Not since Lenin died, at the very latest.
I also don’t want that, and I also have hope that it’s not too late. But if we’re to avoid that fate, it won’t be by shrugging our shoulders and saying “Eh, history is cyclical”.
This seems like a fairly dramatic view. So what do you suggest?
@Chronos - I have known you for a long time and I know that you do not mean that literally.
Please note that it is true that many third-world nations like India are poor because of white colonialism. However, many of them are not degenerates; and many have progressive laws and continue to struggle to get more progressive. Being economically poor does not equate to being morally poor.
/nitpick/ the bolded in verb and noun forms just ain’t jivin’, maaaaan. 
/nitpick/
Remind me again, who are we calling smug ? 
I think it’s smugs all the way down. 
That strategy only works for Republicans because the Democrats actually want to get something done.
What Democrats need to do is get better at advertising. Get better at explaining things to the American people. Right now, even though 70% of people think Roe v. Wade should have remained, only 30% see it as an important issue. And the Democrats seems to want to be led by that, rather than come out and actually point out how bad things will get, not only with this particular decision, but also the decisions that are being promised.
There seems to be little attempt by the Democrats to get the general public actually angry. They should be doing an all out blitz on this. Do some (fact-based) fear mongering.
Right wingers exploit the smug density of the public. The Democrats should do more of that.
This seems appropriate for this thread, sort of, even though it might be a tangent. I think it illustrates a relevant point.
I read something today, in a book called The Final Case by David Guterson. The passage starts on page 66 of my Kindle version (I have no idea how that relates to other Kindle versions or print versions, about 28% of the way through). It is a rant that runs on for 4 pages, by a 60+ white Christian (self-styled) woman character, covering what she hates about everyone who doesn’t believe what she believes, and how she and her family (daughter on trial for murder) are victims because “they hate us 'cuz we’re Christian and white.”
It’s chilling. Every sentence is full of hate and spite against “them,” the ones who aren’t Christian (the way she is) and white. It’s not only the hate but the absolute conviction that any other view of the world is either crazy stupid (if you’re white) or the natural result of being both inferior and wanting to take everything (if you’re not white). Oh, and women’s rights comes in for its share of abuse too.
There’s way too much for me to quote from meaningfully, there isn’t a line or two that captures the essence, it’s just this accumulation of flat hatred and certainty as she touches on subject after subject, that builds up to what it is, which as I said, is chilling. This book was just published this year, if you get a chance to read these pages I recommend you do so. It may open your eyes, as it shrivels your hope for humanity. I’ve never seen anything like it, and fortunately I’m not exposed to people like this in real life. May it remain so.
The problem is that as we’re seeing right now with Russia, a third-world country can pick on whoever it wants if it has nukes.
I post daily on an extreme right-wing forum, so I see it a lot.
I’d say what we have right now is an army of Tucker Carlsons. Absolutely everything that happens is viewed through a tribal / partisan lens where it is literally never the case that anyone considered on their side has done or said anything wrong, and vice versa.
And conspiracy theories are very useful for this, as it means no actual data could ever prove them wrong. All you need to do is assert some conspiracy or hidden data that will prove you right someday.
And I know all this sounds very partisan, and there are people that will say “What about the left?”
But that level of extreme tribalism to the extent of denying objective reality…personally I have never seen it on the American left, and I doubt it exists on anything like the same scale.
Maybe there will be some future time where the left will be the loony side of American politics. But at this moment, it’s not the left, it’s not “both sides”, it’s the conservative right.
My dad is like that.
I remember about 20 years ago I was having a chat with him, and the subject of some politician or media figure came up (can’t remember who, it was a long time ago). I think we were talking about something they said, and I was wondering how accurate it was. Our exchange went something like this:
Me: “I am not sure if they are correct.”
Dad: “I’m sure they are, they’re conservative.”
Me: “Just because they’re conservative, that doesn’t mean they’re always right about everything.”
Dad: “Sure it does!”
No irony or humor involved, he was dead serious. Now, way back then I was also a conservative and agreed with him often politically, but even I knew that people were people, and people make mistakes, no matter their political affiliation. I’ve never understood tribalism, no matter what tribe you’re talking about.
Just to be clear, this is a novel.
Not to diminish your point, but “fictional character’s rant written by someone who presumably isn’t in actual agreement with the character they’ve written” is not necessarily the best way to get one’s eyes opened about something.”
Like, this character gets none of the benefits or complexities of being a real person. Their existence is designed to elicit a specific response.
I’m not saying that art can’t give insight, but in a thread about actual people, does a fictional person really belong?
Why?
He has low blood pressure, and doesn’t want to take medication?
I came across it originally by accident. On chess.com you can join Clubs, which mostly just play chess and have no discussion at all. I joined a club, then found not only did it have a discussion forum, but the forum was extreme right wing, with a lot of racism and conspiracy theories. And of course the political right is always right (even when there’s a contradiction) and the left is always wrong. The 2020 election was stolen, all the mass shooters are either antifa or false flags, Putin is just trying to defend himself from western aggression, climate change is a myth etc etc.
I thought if I could avoid the bait of getting angry about the racism threads and just explain critical thinking and be reasonable, I might reach some people.
And of course…I haven’t. The closest I’ve come is, I think one or two people who considered themselves moderates and kept trying to “both sides” everything, I’ve managed to convince them that it’s really not a symmetrical situation.
But the bulk of the posters, the Trumpists, just get angry. None of them have ever budged an inch.
For some of them I think it’s because they realize they’ve been fooled by one of the worst con men on the planet. It’s hard to admit being so stupid.
So they double down.
I notice that SD made my mention of chess dot com into a hyperlink and someone’s clicked it. If you were interested to know the actual right-wing club, let me know and I’ll link it. I just didn’t want to poison the SD unless there’s demand for that.
I once had a conversation with a conservative coworker about Common Core. Everything he thought he knew about it was wrong. After I showed him how and why everything he knew was wrong, he said
“Perception matters.”
And that was his argument.
“I have invented my own reality”
It’s basically a mental illness at that point, if they are not operating in the real world.
But perception does matter.
You may have convinced your coworker, but millions of others believe what he did, and you aren’t there to explain it to them. And if the widespread perception of Common Core is wrong, that matters because people and school districts make decisions based on that perception.
Doesn’t mean right-wingers aren’t smugly dense, of course.