• Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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      28 days ago

      Mostly that works because what the establishment thinks of as left is really centralist. Real leftists would advocate for socialism.

      Of course the US goes even further into the insane category by basically just having everyone be right-wing with different flavors.

      • Sauerkraut@discuss.tchncs.de
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        28 days ago

        Real leftists would advocate for socialism.

        True, but there are there differing approaches to socialism: MLs want authoritarian socialism (government runs everything), while Democratic Socialists usually want a hybrid of market socialism (co-ops) and government run socialism for needs that free market co-ops cannot address. And then there are libertarian socialists who want only worker owned co-ops and syndicates. Finally, we have SocDems that want indirect socialism where strong regulations and labor protections try to achieve socialist goals through capitalism.

        • sOlitude24k@lemmy.myserv.one
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          27 days ago

          I consider myself quite a lefty, but really fall into the DemSoc range of things. Not far left enough for hexbear or .ml, and too far left for any other groups, really. I hate being so reluctant to post on .ml communities just to avoid a blanket ban, but it is what it is. Just kinda sucks.

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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        28 days ago

        Oh, so is my syndicalist ass a centrist? What about my mutualist wife? There’s the MLs vs the MLMs (who almost nuked each other). We managed to form two separate armies in most socialist revolutions

      • Arn_Thor@feddit.uk
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        27 days ago

        Did you do that on purpose? Illustrate the truth of the joke by no-true-Scotsmaning leftism, I mean? Because if so, bravo, and if not, lol

      • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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        27 days ago

        Real leftists would advocate for socialism.

        Only socialism? Fucking LIB! A real Leftist would have advocated for Communism!

        • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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          27 days ago

          The political spectrum is two-dimensional not one-dimensional. Left is a position on just one axes, communism exists on an entirely different vector.

          • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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            26 days ago

            You would not believe how hard the Lemmy Lefties try to gatekeep the word “Left” behind their exact subset of beliefs. Right up to the point where they just ban you from their instance…

            The horseshoe is very real.

  • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.world
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    28 days ago

    Those stories are so fake. “I used to be a leftist, then I was mildly annoyed by something. Now I’m ragingTrumpist!”

    • fsxylo@sh.itjust.works
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      28 days ago

      Same energy as born again Christians trying to convert me from atheism.

      “I used to be you!”

      No, you were a slightly less annoying version of you. You don’t know me at all.

      • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
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        28 days ago

        Sorry to dump this out here, but I have dealt with this shit since I was a teen and I’m mad tonight about some other shit.

        That’s because they think everyone who isn’t hardcore christian is unhappy and questioning their choices every day, just waiting on god to help.

        I’m hard agnostic. That doesn’t mean I’m questioning. That means I believe that we can’t possibly know any more than a bacteria can fathom what I am. They’re convinced that means I’m not sure if their god exists and I desperately want them to show me the light.

        You know how I know what they think? It’s how I was raised. It’s the literal words that came out of their mouths. Luckily it’s been years since anyone other than a Jehovah’s Witness tried to convert me to anything and I just tell them “I think god is dead so I’m trying to get on Satan’s good side by having sex outside of marriage and killing. Which do you prefer?”

      • shplane@lemmy.world
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        28 days ago

        My aunt was an atheist turned born again Christian but that’s only because she took too much acid in the 70s and fried her brain

        • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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          28 days ago

          That’s an interesting tactic that no Jehovah’s witnesses tried with me. That one might actually work.

    • barsquid@lemmy.world
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      28 days ago

      “I had different principles and values until someone hurt my feelings on the internet.”

  • Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world
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    28 days ago

    Anyone who says they became a right-winger because they hated their fellow left-wingers is lying.

    But, of course, every word uttered by a conservative is deception or manipulation. Every word.

    • PotatoesFall@discuss.tchncs.de
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      28 days ago

      not fellow left-wingers - one way many people get pushed right is by watching right wing content that just shows lefties acting like idiots and then goes “omg look SJWs so dumb”. So people get turned off from feminism or progressivism before they have a chance to actually engage with it. Then, there’s only one direction to go when frustration sets in - right.

      Just look at the amount of ragebait on (conventional) social media showing feminists or queer activists or woke people acting cringe. It’s the first step of the right-wing pipeline.

      • wanderingmagus@lemm.ee
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        27 days ago

        Or they engage one too many times with hexbear and lemmygrad and .ml posters and now associate “left” with tankie.

      • AllHailTheSheep@sh.itjust.works
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        27 days ago

        people seem to forget that the GOP has been mastering propaganda and echo chambers since the 60s. so as soon as the Internet came alongz they knew exactly how to utilize it to get this effect. it’s honestly terrifying, and I think it at least partially explains the rise of alt right nutjobs in the last 20 years

        • psud@aussie.zone
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          22 days ago

          The common refrain of how we’re doomed by climate change and the fact we can’t fix it, so nothing matters anyway has their fingerprints all over it

    • shneancy@lemmy.world
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      28 days ago

      yeah exactly, imagine abandoning your entire worldview because someone was mean to you one too many times. You’d need to have no moral compass nor a spine to do that

      if a fellow leftie is mean to me i just call them a tankie and move on with my life /j

    • bitjunkie@lemmy.world
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      27 days ago

      I agree with the sentiment but I’d say in the ones who genuinely believe it, it’s a result of them being successfully deceived or manipulated

  • zephorah@lemm.ee
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    28 days ago

    It’s true.

    Rural gun owner leftist vs Seattle leftist. Cage match at 9pm central time.

    • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
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      28 days ago

      Unless he recently moved to Seattle, I’m fairly sure he lives in Vancouver (BC, he’s Canadian) and his current name is some kind joke.

      EDIT wow I can’t read, this is from 2020.

      Probably a joke about being the ruler of the CHAZ.

      • UnrepententProcrastinator@lemmy.ca
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        28 days ago

        I think his point is when you are far enough on any side of the spectrum, everyone else gets lumped together with the more problematic version of the opposition.

        Capitalists aren’t fascists but I wouldn’t be surprised to read an essay from someone on the far-left making that point.

        Socialists aren’t communists but you can frequently see this point being made by the far right.

        • bitjunkie@lemmy.world
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          27 days ago

          This collective false dichotomy complex is a direct result of FPTP and the erosion of the education system having made choosing governance a team sport

        • killingspark@feddit.org
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          27 days ago

          A lot of far left theory sees fascism as a result of capitalism. To defend the private property from the socialists one needs a group that zealously defends some in-group where the capitalists belong against some outgroup that contains the socialists. Something along those lines

              • UnrepententProcrastinator@lemmy.ca
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                27 days ago

                What do you mean? The fight against communism is well-known because they don’t recognize the validity of the concept of property, hence natural ennemies to capitalists for sure.

                But a lot of the “bourgeoisie” put their capital towards the tyrannical nature of a failing monarchy turning fascist in their methods.

            • orrk@lemmy.world
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              27 days ago

              did they tho? you seem to be under the impressionthat nazis wern’t caitalists, this is wrong. infact the reason the UA diden’t go faschist was the socialists, hell the big capitalists actualy tried to overthrow the goverment and install a faschist.

  • bamfic@lemmy.world
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    28 days ago

    If you are a leftist it is sooo easy to troll other leftists. Right wingers are missing out on all the fun.

  • Crankenstein@lemmy.world
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    Literally annoyed right now because some dimwit fighting ghosts, saying that I was advocating for tolerance of right-wing fascism, because I said that the Balkanization strategy was not the strat in reply to a third individual’s comment.

    Also trying to say something about vulcanization, but idk what the chemical process of mixing rubber with sulfur has to do with geopolitics.

  • bitjunkie@lemmy.world
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    27 days ago

    RIGHT? Like I’m voting blue no matter who at least until the GOP fixes its fascism problem (if it ever does), but at the same time shut the fuck up I don’t care about your 37 gender identities or pescatarian diet or whatever

    • auzy@lemmy.world
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      27 days ago

      The only people who rant about that stuff is the right wing

      I’m straight but have lots of lgbtiq friends, and conversations like that never come up.

      It’s oddly enough the right wing who bring that conversation up constantly and exaggerate it

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        27 days ago

        You would think so, but there’s a certain user here who expects us all to play along with their stated gender. Their stated gender is the name of a mythical animal.

        Somehow no one has played along.

        Other than that specific person though, I have yet to meet a queer person who had an issue with being called ‘they/them’ even if their preferred pronouns are ‘zir’ or whatever. My wife works with multiple nonbinary people (librarians are an eclectic bunch). None of them expect you to call them by their preferred pronoun. They just don’t want you to intentionally misgender them either.

        • MBM@lemmings.world
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          27 days ago

          Never really saw it become a big deal, aren’t they just talking in third person?

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            27 days ago

            Nope. They got pissed off that I called them not just “them,” but “you.”

            And I explained to them that both of those pronouns are gender-neutral and that they apply to everyone and I would be willing to use them on anyone. Now they’re following me around and harassing me for doing things like using ‘he’ when referring to Caillou. As in the cartoon toddler.

      • bitjunkie@lemmy.world
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        26 days ago

        I’ve met those walking stereotypes a handful of times but yeah, WAY less common than Tucker Carlson or whoever would have you believe

    • laserm@lemmy.world
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      27 days ago

      Oh other people decided to not live their life pedantically according to your opinions. The tragedy!

  • kittenzrulz123
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    27 days ago

    Agreed, I personally voted for Kamala Harris (early voting) however I cannot pretend that she is a good candidate.

    • PugJesus@lemmy.worldOP
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      27 days ago

      Agreed, I personally voted for Kamala Harris (early voting)

      It’s a shit situation to have the candidates we do, but unironically, thank you for making the choice that makes it less likely that millions will suffer needlessly. I’ll be limping my ass down on election day to cast that same vote.

      • kittenzrulz123
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        27 days ago

        If Kamala wins I hope Liberals can use the next four years to actually do something (unlike Biden), hopefully ranked choice voting will be in and the electoral college will be out

        • Hackworth@lemmy.world
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          27 days ago

          From left to right - Student loans forgiven ($175 Billion)

          Student loans that would have been forgiven without R fuckery ($430 Billion)

          Total federal student loan debt ($1.6 Trillion)

        • PugJesus@lemmy.worldOP
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          Wouldn’t hold my breath on the electoral college. The process for a constitutional amendment is unlikely. Ranked choice and the NPVIC are both doable, in more states, at least, if not all, I think, if we put our efforts forward, especially with the momentum gained on the former and the VP speaking out against the electoral college on the latter.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            27 days ago

            The process for a constitutional amendment is unlikely.

            Agreed. The Equal Rights Amendment was super popular with both Democrats and Republicans and they still couldn’t get enough states to ratify it.

  • BreadOven@lemmy.world
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    28 days ago

    I just left the lefty memes instance because people were so far up their own asses, they couldn’t tell you their own right hand from their left. Don’t even ask them about the left/right political spectrum. Well, unless you want to get angry.

  • moosetwin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    28 days ago

    I felt that an upvote is not enough but I don’t have a meaningful thing to comment so here is a jerma gif showing that I agree with your post:

  • TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com
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    27 days ago

    You can’t annoy someone into becoming differently-hearted about abortion, the death penalty, religion in the public arena, taxes and their governmental expenditures, or any sort of organized culturally elite stylized policies. Even though we domesticate animals some humans have had repeatedly bad experiences with the cultural domestication process.

    And politics relies upon these eternal differences.

    They will hate leftist policy because it means that bullying becomes harder to do. Controlling resources is now out of their hands in a very direct way, and usually people that need to dominate resources to feel safe will not abide by others having access to resources that they can’t control the tap to.

    And so that gets transformed one way or another. If they are big and have no problem doing crime they roll that.

    If they are big and they start with a problem with crime then they roll blue. That system creates a whole 'nather version of criminality and there is no cure for it there, either.

    Then you have the leftist which is usually someone that has been bullied enough to recognize oppression yet has not the power nor the force to make change.

    And yet when they do …

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      27 days ago

      What the people who say that actually mean is, “I was on your sports team until you told me what your sports team stood for.”

      It’s an “I voted Democrat because muh daddy voted Democrat and his daddy voted Democrat” situation. They were always Republicans, they just were too ignorant to pay attention and realize it.

  • glitchdx@lemmy.world
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    27 days ago

    I used to think I was leftist, because I believe in things like “healthcare” and “equal rights”.

    Then the leftists started screeching “bUt tHe gEnOcIdE!”

    I guess I’m not a leftist.

    • PugJesus@lemmy.worldOP
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      27 days ago

      I mean, the ongoing Palestinian genocide is important, vile, and our support of its perpetrators a stain on our national soul.

      It’s just not an excuse to let fascists start an additional genocide here in the US. Without even stopping the ongoing Palestinian genocide.

      • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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        26 days ago

        I think people think voting is endorsement rather than strategic. Obviously any sane leftist would not vote for the guy that thinks “palestinian” means “terrorist” and wants to put legal immigrants in camps.

        • PugJesus@lemmy.worldOP
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          26 days ago

          Unfortunately, the insane are very loud, and to the marginally engaged, loud insanity can sound like informed and passionate sanity.

          People in this country are taught voting is a moral duty, but not taught why it’s a moral duty. So the lunatic position of “Don’t vote for anyone you disagree with!” dovetails nicely into our broken fucking civic culture. In reality, voting is, as you said, strategic - it’s a moral duty insofar as we are morally obligated, as citizens, to examine the power we have, to exercise it in the most effective way we can, in service to the moral aims we have.

          Too many people in this country view voting spiritually. We aren’t Christian martyrs preparing to be fed to the lions in the Colosseum. We’re closer to congresscritters when we vote, than canonized saints. Take a look at your choices. Decide which one is closer to your goals. Vote accordingly. And be prepared to answer for it.

        • jatone@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          26 days ago

          do you? talk to any leftist many most of us will tell you in a swing state to vote harris if you’re worried, and down ballot if your unwilling to stomach having a backbone. lie cheat and scream at your reps about gaza in the mean time etc.

          so what exactly have you done to help prevent the genocide being perpetrated by harris and biden? you know besides cry about people holding harris to task. Do you know why shes courting republicans because she knows we’re pissed. shes trying to do an end run around to continue doing what she wants. and thats her decision. because she knows you will meekly accept it.

          • glitchdx@lemmy.world
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            26 days ago

            I understand that you’re arguing in bad faith, because screaming about genocide now is not helping. This kind of language only encourages people to vote third party or not vote at all. Also, democrats are the only ones ever “held to task”, and most often in ways that don’t actually align with reality. Also also, your insults are petty and insulting, so I guess you win because now I’m angry and my day is ruined.

            • jatone@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              26 days ago

              lol now is the best time. but I’ve been writing to my congress critters the entire year. I only started posting here because libs are bitching about muslims not supporting harris in swing states. get off your fucking high horse.

              This kind of language only encourages people to vote third party or not vote at all.

              +1 good for them, they have morals, which apparently you lack. you see I voted third party I’m one of them. I emailed my reps all september and harris’ campaign informing them what was required for me to commit to their ticket. they didn’t do it. thats a them problem.

              If you look at my post history you’ll clearly see I’ve been encouraging people to vote down ballot if they absolutely cant vote for harris over this. I’ve also recommended that if they live in swing states they’re likely better off supporting harris. the only people arguing in bad faith are people like you who enable a genocide and think themselves superior to those of us doing our fucking damnedest all year to stop it.

              its good to know where you stand, and its good to know I was right in denying my vote to harris.

            • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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              26 days ago

              I understand that you’re arguing in bad faith, because screaming about genocide now is not helping.

              It’s always conveniently “now”.

          • PapaStevesy@lemmy.world
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            26 days ago

            She’s courting Republicans because they vote much more consistently than Democrats. She’s courting Republicans because the Overton Window is so fucked that they’re actually a good chunk of her base now. She’s courting Republicans because they have literally the worst possible candidate imaginable and it’s safe to assume the reasonable ones are looking for any excuse to bail. I don’t think she’s thinking about you at all.

            • jatone@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              25 days ago

              Every leftist i know votes every election, we may not vote for every candidate but we vote. Thats a candidates problem not mine.

                • jatone@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  22 days ago

                  correct, I did. you responded with a expose on why harris is courting republicans which included they vote much more consistently them democrats. I was refuting that point. the rest of your post is eh whatever.

    • deaf_fish@lemm.ee
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      27 days ago

      Ehhh, the left is a big board idea. I wouldn’t worry about it too much. It’s a favorite trick of the fascist to pretend to be on the left.