To me it's the idea that there's still hope in the Democrats, and therefore the system. Even if someone hates what police do, they say just support Democrats and they'll fix it. Even if someone hates racism, sexism, transphobia, it's support the Dems because they're not racist/sexist/transphobic. It's that the Dems are what got us The New Deal, Civil Rights, gay marriage, and legal weed in some states. So we need to support them and they can do all that stuff federally.
If you can just break that hope, show that the Democrats are trash, that will get a lot more people to radicalize. It won't get everyone. But it'll get more, I think, than saying electoralism is dead. They see that as you taking votes away from and attacking the good guys. So you have to convince them that Dems aren't the good guys. Even if you try to go with economics, people think Dems are good on labor/welfare.
We must break this idea. The problem is that a lot of the canon about what Democrats have done is hearsay and false. It's framed from the position of white, wealthy saviors. Oh the Democrats did the New Deal which was perfect and good and saved everyone. Don't talk about how FDR did black people. Oh Civil Rights. Yes, Dems did that. Don't talk about how the white moderate scolded activists and told MLK to just wait. Gay marriage? Don't talk about how a small group of activists had to drag the government and Dem leadership kicking and screaming into supporting it. Don't talk about Obama's stance on gay marriage in 2008, 2009, etc. Don't talk about Hillary giving a speech in the Bush years talking about marriage being between a man and a woman.
Like even right now on r/politics there's constantly a back and forth over how much power Democrats had in Obama's first term. People literally think that Dems who had the majority of the government couldn't do anything because a minority of Republicans were stopping them. Those same people now believe a minority of Dems can't stop Trump. Their history of the Dems comes from old CNN/MSNBC talking points. The same way you have Fox News grandpas. It's maddening. It feels like you're being gaslit. And even when you prove them wrong with their own tools of objective facts, they still argue.
So we need some sort of major exposure/critique of Democrats. From the left. They've never heard that before. They've grown up thinking the only way Democrats are criticized is by Fox News.
I find, related to this, is the false dichotomy presented the two party system. Once I start to point out democrat problems, people assume I'm suggesting they support trump, and that frames their responses.
It becomes a well, lesser evil, and all that, or actually dems are good etc. When I'm trying to point out that the party policies have the same effect in the end and support the same ruling classes.
lol sorry I didn't mean to give such an American-centric answer. I forget what time I'm posting and assume most of us online are Americans.
Learned helplessness is a large part of it. People just resign to the narrative of a good party vs bad party. The good party can't win because of the bad party. Oh look the good party won an election. Well too bad because the bad party won't let the good party pass the good policy. Oh a good policy gets passed. It's actually a shit policy that helps the bad party but it must actually be good because the good guys did it and we defeated the bad party today. Then ride that victory for the next decade through another two cycles of helplessness.
To me it's the idea that there's still hope in the Democrats, and therefore the system. Even if someone hates what police do, they say just support Democrats and they'll fix it. Even if someone hates racism, sexism, transphobia, it's support the Dems because they're not racist/sexist/transphobic. It's that the Dems are what got us The New Deal, Civil Rights, gay marriage, and legal weed in some states. So we need to support them and they can do all that stuff federally.
If you can just break that hope, show that the Democrats are trash, that will get a lot more people to radicalize. It won't get everyone. But it'll get more, I think, than saying electoralism is dead. They see that as you taking votes away from and attacking the good guys. So you have to convince them that Dems aren't the good guys. Even if you try to go with economics, people think Dems are good on labor/welfare.
We must break this idea. The problem is that a lot of the canon about what Democrats have done is hearsay and false. It's framed from the position of white, wealthy saviors. Oh the Democrats did the New Deal which was perfect and good and saved everyone. Don't talk about how FDR did black people. Oh Civil Rights. Yes, Dems did that. Don't talk about how the white moderate scolded activists and told MLK to just wait. Gay marriage? Don't talk about how a small group of activists had to drag the government and Dem leadership kicking and screaming into supporting it. Don't talk about Obama's stance on gay marriage in 2008, 2009, etc. Don't talk about Hillary giving a speech in the Bush years talking about marriage being between a man and a woman.
Like even right now on r/politics there's constantly a back and forth over how much power Democrats had in Obama's first term. People literally think that Dems who had the majority of the government couldn't do anything because a minority of Republicans were stopping them. Those same people now believe a minority of Dems can't stop Trump. Their history of the Dems comes from old CNN/MSNBC talking points. The same way you have Fox News grandpas. It's maddening. It feels like you're being gaslit. And even when you prove them wrong with their own tools of objective facts, they still argue.
So we need some sort of major exposure/critique of Democrats. From the left. They've never heard that before. They've grown up thinking the only way Democrats are criticized is by Fox News.
I find, related to this, is the false dichotomy presented the two party system. Once I start to point out democrat problems, people assume I'm suggesting they support trump, and that frames their responses.
It becomes a well, lesser evil, and all that, or actually dems are good etc. When I'm trying to point out that the party policies have the same effect in the end and support the same ruling classes.
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lol sorry I didn't mean to give such an American-centric answer. I forget what time I'm posting and assume most of us online are Americans.
Learned helplessness is a large part of it. People just resign to the narrative of a good party vs bad party. The good party can't win because of the bad party. Oh look the good party won an election. Well too bad because the bad party won't let the good party pass the good policy. Oh a good policy gets passed. It's actually a shit policy that helps the bad party but it must actually be good because the good guys did it and we defeated the bad party today. Then ride that victory for the next decade through another two cycles of helplessness.
deleted by creator