I'm looking at posts on a hobby forum I also post on and there's some serious furor being caused by the news of the vaccine mandate. Someone referred to Biden as a "Feckless Fuck of a leader" and another person advocated for balkanization for the 20% of the country that doesn't approve of vaccine mandates.
I get that some people have concerns about authoritarianism and expansion of state powers (I mean they kinda don't because if they really did we'd have been done with this government a long time ago) but I'm really, genuinely struggling to understand why this is making so many people irrationally mad. These aren't even open fascists either, it's like liberals and Hank Hill type conservatives. What is it about this sort of governance that so frustrates them? They won't be materially affected in any way, and a lot of them have expressed the desire to be "left alone".
I have to wonder if there is some sort of deeper meaning to "left alone", because throughout a lot of the pandemic it seems that most people have been trying to pretend it's not happening. Is it the fact that the USA is facing a humiliation on it's own soil that it can't shoot at or nuke? I'm really confused by thought process behind this sort of rage.
The logical endpoint of American civil religion. "Freedom" is sacred, but only when it's a negative freedom wherein no one can compel an individual to do anything they don't want to do. No one is a more devoted diciple of American civil religion than a suburban white boomer. A vaccine mandate isn't just an inconvenience, it's trampling on divine right.
yet they'll lick the boots of the HOA, the pigs, etc... but have the feds ask them to get a simple vaccine like all the ones they got to go school as a kid and they cry just like a little baby hahahaha
This is where you get extreme forms of "you can't tell me what to do!" mentality.
privileged diaper babies who've never been actually oppressed in their lives are desperate for someone to validate their feelings of oppression, because they have generally been more and more impoverished in a class society sense, yet they can't articulate it because they don't understand themselves in class terms, so they use cultural signifiers to beg for validated oppression feelings.
i wish they could all spend a week in jail just to understand what real oppression actually feels like. i can't wait until they all die.
Don’t forget that Christianity commonly teaches it’s adherents that their beliefs are under constant attack
I'm literally so tired I can't really type out a well-thought out response, but the gist of what I want to say is: For us, politics often come down to the capital. What does capital want, what are the itnerestes of capital? During the pandemic, capital wants us back to work, and spending money, travelling, eating out, consuming. It's wanted that this whole time.
But for a lot of right-wing conspiracies politics is about some abstract notion of "control." For some reason the government wants to control us, and is contstantly trying ot ifnd ways to do so. And so there is a constant struggle between the patriots who want freedom, and the government or deep state or whatever who want to control and constantly impeded on your life. This just plays into that. So even if you got vaccinated, or a re pro-vaccination, the right-wing background noise of American politics makes your mind go to "the government is trying to control us" when you hear this news. Or something lke that. I need to sleep.
But for a lot of right-wing conspiracies politics is about some abstract notion of “control.” For some reason the government wants to control us, and is contstantly trying ot ifnd ways to do so.
There's a strain of right-wing thought (and you'll see some of this accepted by libs as well) that says every government action occurs at the expense of personal freedoms.
During the pandemic, capital wants us back to work, and spending money, travelling, eating out, consuming. It’s wanted that this whole time.
This is a terrible take invented by people with tunnel vision about their retail job being "the economy". You don't need to leave your house to consume, and it's better if you stay home because you're a more captive audience. Capital in the 2020s is dominated by tech and media. They actually want you in your living room on Netflix and ordering everything from an app. The winners of modern capitalism absolutely love lockdowns.
The sides of Capital that opposed the lockdown were mostly the LOSERS of Capitalism - small businesses, retail, hospitality. All of those industries were fucked before Covid anyway, and a lot of them are full of Chuds which is how the lockdowns became such a partisan issue.
Commerical real estate are ultimately still L O S E R S, Trump being the prime example of that.
Tech, healthcare, and finance are literally all that matters (check the S&P500 makeup). Giving hogs their toys is irrelevant because putting them in front of a screen is more profitable. All the digital toys are made overseas anyway.
The WFH thing hurts your boss (middle manager), but upper management is seeing an ocean of green with the opportunities to offshore even more work. We literally just had a year+ long test case on how 100% remote works well, and if your job can be 100% remote from the US, it can be 100% remote from the Philippines, India, Ukraine, etc. Even if you pay 1 person to work and 1 person to double check everything, and 1 American to be the "project manager" of 5-10 overseas staff, you still win.
I agree with some of this, it's absolutely possible to consume and make these people profits while sitting at home, and a ton of people have done very well during the pandemic. And yeah, a lot of what we were seeing early on was the smaller petit and national bourgeoisie pushing no lockdowns, covids not a big deal, etc. because they were getting hurt by the response.
But to argue that the haute bourgeoisie loves lockdowns and wants you in your house doesn't jive with reality. I mean, where are they pushing for more and stricter lockdowns? The only support for lockdowns I have ever encountered is on this site or from adjacent sources. The general momentum of the country at this time is get back to normal, and maybe the haute bourgeoisie are not as quick to say rip off your masks and go breathe on each other, but the sentiment is still there. I mean, the only thing stopping them from completely opening up is that a huge portion of the country is unvaccinated and overrunning hospitals and dieing, and they really can't open up, which is why we're stuck in some weird limbo right now.
The haute bourgeoisie have seen supply chains fucked up, their warehouses and shit are in high-COVID areas with workers falling sick in such huge numbers that people who need the hospital for non-COVID things can't find space. The longer covid goes on the more they have to give the workers what measly benefits they have up until this point. The eviction moratorium and unemployment benefits went on much longer than they wanted. I mean, it's a fucking disaster which, while they can still make profits, is not really what they want. They want to treat the vaccine as a silver bullet, get everyone vaccinated, and then usher in some sort of grand reopening. Sure, they can make money with us in our homes, but a situation where the workers aren't making money (and therefore not spending as much), they're forced to give us measly benefits, workers are falling sick and dieing, supply chains are fucked, and the population is getting angrier and angrier, pushed either further left or further right, is not a good one.
But also just look at what's happening. If the haute bourgeoisie saw lockdowns as in their interest, they'd be pushing for them, and they're not. They've been trying to get away from them for like a year.
Do you live in a super red state or something? Almost every haute bourgeoisie was heavily pushing for lockdowns. They absolutely aren't trying to get rid of them. They want you isolated from friends and family and stuck at home as a captive audience.
Big tech companies keep pushing back office reopening dates, everyone "knows" a lockdown is coming, mask mandates are back, etc.
They let people out of the house like last summer, but we are absolutely going back to a lockdown in October/November when second shots wear off in the elderly and flu season hits before boosters are widespread.
No workers want to go back into the office. I guess that's anecdotal, but I know many people who have quit when their workplaces called them back in. And how does everyone "know" a lockdown is coming? We had no lockdowns last winter, why would we have them this winter when we actually have a good portion vaccinated?
But also, if they want lockdowns and mask mandates so bad, why lift them in the first place? Why not just have a lockdown? What are they waiting for? It's not public opinion, that's already out the door and has been since at least summer 2020. The CDC walked back their "masks are unnecessary" advice when it became clear the situation was getting worse. The places mask mandates have come back are in places where they lifted them and the virus just came sweeping through again. They do want to deal with the virus, but are trying really hard to do it without going to spring 2020-style lockdowns or even stricter. They view the vaccine as the virus' silver bullet, which isn't true and will not work out, as you say second shots will wear off, but that's why they're now forcing vaccinations, they don't want to go back to lockdowns
I think it's just the butterfly effect of the red scare reverberating still.
The fear of "government overreach" and the merits of rugged individualism has been instilled into the heart of every single middle class person from boomers and onwards through embellished tales of the evil Soviets and Cubans and how hard working Americans can overcome anything.
This was solely to increase profits at the expense of regulation and solidarity.
Now this same system NEEDS a government to step in and actually do something and for people to work together, but the populous has been trained to lash out against any sort of governmental plan and has been brainwashed into thinking they're near immortal so long as they dig in deep and tug on those bootstraps.
It's living proof that the ideology of capitalism is completely incoherent and useless whenever faced against a single societal problem.
Turns out calling any leaders who stood for a cohesive society a commie, then throwing them in jail or outright shooting them for 60 (more like 120 actually) years may have had a negative effect eventually.
:cap-think:
Also, I sometimes think I need to take a break from "leftism" or just the internet and general because I read shit like this and I unironically feel just bleak, unending despair. Like, it's pretty much just us who think like this. Basically no one else gives an absolute fuck about anything lmao, even "progressives" tend to lose the plot....
like at least 900,000+ (if excess mortality is to believed) Americans have died and literally NOBODY FUCKING CARES
i don't even fucking like other Americans (America Moment) but like what the fuck man that's just not right
we're never getting universal healthcare rents will keep going up until half the planet is friggin underwater the boston dynamics manhacks will come and chop your legs off if you even think "woah other people exist?" we're getting fucking Cyborg Mussolini before wages go up again China (which is not communist) will be overrun by Proud Boys in T34 Anticommunist power armor We're getting Chobani™ neuralink ElonMusk®®™©™©©®®®™™ Tesla™™™®™ ads directed straight into our brains through our Doritos Lokos™ Chicken Chalupa subcranial interfaces by Alphabet©
someone give me something to latch on to
someone give me something to latch on to
Join an organisation. Engaging in campaigns will make you see the progress that can be made.
https://frso.org/join/
https://www.pslweb.org/join
https://www.socialistalternative.org/join/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBxn56l9WcU
hey check out this frogI don't know what age group or demography you're in but pretty much everyone I know is at least a radlib when you start talking politics, people I've known casually turn out to be hardline MLs more often than I ever expect. Hell even my token chud friend from high school has called me up to ask about what Marxism actually is in the last year.
the comrade that said join an org is right, and even if there aren't any parties active in your area I bet you there are orgs like tenant unions or food not bombs which are great ways to make material impacts on your community and stop feeling quite so burnt out on america in general.
the meme answer is because them being mandated by the state to be penetrated by something exacerbates their psychosexual pathologies
hyperindividualism is the sum total of the american conception of freedom
The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36743029-the-end-of-the-myth
The people who bug me the most aren't MAGA-pilled and aren't middle class. It's poor-ish white-ish crystal daddy hippie types who think they are being super cool. They unconsciously think of it like they are staking a claim to their freedom, planting their flag on a new planet. My pet theory is that they indeed feel powerless and stupid and poor, and want some kind of creative dignity. So absent any real, material options, they have to lurch forward into spheres of social thought that are "alternative" to flex their creative freedom (in the stupidest possible fucking way). It's super embarrassing but I get it on some level. They just haven't been exposed to leftist thought - or selfless communal thought - because basically no one has. That's really the crux: people are dangling on the ends of strings in a hollowed-out, awful society, and without any connection to a materially significant social program, with no friends or leaders who say anything of import, they form their own kind of mysticism and lore to cope.
Maybe this applies to MAGA hogs and normie middle class weirdos, too. It probably does.
Biden just being like “gee, I dunno, I’d prefer if everyone get the vaccine…b-but everyone can do what they want.” seems a lot more feckless to me.
Like…how can something be both authoritarian AND feckless at the same time?Chuds just like the word, they dont actually know what feckless means. It was big during the obama presidency
They're white, well-off middle aged men. They are used to be on the top of the pecking order and be treated with respect. Politicians suck up to them to get their votes, corporations suck up to them to get their money.
And then suddenly the government, the big bag government that they have been told to hate by capitalist propaganda all their lives, comes and tells them what to do. It doesn't even do it in the way they're used to with tax credits and incentives, they threaten to take their jobs if they don't comply. And to add insult to injury the government tells them they're fucking morons for not having been vaccinated already.
It just isn't right. They are not the people being told what to do, they're the ones telling others what to do! The government punishing and forcing you? That's for lesser people, that's for [slur]s!
Never have their inflated sense of self-importance been so violated! This is an outrage! This is exactly how it must be to live under the oppressive communist dictatorship of Soviet 1984 Venezuela!
They're old enough to remember when they weren't so alienated from their labor. They've seen their prosperity stagnate or fall. The only superstructural entity that gives them a personally satisfying answer as to why and doesn't require them to do any broader critique of their place in culture is right wing media. Right wing media tells them they are beset by government intrusion. I've heard them tell me with an absolutely straight face and earnest urgency that the federal government is constantly creating new ways to encroach on their lives.
They're sort of right, but for the wrong reasons. The right reasons require too much effort or also come along with all sorts of unpleasant questions about race, privilege, and whether capitalism works. They really do think the government sits around trying to come up with ways to limit their freedom.
Of course this all goes out the window when their people are in charge. In that case it's an insurgency of patriots. They don't see themselves or their politicians as truly part of the government. So when Republicans do big government things, it's not the government doing it. Only the Democrats and deep state are the government. That's why they don't care about vaccines being mandated before today. This has to be a new line crossed because Biden has to be an unprecedented threat to America.
That's how Republicans spin since Obama, at least. They're still doing the Obama years. Joe Biden is a communist and helping terrorists. Just like Obama. They can't have the same racial animosity towards Biden, because he's another mayo ass cracker. So the other parts of their strategy (communism, weak on the military, soft on crime) kick up to compensate.
To circle back it's not that this particular action is seen on its own as a violation. It's that they have to oppose Democrats on everything. Any state intervention that's not completely on their terms. They will do it for any madate from a Democrat. They were calling the last round of checks communism even though we got more from Trump. The issue isn't the issue, it's about being as obstinate.
In addition to the great answers already given, I'd add there's probably something about being in a socially dominant position (white, well-off, male, cishet) at the same time needing to feel like they're being seriously persecuted by someone. Otherwise it's too easy to see themselves as "the bad guys" who need to be taken down a few pegs.
