Krev wrote: Wed Jan 24, 2024 10:15 am It's fucking amazing how far ahead of his time Pat Buchanan was.

Horrifying. You mean horrifying.

Frankie99 wrote: Wed Jan 24, 2024 10:30 am

Krev wrote: Wed Jan 24, 2024 10:15 am It's fucking amazing how far ahead of his time Pat Buchanan was.

Horrifying. You mean horrifying.

Yes, but horrifyingly prescient. It's like they exhumed his fetid corpse for the social media age.

Yes, Buchanan would be huge today. Back then, nobody cared about immigration unless you lived on the border or you were Nikki Haley's parents. He saw it coming.

losthighway wrote: Mon Jan 22, 2024 5:10 pm There is an important problem here getting obscured by some unavoidable internet debate fire. What can a fellow traveler offer a family member or old friend that might help them see things a little differently? Don't get me wrong, if someone is comfortable erasing the existence or identity of their lgbtq family member only therapy can save them. But like, who knows someone who shifted their hard right views into something a little more tolerant?

My father in law is a Trump supporter. He's generally socially aware enough not to say some bullshit around my wife and me. He has made some horrendously stupid racist jokes against Asians (he's a Vietnam vet) which I've stared down and he's rolled off as "Ha, that's terrible".

Obviously I'm not pretending I'm going to turn racist old men into socialist activists, but the needle must move a little with some people, right?

I don't know what you can do. I've seen people in my orbit who are Trump supporters, cons, neo cons, etc. just dig in their heels. The common interaction for this kind of shit is online, where yelling, screaming, insulting and generally unproductive behavior are obviously prevalent. This behavior also helps reinforce whatever beliefs you're either echoing or refuting, and allows you to "practice" the refutations for real life - IE each side has already heard the argument from the other side and have their counters already prepared. A lot of people are truly incapable - in the "they cannot make their brain do it" sense of the word - of interfacing with concepts that threaten their worldview/political beliefs. So they adopt a fight response to these ideas.

I think there's a reason that the people who are mostly arguing against progress are the same people who think they need to take over public schools and colleges and have local "authority" determine history lessons and eliminate any critical thinking pursuits. Productive discourse is seen as weak. Competing viewpoints aren't seen as compatible, they're seen as targets to eliminate.

It's an easy trap for people who want order and aren't capable of dealing with a complex and violent world - conservatism has evolved into authoritarianism naturally and authoritarians are not known for flexibility, empathy or compassion.

IOW and teal deer, fascists can't learn empathy.

If this post sounds like I'm advocating that a marketplace of ideas is good, let me be clear - ideas are not inherently worthy of pursuit, and ideas that have been established as objectively negative - eugenics, race supremacies, dehumanization of any kind - should be immediately called out for what they are and the people advocating them should have their communications quarantined from productive discussion. One of the main problems of the "marketplace of ideas" is that its advocates seem to think that bad ideas will work themselves out, like their precious free market is supposed to work. This notion is very clearly false and all evidence screams otherwise.

Krev wrote: Wed Jan 24, 2024 11:00 am

Frankie99 wrote: Wed Jan 24, 2024 10:30 am

Krev wrote: Wed Jan 24, 2024 10:15 am It's fucking amazing how far ahead of his time Pat Buchanan was.

Horrifying. You mean horrifying.

Yes, but horrifyingly prescient. It's like they exhumed his fetid corpse for the social media age.

Still kickin'!

zorg wrote: Wed Jan 24, 2024 2:44 pm

Krev wrote: Wed Jan 24, 2024 11:00 am

Frankie99 wrote: Wed Jan 24, 2024 10:30 am

Horrifying. You mean horrifying.

Yes, but horrifyingly prescient. It's like they exhumed his fetid corpse for the social media age.

Still kickin'!

Evil never dies.

Krev wrote: Wed Jan 24, 2024 5:03 pm

zorg wrote: Wed Jan 24, 2024 2:44 pm

Krev wrote: Wed Jan 24, 2024 11:00 am

Yes, but horrifyingly prescient. It's like they exhumed his fetid corpse for the social media age.

Still kickin'!

Evil never dies.

I love that we all just assumed Pat Buchanan was dead

The worst shit I’ve started seeing in my leftist friends who’s primary focus as leftists is anti-NATO—ism is the positive positions they hold towards Putin, Erdoğan, Iran’s Wizards and other various ghouls.

The thinking is definitely My Enemy’s Enemy is my Friend. Which is stupid fucking politics. At best those regimes are Useful Idiots in checking US and allied imperialism but active support…

One friend started with the Canadian Conservative leader “is the only one talking about working people’s problems”… to which I pointed out “they say that about Viktor Orban”.

Anyone seeing this - what I thought was an urban myth - Horseshoe Theory playing out in their leftist friends’ circle?

Gramsci wrote: The worst shit I’ve started seeing in my leftist friends who’s primary focus as leftists is anti-NATO—ism is the positive positions they hold towards Putin, Erdoğan, Iran’s Wizards and other various ghouls.

The thinking is definitely My Enemy’s Enemy is my Friend. Which is stupid fucking politics. At best those regimes are Useful Idiots in checking US and allied imperialism but active support…

One friend started with the Canadian Conservative leader “is the only one talking about working people’s problems”… to which I pointed out “they say that about Viktor Orban”.

Anyone seeing this - what I thought was an urban myth - Horseshoe Theory playing out in their leftist friends’ circle?

For years, man.

I started to have an inkling of this back in 2013, during Maidan and especially after Russia invaded Crimea early the next year. Sometimes on this very forum, I'd read talking points straight from RT, WWII-era cliches about the Ukrainian sovereignty impulse being controlled by a bunch of Nazis, and the same bizarre conspiracy theories that were being peddled on the "antiglobalist" alt-right. Plus misplaced sympathy for people like Maduro in Venezuela.

I thought this was sort of fringe at the time. But it's become much worse and more widespread on the left. It's become a pet peeve of mine, along w/the tendency towards censorship and a strain of new puritanism in art and speech.

I blame a weird mixture of young people w/short memories and poor grasps of history and the complexities of world affairs; the them vs. us simplification of everything on social media; and an odd misunderstanding of socialism. In the name of stomping on internationalist elites, people who should know better end up seeming awfully provincial and too close for comfort to hardcore conservatism.

Gramsci wrote: Thu Jan 25, 2024 9:55 am The worst shit I’ve started seeing in my leftist friends who’s primary focus as leftists is anti-NATO—ism is the positive positions they hold towards Putin, Erdoğan, Iran’s Wizards and other various ghouls.

The thinking is definitely My Enemy’s Enemy is my Friend. Which is stupid fucking politics. At best those regimes are Useful Idiots in checking US and allied imperialism but active support…

One friend started with the Canadian Conservative leader “is the only one talking about working people’s problems”… to which I pointed out “they say that about Viktor Orban”.

Anyone seeing this - what I thought was an urban myth - Horseshoe Theory playing out in their leftist friends’ circle?

I’ve mostly seen it online with the most insufferable “leftists” out there. It seems like they’re from the same strain that was arguing in the 70s and 80s that queer people couldn’t be communists because being gay was a reactionary, individualist petit bourgeoisie ideology. I don’t have a single friend (who are almost all queer and trans people which is probably a huge factor) who stans for Putin and the current invasion.

That said I know there’s people in orgs that have an offline presence in the area like PSL who claim to be for queer liberation while also supporting genocidally homophobic and transphobic people and regimes like that, but then again the same orgs also protected serial abusers and misogynists in positions of power and pressured victims to stay silent for the “greater” goal of building up a party.

So I know “of” people like that but in no way could I consider them friends if they support regimes that are genocidal against people like me and my loved ones.