Doubledee [comrade/them]

It’s a smokescreen, we can’t credibly claim to have a stronger or healthier industrial base or social system, all we can do is pretend we’re ahead in imaginary tech arms races.

He really only looked viable running against a corpse apparently.

For sure, liberals will always side with fascism when threatened, they are far more compatible with it than communism. And since being scratched is inevitable they will always have a fascism problem.

I think your prior comment could be taken as ableist, and there is no tolerance for that here, just as a warning.

I think American liberalism is distinct from other countries’ in that way, yes. My experience is that it’s not normal elsewhere. I think the free market strives to transcend national prerogative as well, that’s why Mises and Hayek were so keen to set up organizations like the IMF and WTO to enforce market order on nations without their interests getting in the way. Libs frequently support a “world system” over national interest in other countries.

As I said though, I can buy an argument in either direction, since fascism is so slippery as a term and the common usage of these ideas varies pretty widely. Maybe that’s too accommodating on my part. I dunno. I take your point though.

Please insult me directly, not neurodivergent people.

Yes.

You live in the biggest liberal country, it’s politics are liberal. It’s ruling parties are flavors of liberalism, you just aren’t aware of the terminology I guess. It doesn’t help that the conservative wing of the liberals here label their opponents liberal, it’s an easy misunderstanding to have.

I think that’s fair, I think there are enough distinctions (its strong nationalism and backward- looking revanchism aren’t innate to liberalism, I think there are real points of conflict where libs would usually depart from fascism, absent a threat from their left) that I would accept someone categorizing it as a form of liberalism or as a separate ideology if they support their view. I think for libs though it’s best to try and be charitable if it’s a distinction they recognize.

It has a definition I’m not sure why that’s such a difficult concept.

Unless you think Trump is like, a fascist (which I would entertain but you said you voted for him so I sincerely hope you don’t think that) he’s still within the bounds of liberalism. Free markets, liberty as individuals, private property, etc.

The liberal doesn’t understand what ideologies are!

He’s a great favorite, he says he’ll never die.

I know you’re getting the bear hug so I doubt you’ll respond to me, but I think it’s worth examining your assumptions if you have somehow reached a point where Harris cannot be held accountable for the actions of the administration she serves in, cannot be held responsible for her own rhetoric at the convention (in which she promised we would have the most lethal military in the world, with which she would “always” defend the apartheid entity), and cannot be faulted for not being more specific about what her policy on Gaza would be. You seem to have reached a position where voting for Harris is a moral obligation that has no attachment to anything she does, says she will do, or could theoretically do in the future.

Or at least I assume it’s about voting, otherwise I don’t know what you’re doing here. You acknowledge that America’s ruling class are traitors to the interests of humanity; Harris is part of our ruling class, she’s undeniably part of the ‘rich’ you’re talking about. While we here at hexbear don’t call people slurs, you seem fine directing your anger at these nameless traitors but not at Harris for some reason. All we’re doing is criticizing the class you are saying is bad, and the people who instinctively defend them.

It’s literally the message of the tweet: Nobody is telling anyone not to vote, but liberals reflexively assume criticism of the ruling class is an argument for Trump.

Yeah I dunno, I’m noticing a sharp difference in reaction between my anarchist/marxist friends who are not into this, and everyone progressive to center who are ecstatic with slay queen/brat/memes are funny energy. I don’t think the left as such makes up enough people to cost her the election on its own.

Okay I’m out of the loop, is she like the most important living American poet or something? Why do they keep having her do this? I literally only know her for speaking at democratic political events.

Mine also arrived this week. Excited to wear it once cooler weather hits, it makes a great scarf.

I think the important thing to keep in mind is that reaction and fascism are not individual endeavors. People can end up in them for a variety of reasons but the material conditions and ideology of a society are far more important than an experience of trauma. And critically, you can react to trauma in a lot of ways, depending on your environment and the superstructure in place around you.

The reactionary political project is fundamentally a rear guard action against the left, I find this part of Corey Robin’s The Reactionary Mind pretty convincing. And in the case of Weimar Germany there was a concerted effort on the part of fascist and reactionary liberals to turn the public against socialism, with propaganda and policy and political maneuvering. But in other circumstances (the Russian Revolution comes to mind) trauma was used as a fulcrum to help move society left very rapidly, through organized efforts by a different ideological group.

So I guess I would say they’re right that trauma, especially society wide like a devastating war or a pandemic or whatever, create a rupture that gives these ideas an opportunity to grow. But that’s not a determined outcome and it can also cut the other way.

I hope you’re right, I’ve grown pessimistic about the odds of anything happening quickly in this war to bring the carnage to an end.

They still, to this day, refuse to think of Republicans as their enemy. It would be rude or something and they just won’t tolerate that.

Their enemies have attacked their governors and the dang capitol, they just refuse to acknowledge that the stakes are real and that their opponents can’t be compromised with.

Sorkin brain and its consequences.