Comment by immibis
Comment by immibis 6 hours ago
What's even more enraging than the rise of fascism is the fact that only fascists have figured out how to be popular in the age of social media.
Comment by immibis 6 hours ago
What's even more enraging than the rise of fascism is the fact that only fascists have figured out how to be popular in the age of social media.
This sort of rhetoric is precisely what is fueling the rise of "the other side." It's exactly like when religious conservatives were in power and proclaiming that everybody who disagreed with them was some sort of family hating, country hating, religion hating, entity. Ummm, no - I can disagree with your views without hating much of anything or anybody, but you're doing a damn fine job of projecting your own hate, thank you very much.
And it's the same thing now a days, except the roles are largely reversed. Somebody who puts the interest of their nation and the citizens of that nation first isn't a "fascist." That sort of rhetoric, let alone the sharp rise in violence against it (to say nothing of the condoning, if not outright support of such), is just driving everybody who was kind of in the middle more and more away from the 'name callers.' I think you can see this in the US where polls show independents increasingly leaning right on most issues, whereas not that long ago they tended to lean left. And given our basically 50/50 split, independents have the power to pick which side wins.
I feel politics is like this perpetual motion machine where you reach some absolute extreme on end where the side in power starts to do really dumb stuff which ends up driving people to the other side until we trend (over what feels like a ~25 year cycle) to the next opposite extreme and the cycle begins anew.
Putting the "interests of their nation and the citizens of that nation" first is the meaningless populist rhetoric part, that always appeals in a racist, bigoted populous (so every nation ever pretty much). That's like people suffer economically from neoliberalism, so you redirect to unrelated scapegoats, that's trivial, happened a million times.
Historically the fascist then, will use economic populist policy. That's like when Hitler built the Autobahn, you alleviate the economic grievances, support for the autocrat cements and then the real fascist stuff begins, that's when term limits go away and their enemies go in the oven.
But they don't do that economic populist part do they? These new right-wing movements in the west aren't doing this part of the equation.
Because we are now in the "interesting", novel case where the autocrats themselves are also just more neoliberals, the real power hasn't really moved an inch, like they are all paid by the same set of oligarchs, power is already fully consolidated. So I suspect nothing much will happen, it will just swing back to the center that shifted the overton window a bit more to the right in the meantime, the status quo didn't change so people are perpetually unhappy with no idea why.
> I feel politics is like this perpetual motion machine where you reach some absolute extreme on end
Yeah man! Totally! It's like when we move from Reaganomics in the 80s to Clintonomics in the 90s, from one "absolute extreme end" to the other! TF
It takes a special personality to be able to see the difference between Nazis killing Jews, and Jews killing Nazis, I guess. Especially in the midst of so much propaganda. Most Germans thought they were doing the right thing to protect their country. The Nazis were all like "the Jews are killing us so this is just self-defence!" and the Jews were also like "the Nazis are killing us so this is just self-defence!". Yet, one of those statements was correct. You'd have to really pay attention to know which one was correct, because the TV (if they had TV in that era) wouldn't tell you.
Politics is a perpetual motion machine because there are always people who seek to dramatically increase their own power and will use any excuse to do so - that is a constant. What fluctuates back and forth is which excuses work - that is the apparent pendulum, but it's the same constant driving force underneath. When protecting the country is in vogue, power-seeking sociopaths will use excuses related to protecting the country. When religious freedom is in vogue, power-seeking sociopaths will use excuses related to religious freedom. When liberating the working class is in vogue, power-seeking sociopaths will use excuses related to liberating the working class. Those aren't different sides - they're just different excuses used by the same side.
That’s not really the issue, it’s that fascist talking points cause uproar and thus engagement and thus gets rewarded by the social media companies.
Also, too many rich people seem to feel way too comfortable with fascism, probably thinking their wealth will insulate them from the consequences.
Conservative populists meet people where they are and talk to their fears and dissatisfactions. 'Hey I see you're working hard but still struggling, It didn't used to be like that, and hey .. look at all these foreigners around now .. isn't so unfair this 'tax free' shopping they get to do? How come you're in your own country and struggling, but foreigners are paying less for things..' where as socially or culturally progressive side of things what ever you want to call it is more likely to start with 'hey that thing you're doing is wrong and you need to change that', even if they are in fully realised practice the more accepting and inclusive of the two..
Nah, also radical left wing people get popular. Any radical person figure out how to be popular quickly
The representation of "radical left" (whatever that means) is no more than a drop in the bucket compared to the rise of authoritarian right-wing viewpoints in the media and especially politics.
Communist political parties practically don't exist while authoritarian right wing parties running on austerity, cracking down on personal freedoms, and spreading hate towards all sorts of out-groups are gaining mainstream appeal in a lot of the world.
Unless you're using the bastardized American definition of "radical left" where any viewpoint to the left of centre, like "our systems are crumbling, rich people should be taxed more" is labeled "radical left".
To be honest with you, I see a lot less of the Authoritarian Right than I do of the Authoritarian Left…
And as a person who does not like authoritarianism, it informs my opinion.
It takes a certain kind of person to be popular on social media. The venn diagram of both is very nearly a single circle.