It's not economic anxiety, it's people who've always been cruel finding a guy that makes fun of all the people they hate and worshipping him for it.
I feel like that 'economic anxiety' shit is given to them too much of an excuse. Sure, it may agitate things, but these are by and large people who were already innately hostile to anyone different.
It's sad, but that's what it is.
Actually there is a material basis for "the cruelty is the point." Its about the enforcement of hierarchies. Thats why the petty boug are the base of fascism. The big material problem for them is not really that they are economically precarious - its that their class position is precarious. If they loose the jet ski dealership they'd have to get a job!
Same goes for how rascism has been used to divide the workers. The "White Wage" is alive in well and they want payment in perfomative cruelty. That's what Jim Crow gave them back then, and Trump is what they get now.
Econmic anxiety is a bullshit excuse that is given to fascist USians to pretend like they have a point other than cruelty.
"materialism is things I can touch, diamat means looking at the base structure as the independent variable and super structure as the dependent variable"
Yeah the cruelty is a manifestation of the enforcement of the superstructure ( specifically hierarchies based on class, race, gender, etc.) as it has been shaped by the base (capitalism)
yeah, this is what I wanted to say
who's this a quote from?
me
Kamala Harris
I don't really understand this comment, you seem to be saying they're not economically precarious, it's just that they are economically precarious and thus are materially incentivised to enforce the hierarchy, and finally conclude that the point of that enforcement is cruelty and not economic anxiety. It feels very self-contradictory.
There is no material basis for being cruel for cruelty's sake. They're cruel because the system incentivises them to be.
I feel like this explanation gives them a lot of excuses and leeway.
Maybe I'm not getting you? I don't want to think anyone here is giving reactionaries any sort of leeway.
I think people are sometimes just innately hostile to things they perceive to be different.
I mean, sometimes people are just racist dude. Because of stupid shit like they don't like the way black people look or something else ridiculously petty.
People are not innately hostile or racist, their attitudes are products of their life circumstances. Not because of their genes or because they just decided being a racist would be fun or whatever.
Doesn't mean they're not assholes now, of course they are. But it also means you shouldn't write them off as if their souls are cursed and unsaveable or are just genetically sadistic. They, like we, are just apes doing what they learned to do.
Hierarchy and bigotry has been going on since before capitalism was even a thing. The Anglo saxons called the celts "wealas" or "foreigner" and treated them far worse than other germanic people in old Britain. (Where the name "Wales" comes from, the welsh today preferred to be called cymru or "fellow countrymen")
Sometimes people are just inherently hostile to those different from them.
I don't think it's in the genes, but it's also not solely because of 'economic anxiety'.
A lot of red browns like to make your argument so I'm wary of it and it always feels like it's not realized how disgusting these people can truly be towards their other humans. There was a video the other day of some fascists in Tennessee sitting there watching black kids walk to school and calling them "removed" and all kind of shit. Fuckin gross dude.
Edit:https://x.com/WUTangKids/status/1815132233969332395
If only we could appeal to the better nature of these guys, right?
I think regardless. I'm not too worried about "saving reactionaries souls". That's pretty low on my list compared to anti racist and anti fascist activism.
And? Adverse material conditions have been a thing long before capitalism, too.
I'm not going to watch the video, I'm very well aware that racial abuse and fascism is awful.
I'm frankly wary of speech that writes people off as "inherently" bad as basically being eugenicists by another name. If someone doesn't accept that material conditions are at least the most significant cause of most social behaviours, then I don't see why they give a shit about collectivism, just accept that capitalism is "innate" human nature and call it a day.
We absolutely agree on this.