I couldn't be within 50 feet of Hillary Clinton without attempting to strangle her and screaming "This is for the Libyan people"
Maybe I'm just built different or maybe I'm not a liberal
You think you can defeat my argument with a pig shitting on its own balls? That’s a logical fallacy!
You're right, Natalie, it's just a signpost to indicate nobody should take you seriously or listen to you
I used to like some of her stuff, but it's gotten so long winded and high brow I really can't understand half of what she's talking about. My eyes just glaze over.
As her video production progressed i feel like she put less effort into writing and a lot more into set design and costumes
Probably so she could write off clothing on her taxes as a business expense.
They cut a bunch of her stuff out of the doc, they just wanted to use her as a trans millennial face
True, but if only there was some way for her to realise that the Hollywood machinery of the Democratic party might use her... If only her naivety didn't force her to embrace that oppurtunity to be an apologist for the worst of the status quo and box her into being a post-left grifter. If only...
I wouldn't call her post left, she is still miles better than Red Scare or Amy Terese and still making content that gets libs to think a little more leftward
Perhaps it's sematics, but I don't think she was ever really on the left (even in the US-centric online space) and she's spent the last couple of years entwined with the Democrats and punching left agains even mild US-soc dems. Even within an American politics online person capacity I'd argue she's already in her post-left pivot and will only go further.
"Red Scare or Amy Terese" should not be the benchmark.
I think she'll probably become a standard bearer out of touch Dem as she gets richer (a la Patton Oswalt), but will never end up like Brianna Wu trying to do anti-woke stuff for attention because she already has a huge following.
and still making content that gets libs to think a little more leftward
Did you not see her Vote Blue video? She spits on the left and advocating for liberal cognitive dissonance does not actually help people become communists. That's just some combination of tailism and cope.
I have not seen that but I will forever be glad she was steering some people away from stuff like Jordan Peterson at the height of "attack helicopter" transphobia and "Intellectual Dark Web" nonsense. I am sure she makes no effort to turn anyone communist, but plenty of liberals, especially in red states, who already regard Elizabeth Warren as far left, are better for having watched her.
She's a centrist encouraging people to be centrist, that doesn't seem like "getting libs to think a little more leftward" by any reasonable metric. I don't seek to contest nor do I really care about your sentimental/parasocial affection for her, but the facts are the facts.
Here's the video, by the way. The first thing I always remember about it, though it's in a tangent, is that she calls Mao a "strongman," which aside from being wrong and reeking of chauvinism, is just so fucking stupid that it's beneath even a College Republican.
As someone whose grandfather and great aunt were both professors sent to a labor camp by Mao, and whose mother grew up having to thank a portrait of Mao before dinner every evening, but still believes he did a lot of good for China, I forgive her.
Give me a break, I know a professor who was caught in the whole "reform by labor" business and they would side with me that "strongman" is a completely ridiculous thing to call Mao, even if you wrongly think that he didn't do a lot of good for China. "Strongman" doesn't mean "leader whose policies I dislike," though I'd argue Brandon does some strongman politics with his bullshit about pushups and challenging random civilians to fights when they disagree with him.
You aren't even reading my comments in their entirety before flying off (I actually said he did do a lot of good for China), and your relationship to Mao is like that of a Swiftie to Taylor Swift.
I have extended family who are officials in the CCP, who would never give a shit about Mao being called a strongman, and would not consider some US lib YouTuber a centrist for thinking that. But your criteria for "strongman" appears entirely based on the politician's personal affects rather than their actual policy, which for Mao was literally asking every household have a picture of him in it to thank, and rooting out and jailing dissidents.
Now, a lot of Mao's initiatives were a necessary course of action to end things in China like the monopolies and polygamy and foot binding, but getting mad at Contrapoints lumping Mao with other "strongmen" in some 2020 video, and equivocating her views with Biden's for it is extremely online shit, the very parasocial behavior you accuse me of, the mirror opposite of the AnCap who gets mad when someone online calls Milei a fascist because on paper he's a libertarian.
Contrapoints is basically YouTube John Oliver, I am glad if moderate libs watch her crap instead of MSNBC or Bill Maher or Sam Harris.
Contrapoints is basically YouTube John Oliver, I am glad if moderate libs watch her crap instead of MSNBC or Bill Maher or Sam Harris.
It's 2024. The go-to entrypoint of the liberal-to-leftist pipeline is Hasan. Contrapoints (and Breadtube in general) was okay back in like 2017 when Youtube was filled with alt-right reactionaries pushing out videos and there was a need for someone to debunk that bullshit. But since then, they haven't really adapted to the everchanging social media landscape where Youtube has been supplanted by Twitch streams and Tiktok. In a world where Tiktok gets pushed out daily, how does Hbomber or Contra releasing a video annually do anything? Their trash politics is just the cherry on top of a cake past its expiration date.
They've outlived their usefulness. They're an anachronism.
(I actually said he did do a lot of good for China)
No you didn't, you left the matter ambiguous
and would not consider some US lib YouTuber a centrist for thinking that
Contra is a centrist because she supports Joe fucking Biden, and I never insinuated it was the Mao thing, though I think the chauvinism is a related issue.
But your criteria for "strongman" appears entirely based on the politician's personal affects
Yeah, that's because strongman is in large part a rhetorical affectation, just like "populist" is. Speaking to that side, a strongman is someone who builds their image on machismo, occasionally in a very literal sense, and frames their political actions/policy as embodying that machismo. It does not mean the same thing as "dictator," which we have a dozen different words for, though the two terms are associated with each other. Mussolini was a strongman, I would argue Hitler was not (megalomaniac though he was). Putin is (and especially was) another good example of a strongman, just for reference.
If Contra called one of history's most radical democrats a dictator (and I think she also said that, but I wouldn't rewatch that stupid fucking video short of getting paid to do so), I would merely say she was an ignorant chauvinist. Calling him a "strongman" is beyond that.
which for Mao was literally asking every household have a picture of him in it to thank
[citation needed] Towards the end, those pictures certainly were there, and there were backwards officials who surely made it policy on a municipal level in some cases, but Mao didn't even want his face on the currency like it now unfortunately is. To act like he was out there going "Please clap" and telling people to use the Little Red Book like some kind of Daoist charm is, I believe, severely misunderstanding the social circumstances of the PRC's establishment.
and rooting out and jailing dissidents
I wish he was better at it, since we wound up with a liberal-infested hive anyway. I care much less about civil rights for fascists and capitalist roaders than I do that the children are fed.
It was always going to be like that, maybe she had some Westwing style dream where if she was just able to convince Hillary she would change who she's been her entire life - or maybe contra was just excited that that meant she made it. Neither were true.
I am sure she said a lot of thoughtful stuff to Hillary that got cut out of the released version like Homer's Poochie speech.
I'm not trying to be a dick, but who could have possibly predicted that?
And then naturally the move is to double down on a load of scratched lib shit and democrat punching left.
Personally, if I was fucked over by the machinery of a political party that I (somehow as a supposed leftist) didn't see coming, that might inspire oppositon in me rather than establishment media oppurtunity.
I fully accept being seen as a dick: This was obvious and imagining she was being bamboozled is childish. Cutting together videos is her fucking career and we're supposed to pretend that she's so braindead that she thinks Hillary would give her a platform to say anything other than what Hillary finds acceptable? No, she wants the fucking clout and the money by being appealing to VoteBlues
Person licking the boot is shocked the boot is still used to kick their teeth in.
how does she have bisexual lighting while hillary is just totally flat
It takes a very powerful light source to illuminate an object that is incandescent and I'm told that Hillary is light itself so that probably outshines the bisexual lighting that breadtubers like Natalie Points require to live.
She's always been a lib. She just gets a lot of hate because most leftists only support trans people because they think we're politically reliable
they do? good Lord lmfao.
so everyone needs to know there are entire classes of trans folk who:
-simp the military -are liberal or even conservative -very much just want to disappear into a passing gender role of choice and integrate into society completely so they can go back to being thoughtlessly bourgeoise.
it is, as always, a race and class thing. I'm a working class trans femme and i live and breathe communism, but the idea that we're any more politically reliable than any other group is surely shorn of ignorance. There are large contingents of middle class, middle aged, white transfemmes who look at you funny and disinvite you to their functions if you talk about redistributing wealth or abolishing the police
You can tell who values you in all of your trans-self by their reaction to conservative trans people.
If they say "chickens voting for KFC" or anything similar, then they never valued trans people beyond what they could gain from them politically.
No sane human responds that way to someone who is under serious threat. It's just mocking that individual and the hurdles/threats they face everyday.
I feel like our identity both enables us and obliges us to be more thoughtful than the average person, but I only agree with you to the extent that, there are plenty of "allies" who will revoke the identity of our siblings for wrongthink - this is flatly unacceptable. But trans folk aren't beyond reproach, and as a matter of internal policing, I'm pretty down with criticizing my brothers, sisters, siblings in gender-queerness for being overly self serving or disengaged politically.
with that said, this isn't anything i would trust or feel good empowering cis allies, politically aligned or not, to do. Not their business.
But the liberals and conservatives in our cohort need their Come To Ishtar moment, and facilitating that is good.
I don't think we shouldn't criticize trans people who have reactionary beliefs, I just think that the way people do it matters.
Not misgendering someone and not getting gleeful at the abuse they're going to experience under a fascist regime are the bare minimum. If there are allies who can't even do that, then I think it's fair to question whether they really believe in trans-rights with no strings attached.
You pretty much said what I was trying to get at with my comment.
Not misgendering someone
I'm pretty sure the mods will still ban anyone who misgenders Contra, as much as we dislike her.
I want to see my fellow trans people do better than licking the boots of the status quo...
idk she had a lot more radical pretenses before, though it's partly also a Destiny thing where you can attract leftists by focusing on having cogent criticisms of rightwingers and hiding that you yourself are just a different flavor of neoliberal ghoul. Even government-funded PhiTube gives stronger endorsements of radical politics, which is part of why she plainly does not get the same hate even though she's also a trans "breadtube" lady.
I think the main thing though, and the name was always a giveaway, is that "breadtube" was a fucking mistake and anyone able to build a platform on it would immediately become some self-absorbed new media labor aristocrat. Yes, that includes Shawn and Hbomb, but they are clever enough to avoid talking about who they support, unlike Contra.
Yeah I remember when she was talking about "political Islam" and didn't explain what she meant by that.
me, crying as I line up Lenin against the wall, lift up my Estrogen injecting gun, and pull the trigger
From the thread this is from:
We’re all frustrated that the Democrats aren’t stronger, more effective, further left, savvier about strategy. But the Democrats can at least point to some significant accomplishments in the last 4 years—a major climate bill, infrastructure investment, nominating Justice Jackson
As someone terrified by the prospect of Trump returning to power, can you reassure me that there’s a plausible direct action/non-electoralist means of stopping him that’s more likely to succeed than electing Biden/Harris? Because if not I think you’re a LARPer.
The Democrats don’t WANT to be stronger because the Republican threat is what gets them votes above everything else. Everything must always be on the line, the Democrats constantly on the edge of losing power, or they would actually lose their power and some change might actually occur. If you’ve actually been around, you’d know that most people aren’t big fans of either party but feel they need to vote for the “lesser evil.” This is why Hillary and the DNC supported Trump’s candidacy for 2016, and Democrats put millions of dollars into funding election denialist Republican politicians. The only way to truly get rid of the Republican Trumpist threat is to oust from power the people that brought them into existence and allowed them to exist while they wielded state power (not because they aren’t savvy about strategy but because they are).
These “achievements” are nothing compared to the continued support for the imperialist exploitation of the globe, systemic racism, native genocide, immigrant concentration camps, and exploitation of the domestic working class.
Yeah I'm not frustrated with the Democrats at all, not one bit, lol. Sure it's infuriating when they tell their lies but it's some cursed samsara shit to expect anything from them. No expectations, no suffering.
i dont think biden can beat trump
like, not at all
i think he is going to lose handily and it wont even be close in the electoral college
so posing him as the only way to beat trump is more or less an open admission to me that the democrats fully plan to lose
Was she really? AFAIK almost all her content was focused on deconstructing bigotry and far right rhetoric, some light feminist criticism, that kind of thing. I'm grateful for her videos, though, I'd probably be a tradcath if it wasn't for her. But it was never radical, or asserting any form of praxis.
Most of her videos denounce praxis entirely. She has an entire cat girl strawman character who's used to mock activists.
her video on "the west" was good for where I was at the time, I haven't watched her shit since the massive fit of nb-phobia
She got popular initially through some high effort video essays on fascists and how to identify them. Over time her videos became more navel gazy and more personal, much more focused on herself. Lots of extravagant costumes and stuff.
Despite her earlier videos deconstructing fascism her diagnosis for the problem always centered around trying to appeal to ivy League educated rich white liberals
The relentlessly navelgazey white millenial trans woman
was hoping this was only a thing in novels
I've literally never seen any reference to contrapoints that wasn't on here, calling out shit libbery
tbf I posted a video of her playing The Frog Galliard on harpsichord just because I thought it was pretty dope.
