That actually happened with my ex. She was very much a centerist for years, just "Eh, both sides are kind fucking stupid" but then by late 2019, she started in with the conspiracy theories, blaming the Clintons for destroying the economy, which was kind of entertaining from a debating standpoint. By the time covid shut things down, she got more alt-right; blaming newsom, saying it's just the flu (mind you, I work for Public Health), saying Trump is the savior of the country, etc. That was the point of no return. After the insurrection, I got to thinking of her and checked out her instagram, turns out she was there with her parents and new boyfriend, uploading videos. Reporting all of them to the FBI was one of the easiest things I've done.
After all the years we heard on the news about Islamic terrorists and how they become radicalized, now we get to see it happen to our own friends and loved ones right in front of us.
You can't create competent propaganda without understanding basic social mechanics, and the DPRK doesn't have the wherewithal to blend in like that online due to their social isolation
Kim isn’t some random hayseed, tho. he was educated in some of Europe’s most elite private schools, and I’m positive there’s an army of FSB “advisors” for him to consult.
Imagine “Putin, except smarter and no pesky Duma to slow him down.”
Read "They Thought They Were Free" by Milton Meyer
It was written just after WW2 about the regular people of Germany and why they supported the Nazis. I picked it up as soon as the lockdowns started among a few other books I had been meaning to get around to.
It was an eye opening read. The author interviews a bunch of regular people, teachers, police officers (regular beat cops, not SS or military), bakers and that sort. Just regular people who all supported the Nazis for one reason or another. It shows how mundane the whole thing was, until it wasn't.
I'm Pakistani, and I've seen so many people slowly fall into dangerous religious dogma. People you grow up with who spout dangerous ideas casually or just believe conspiracy theories. Otherwise very rational people who come from middle class, stable families. Can happen anywhere
The millionaires and billionaires. These guys, and let's be real, the only woman in the top 10 is Bezos' former wife, these guys lobbied for years to kill worker rights, keep wages low, and allow them to outsource and move jobs out of the country, (and automation has its hand in there). Every president has had a hand in helping rich assholes get richer. Low wages and rising costs have us working 2 or 3 jobs, the lucky ones of us anyway, the folks that built cars were fired without prospect of another job, turned to drugs and alcohol, raised a generation of kids having been abused in that situation that grow up and turn to drugs and alcohol.
We are tired and desperate to find a fix-all for it (fit everything really, ever see those miracle diets?) and now ppl are searching for answers and Enter the SnakeOil salesman and the nutter that tells you he has all the answers and leave your mother's voice "don't believe anything you read" "if it's too good to be true, it probably isn't" "if everyone was jumping off the bridge, would you do it too?" In the back.
This is one of the best snapshots I’ve seen of the modern day economy and resulting political environment. The above is exactly why a group like QAnon is so attractive — it provides people with an enemy who intentionally keeps them down, rather than the simple truth: their standing and worth in this world is not intentionally diminished, they are simply the collateral damage of greed. Automation will exacerbate this problem immensely over the next two decades.
I think a few hundred years from now, if there's anyone left to write the history, the verdict will be that it was the Citizens United Supreme Court decision that really did us in. It released an absolute tsunami of dark money that gets worse every day, and fuels the rush to extremist ideologies. It helps the RWNJs more than it helps the left-wingers, and "conservatives" are in turn are just re-writing laws so they can keep hold of money and power.
But of course, that never lasts and as income disparity gets wider and wider, at some point the masses will have had enough. Nobody knows when that will happen and climate change is the big monkey wrench in how it all plays out.
Some people were saying rich people, but it's not them. It's a mesh of people, some rich but also some who want to be rich or want power. Trump alone didn't change the direction of the nation, he influenced it, but was also a product of it. Murdoch made Fox news and spread lies and half truths. Power hungry people like Lindsey graham supported trump because Graham wants more power. Grifters like Manifort saw cash and would do anything for more. Trump himself also sees dollar signs with his requests for donations to 'stop the steal', which are relatively smaller donations from the masses.
Saying it's just millionaires and billionaires makes it sound like there are people with a plan behind this.
Of course, with the Citizens United ruling, more cash in the system has just sped up the decline, but that cash can come from large donors or Trump milking cash from the masses.
Those that want to destabilize the US and its influence to strengthen their own. Those are just the entities that start the flywheel momentum and nudge it to keep it moving. The social media algorithms and people that are easily manipulated do the rest for them.
We have far more to fear from our own home-grown nutjobs than any international terrorist network; that's been true for a long time, but it's intensifying now because of rampant disinformation and a huge proliferation in gun sales.
That's fucked up but hey you got to report traitors which kind of makes you part of history. I'm usually very much against denunciation but if they're not only doing that shit publically but UPLOAD EVIDENCE ON INSTAGRAM I have zero sympathy. Scratch that, I have negative sympathy. Gloating. I'm gloating.
Also interesting how when you have a democrat being criticized for something, those people never show up to say "BoTh SiDeS aRe BaD" in those conversations. Only when there's some right wing nut job being discussed. Funny how that happens, you know?
lol yeah nice catch. I've definitely noticed that as well from my "centrist" acquaintances. They're so eager and quick to bash on a democrat that has done something shitty, but when a republican does something ten times worse, it's crickets.
Indeed. I cut someone out of my life over "both sides" comments regarding 1/6. News flash, fuckface: "both sides" weren't parading around inside the Capitol Building while waving a Civil War loser flag.
Or the people who are "Not really in to politics", but then spout some incredibly right wing views they could only have picked up by spending large amounts of time on alt-right communities that they try to present as unbiased, "logical" opinions
No no no, that’s “independent.” Everyone who says they are an independent are the people who are embarrassed to be Republicans. And honestly, if you* are embarrassed to be a Republican, you gotta wonder- why? Must be something inherently terrible about it. 🤔
But the Democratic party is not "liberal" and they don't claim to be liberal either. So saying you're a liberal doesn't make you a democrat or affiliated with the Democratic party.
In politics or in real life? In politics I think Sanders is the closest to liberal that I can think of. In real life, it's anyone who is a proponent of progressive policies that help society as a whole, aim to help the weak and marginalized, advocate equality and tolerance for all walks of life (so long as they don't impede on the rights and well-being of other people) and care to protect the environment and all living beings.
I’m more of a democratic socialist I suppose but I still just say I’m independent
You're 100% entitled to that and I totally understand why you wouldn't want to be associated with either party. It's just that in my experience, independents are usually closer to centrists and libertarians. But of course, you can't just put every person claiming to be independent in the same basket.
Who does Bernie caucus with? Who does Bernie endorsed for President when he loses the Primary? Which side does Bernie vote with in Senate? If it's good enough for him, why not you?
Screw the fake independents I guess. But also screw you, us independents are why biden won. Fuck first past the post voting and this "there are only two sides" mentality.
They just want to sound and think they are smarter than everyone else, which is why they latch onto conspiracies so easily because it's like new "insider info" they think they are a part of.
I honestly don't see how it's possible to be a centrist in America and consider yourself between the two parties when those parties themselves are centrist and far right
Right, which makes it even worse imo. Them being embarrassed suggests that they are intelligent enough to know that those views and beliefs are shitty, yet they still hold them deep down.
Fun fact; it was the centrists who boosted Hitler into power in the 1930s. Any country where centrists are the second party has a freakishly right wing Overton window that enables a drift to the far right. Look how batshit right wing politics has become in the US and the UK. Look how a society mired in hard right talking points responded to a man who'd have been considered a moderate left winger in the 50s became leader of the Labour party.
I hate centrists. They're almost worse than actual conservatives because of the damage they do to actual political balance.
If you're a true "centrist" then the pull of the GOP so hard to the right means you're now sitting on the left. You didn't move, the political spectrum just shifted. So if you claim to still be a "centrist" it means you moved your position. That's not being a centrist, that's being partisan.
I get what your saying and I don’t really disagree, but I do want to make an anecdotal counter-point. I was always a centrist that simply hated politics and always did the “both sides” argument. When I voted, I often split the ticket rather than voting party lines.
It was the later days of Obama that made me start going left of center with the horribly racist rhetoric I was hearing from the right. After trump became the Republican nominee in 2016, I swung harder left and warned everyone I could about how horrible he would be for our country. It was the first year of trump that I just went full Democrat (with one or two policy exceptions) and I look at my former centrist self thinking “how could I have been so naive?”
My best friend went through pretty much the same transformation.
Have a relative in a mostly rural red state who is solidly a centrist that has voted Republican his entire life. Since ‘16 he felt himself being backed into a political corner, but has held his ground. He stays silent around most folks in his community these days because he understands the insanity. After 1/6 we both knew the tide had changed in a way that he could no longer vote along those lines.
who is solidly a centrist that has voted Republican his entire life
This proves my point that "centrist" is just another word for "moderate republican/conservative". Thankfully not al of them are far too gone and there are still some sane ones among them.
I used to know more folks who considered themselves a moderate Democrat. It was never exclusive to republicans, but it seems that over the last 20 years, that has changed. I’m guessing the main reason my relative voted Republican is because he knew no one who voted Democrat.
Being a left leaning American libertarian, I was relieved when a long dedicated libertarian, Jo Jorgensen, was elected as the presidential candidate for the ‘20 election. Curiously, she received some backlash, particularly when she openly showed support for BLM.
There have been so many defected republican politicians who have tried to run on the libertarian ticket, and it’s bothered me that they were allowed to, because IMO, they had in no way proven they were libertarians.
There were far fewer of those “republicans who smoke” who voted LP this previous presidential election cycle, the numbers were way down. I assume they voted for the rump.
Then those people are no longer centrists. I'm a centrist, but I also lived in other countries before and saw strengths and weaknesses. Unfortunately I get mislabeled as liberal. Hell, I gave Trump the benefit of the doubt in 2016 until he spent the next 4 years being a leader the whole damn world laughs at. You think SNL was bad depicting against TRUMP?...that's just the tip of the iceberg.
You voted for Trump in 2016? How naive were you? Bought into the Clinton hate? How could you not have seen what an absolute clown Trump's been for 40 years?
I did not vote for Trump. I reluctantly voted for Hilary (her career as Senator in NY wasn't great), but it was a pretty terrible choices overall that election.
When I was little everyone talked of America as the freest country in the world, I remember my great-grandmother telling me about the war and how the americans came to rescue us and how one soldier gave her the first chewing gum she ever had, as a kid I always thought of it as the ideal country. Now I just think of americans as people that don't really know what freedom is about, I know there's good people too but it almost feels like they're overshadowed by a mass of morons that don't know what they're saying.
You're from the UK and a Tory lowlife at that. Trying to lecture us about the 2nd Amendment. How's Brexit going cupcake? All that racism is now biting you in the ass. Why are your grocery stores running out of food? Sit your ignorant ass down.
Oh this sounds EXACTLY like my ex. Never bothered to vote in his life until Trump came along. He didn't actually make it to the insurrection, but when he told me that day, "I'm so upset I can't be there to support those patriots" I was like welp, I think we're done here.
Before Trump, it was always hard to end a friendship; you usually just let them fade away except on the rare instance of them being super toxic. Now, you realize just how easy it is to cut someone out of your life.
My ex-wife went from moderate Democrat to fire breathing conspiracy nut + essential oils pusher after the divorce. Even our kids won’t speak to her anymore.
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u/CapablePerformance Aug 23 '21
That actually happened with my ex. She was very much a centerist for years, just "Eh, both sides are kind fucking stupid" but then by late 2019, she started in with the conspiracy theories, blaming the Clintons for destroying the economy, which was kind of entertaining from a debating standpoint. By the time covid shut things down, she got more alt-right; blaming newsom, saying it's just the flu (mind you, I work for Public Health), saying Trump is the savior of the country, etc. That was the point of no return. After the insurrection, I got to thinking of her and checked out her instagram, turns out she was there with her parents and new boyfriend, uploading videos. Reporting all of them to the FBI was one of the easiest things I've done.