigate further.

inglor_cz 11mo ago
There is no society without suppressed problems, but that does not rule out the social media contagion either. Every real problem can be made worse by putting histrionic personalities in charge, and the current digital environment promotes and rewards hysteria.

Terr_ 11mo ago

> taking the knee Taking the knee to say what though? 1. Before: People warning about a problem of corrupt police forces of power-tripping fools and bullies that routinely get away with murder. 2. After: A corrupt police state has metastasized onto the national state age, with its own fools and bullies, including illegally imprisoning and murdering people. I wouldn't label that a "pendulum swing" between opposite situations.

inglor_cz 11mo ago
Taking the knee because everyone around you is taking it as well. Pure social pressure. Remember the soccer matches in places like the UK, where some continental teams or players were booed for not doing so? Political theatre by people who wouldn't be able to tell you who was the Prime Minister, how much does milk cost etc. Even well-meaning US liberals overestimate the count of black people shot by the police by three orders of magnitude. That is some serious divergence from reality, and it was hyped by social networks.
- aprilthird2021 11mo ago
  > Taking the knee because everyone around you is taking it as well. Pure social pressure Pure social pressure. Whereas now everything is completely political pressure dictated from the top down. Idk social pressure seems more organic at least. Biden didn't order that anyone who didn't take a knee will be deported to a torture prison in Guatemala
- FatherOfCurses 11mo ago
  > Even well-meaning US liberals overestimate the count of black people shot by the police by three orders of magnitude. That is some serious divergence from reality, and it was hyped by social networks. Definitely gonna need a citation on that
- Terr_ 11mo ago
  > who was the Prime Minister > how much does milk cost > the count of black people shot by the police Whoah, hold up: One of these things is not like the others. (♫ One of those things just doesn't belong.♫) The Prime Minister's name shows up regularly in news stories, and the price of milk is literally in front of you as you buy it... So why are you expecting anybody to be decent at "estimating" even the easier version of "all people shot by police this year"? It's not like there's a daily figure shared after the weather-report.

UncleMeat 11mo ago

Right wingers have always run law enforcement. While there was some performative stuff from left wing lawmakers, nobody really defunded the police.

Yizahi 11mo ago

By the grace of first past the post, winner takes all. This ancient system prevents people from picking shades of grey parties, since they simply don't exist in any significance. And from the other end it doesn't allow parties to split, since it will mean than the smaller block is immediately equal to zero (zero votes, zero seats). In when parties aren't allowed to split, they trend towards reactionism and radicalism, when radicals can hold the whole party "hostage". Applies to both sides btw.

bryanlarsen 11mo ago
The standard complaint is the opposite. In a generic first past the post two party system you should end up with two barely distinguishable centrist parties. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotelling%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotelling%27s_law But the US system is far from generic. Instead it has several tweaks that make it tend towards extremism. The primary system is probably the biggest factor.

csb6 11mo ago

> One day you have kente cloths and taking the knee everywhere, and before you know it, right-winger bloggers are running the law enforcement. How are these at all comparable? One is a photo op at the Capitol, and one is leading a massive immigration raid campaign full of civil rights violations. Even if you believe these raids are lawful, they are not performative like the photo op stunt was - they are massive operations that greatly affect millions of lives. If you are making a “both sides are bad” argument then that is a pretty poor comparison.