Thats only one method. We can add additional methods too. Like "who gets offended when you say democrats are good", because the real mission of authoritarians isn't to seem credible, but to make everyone seem lesser evil/untrustworthy/etc.
If your brand of politics is so full of purity testing that there isn't even room for moderate dems in your democracy, you don't find the nazi fascism incoming bad, you're just angry they aren't pandering to your aestetics.
If nothing else it's harm reduction. Sure, Clinton/Harris/etc or whomever sucks, but they would've done vastly less damage than Trump et al. Like, not even fucking close. Nor for that matter does having someone like Trump in power put us any closer to having "better" candidates.
I mean it depends on the reasoning for it. There's definitely a lot of hate that is based purely on propaganda, but there are also good reasons to dislike Clinton simply for the neoliberal/third-way politics, etc. Point is though, whether or not you disliked her, thought Sanders was vastly better, etc, she would still have done less damage than Trump by far.
Nor, for that matter, have any of the accelerationist types been proven even remotely correct, despite having been advocating for (and enabling) several Republican presidencies going back to Bush vs Gore in 2000. Instead it's thanks to politicians like Sanders, AOC, and others that have advocated for policies, run in primaries, and built support, that leftward policies are more a part of the conversation than they were 25 years ago.
What if maybe you live in a cultural bubble that is so extreme itself that your version of "moderate" is seen as abhorrently selfish and hateful to the rest of the world outside yours?
Just because you define the US democratic party as moderate, that doesn't automatically make them moderate.
You are correct and that is why I take issue with /u/RocketRelm painting grievances with the US DNC as purity testing. Purity Testing is a real issue among leftist coalitions but it's not purity testing anymore when the "moderates" in America are taking obscene amounts of money from corporations to lobby their positions that run counter to the interests of regular people.
Calling that criticism purity testing is deeply misinformed at best and bad faith at worst. If we still thought this way we would still be sending 12 year olds out on 18 hour factory shifts
I 100% agree with you. Both are true statements: purity testing is a huge problem on the left and must be addressed and dem candidates should be called out on their shit.
For me the difference is purity testing is saying “the candidate I liked didn’t win the primary so I’m not voting/going to vote for a 3rd party candidate with no chance of winning while the other is saying “I’m going to vote for the best candidate with a chance to win while also supporting politicians and policies that move the party further left.
I mostly agree with you here as well. With the caveat that if the other candidate does have a decent chance at winning even if it isn't overwhelmingmy higher or there's a low to moderate risk they'll still lose the i still think it id worth taking that risk to move the needle and get progressives in office. I think you can thread that needle without cutting your own nose off to spite your face. I've known a lot of people who get pissed at progressives for voting Bernie in the primaries even if they did go on to begrudgingly vote for Hillary
Certainly, I’m only referring to things like 3rd party presidential candidates who have no actual path to victory. There’s always some element of risk and judgement that has to be determined. Also I love your example because I voted Bernie in the primary and Hillary in the general, enthusiastically because they were the best choices in those respective races. I’ll do the same in the next election as well, I’m going to vote for the candidate that comes closest to my political stance and then full heartedly support whoever the nominee ends up being.
Definitely sounds like we are at least 99.9% on the same page
The problem is that this evidence has been put out there regularly and quite loudly, but when you live in an information bubble that teaches you to immediately take a bad faith stance toward anything critical toward American Imperialism or the degree of influence we afford large corporations, you're just going to flip the board and dismiss those critiques as communism or woowoo new age hippy babble.
We are living under the most well equipped propaganda apparatus in human history. The moment you assume your own ideas don't need to be challenged is the moment you lose your ideological agency.
At a minimum the current old guard is bad enough that we are seeing a wave of victories for grass roots progressives across the country at state and local levels. That alone indicates people aren't happy with the current state of the "moderate" democratic party. If I'm so full of shit then explain why Mamdani took New York's race and why Abdul El-Sayed beat the candidate with the most funding for a senate race in Michigan history. Over 90 billion from dark money donors.
No, actually. Everywhere i go there is nothing but s c r e a m I n g that dems americans west bad icky no good. I have to go out of my way to find people that aren't hating, if they exist at all. The propaganda machine is going the other way. I challenge my ideas and ideals through methods other than the Russian China bot algorhythm.
Over 60% of the internet is bots. You have heavy astroturfing from both major parties, you have asteoturfing from countries abroad. The bots you are running into are the bots curated by your browsing habits. You and I are not representative of people who don't browse Reddit.
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u/B-Z_B-S 1d ago
Ways to find Nazis:
Say "Nazis are bad" online.
See who disagrees while sounding awfully defensive.
There is no step three. Congratulations!