I hope this is relevant for this community, because I don’t know where else to post this. I’m honestly scared to post it anywhere else.
I live in Eastern Europe. I’m a university student, and recently, we got an American exchange student. They’re a very outspoken liberal.
A few days ago, we took them out with a few mates out for beers (they’re under 21, so they didn’t drink, even though you can here if you’re at least 18) to break the ice and make them feel comfortable. We got talking and because I’ve never been to the US, I asked them what I thought was an innocuous question. For some context, I’ve been a communist for a very long time, and joined the communist party the day I turned 18.
I basically asked them: Why would I vote for Harris? How would that improve the situation in the US and abroad? I’m not too familiar with her, but her politics don’t seem too appealing, especially her support for Israel and her incarceration background.
That made them launch into a screaming rant about how I’m a conservative for doubting her abilities and deserve to be jailed for wanting to infringe on the rights of women. There were a few more insults targeted at me for asking that question, I didn’t really understand them. The entire time, I was not even saying anything, I was honestly too shocked to react, but they just kept screaming until they got up and stormed out in a rage after calling me a Trump supporter, misogynist, and a fascist. My mates were equally confused. We tried to figure it out, but everyone is equally stumped.
I’ve been thinking about that entire situation for a couple days, and I’m so confused about their reaction. They even refuse to speak to me now.
What have I done wrong? Can someone please explain? ☹️ I really don’t understand what happened. We have liberals here of course, but even the worst ones never behave like this.
Yeah it's another form of American Exceptionalism and White Man's Burden. Even if libs don't actively think about it, it's heavily ingrained into their ideology.
Malcolm X had a speech about this where white liberals will insist on taking up leadership and administrative positions within black organizations, instead of asking what the existing leadership wants them to do. It was largely why he spent most of his career not wanting to do any organizing with white liberals, even when they claimed to be allies. I think this is why he regretted the way he brushed aside one white woman and woud talk about the interaction years later. She did the correct thing in asking what she could do as a white person to help.
In the US there are no real politics. Average people have near zero power to affect any change in their country. So the concept of engaging in politics has shifted to solely a cultural identity.
Now even though they cannot effect their material conditions positively in this system, the people still driven to adopt these cultural identities still get something that matters to them out of their participation. One group gets to punish those they hate/satisfy their anger and hatred of libs (this is the republicans the more opening fascist party). The other group - the liberals - who tend to be more affluent, college educated, etc. vote for the democratic party to feel morally superior/assuage guilt for being affluent/college educated in the most unequal nation on earth.
Interrogating an American liberal on their positions regarding politics is to them an assualt on the foundation of their superior moral character - which is soley defined by "voting blue no matter who." To call into question the lesser evil of the democratic party is to say that they are not a good person.
In short, the US is not okay. We are never sending our best. Death to America of course
You haven't done anything wrong. American hardcore liberals are genuinely the worst kind of person, perhaps even worse than the typical fascists due to their hysterical, performative, deranged faux-progressive fascism and holier-than-thou attitude, all of which combines to create a monstrosity that is incapable of relating to other human beings in a decent manner the second they are met with anything but subservient agreement.
If it helps, their antics will probably ensure that they get a place by the wall regardless of what comes next, whether it be socialism or barbarism, if they keep it up.
Cold-war propaganda that is fundamentally integrated into mainstream American culture that associates anything left of bombing the middle-east and lukewarm, meaningless platitudes is going to destroy the very fabric of the nation.
anything left of bombing the middle-east and lukewarm, meaningless platitudes is going to destroy the very fabric of the nation.
well let's get on with it then!
Speaking as someone from the US my whole life who became communist only in recent years, my general sense is people like me are raised to think that: 1) the world revolves around the US and everything else is secondary to it (not true). 2) the US is a people's democracy (it isn't). 3) democrats are the more moderate/progressive party (they aren't, if they ever were truly - maybe going back to the FDR coalition, they were a bit).
But if you believe all 3 of these, and you strongly believe that Trump is a threat to a people's democracy, then you might have a strong reaction to the idea of not supporting the alternative. To be clear, I'm not saying their behavior is reasonable at all. But I can kind of see how they arrive at it, with headspaces I've been in at times in the past, and the propaganda people tend to believe in the US.
Tbh, they sound like they are deep in western chauvinism, coming to your Eastern European country and yelling at you about their elections. As if you are supposed to be involved in it too somehow (this is where point 1 comes in). You did nothing wrong. Blue maga, aka: "vote blue no matter who", the special brand of USian liberal who has adopted a stance of voting for a half-eaten ham sandwich over voting for Donald Trump, is not well-grounded in reality. In effect, I think whether they realize it consciously or not as what it is in substance, they are panicked about the neoliberal order crumbling and being replaced with naked fascism (e.g. no decorum to cover it up), but they lack the framework with which to see the neoliberal order as already being fascistic, so to them this is the absolute worst case scenario for their country and life. Meanwhile, people who see beneath the curtain are going like, "Is it really the worst thing if liberals start to see the US for what it is, rather than continuing to believe in the pomp and ceremony?" Migrant kids in cages went from being an issue liberals cared about under Trump to being a nothing under Biden.
People in this state of mind are effectively duped by the liberal decorum and really believe it's better for that reason.
Thank you for the comment.
The funny (or sad) thing is that in school, we’re taught to view the US in exactly the three points you talked about - that it is only thanks to the U.S. that we’re now free (as opposed to the oppressive tyrannical regime we lived under during socialism), the U.S. is a perfect example of democracy, and that, I shit you not, Democrats are center-left and Republicans center-right.
I used to believe that shit too, until I started visiting the U.S. internet through Imgur at first and then Reddit. The realities of the U.S. were finally laid bare, and that’s the moment the illusion shattered and I became a communist. It was similar with Germany; we were taught how we were some sort of subhumans compared to Germans, and that Germany is the best country in the world with no problems, and that everybody in Germany is rich.
Our people are also duped by U.S. agencies that run rampant in our country, and it’s honestly sad.
That is extremely sad to hear. There’s nothing more sad and pathetic than willingly colonizing yourself for a group of countries that see you as disposable.
American politics are purely based on identity that this point. To the liberal mind, there are only two teams, and you're on the other team unless you give your undying loyalty to your team.
I have so many coworkers who think me criticizing the sitting president or his heir to throne makes me a republican. Any possible grievance I have will be countered with "but trump will be worse?! Check mate."
Every single person I know who spent a semester abroad is even more insufferable. They will talk about this trip to europe the rest of their life, inserting it into every conversation to give them a false sense of being well traveled.
Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. So much intellectually stunted Marvel brain.
Thanks for the comment. It’s really strange, because here, there’s very little politics-based tribalism. Sure, you have some crazy right-wingers and ancaps that have sprung up after our socialist system was murdered, but if this student is anything to go by, they’re still tame by comparison.
I can see how this student would get isolated, then come back to the U.S. telling everyone how horrible our country is because nobody wanted to talk to them.
Liberals are insecure. They reflexively start name-dropping news agencies, universities, dudes with British accents, or whatever they can so you affirm their beliefs and not a single one outside of their bubble. Also someone studying abroad typically has means so they were likely coddled their entire life (I am guessing here).
I ran into one recently that kept name dropping associated press and Reuters with regards to denouncing Palestinian resistance and their so called "violence" essentially justifying the genocide and saying such and such paper stated Iran tricked the resistance into Oct 7th. Dumb shit like that.
The worse revenge you can do to a liberal is ignore them. They hate the same smugness they treat you with.
They act like the entire world is USA, thinks like them and has the exact same mindset and point of view as them, that's why you'll see bullshit about 4th July or elections from a country on the other side of the planet every single time even if you're from Transnistria, Zimbabwe or Nauru. And they get extremely offended when you insult their war criminals, cops in this case, genocidal maniacs or slave owners(depending on whom you're talking about) since they're their national heroes and have a cult of personality but literally. Same thing with their shitty ass-wiper flag. This mentality is exclusive to them.
The contradictions are sharp enough now that simply acknowledging the terrible things the dems do/have done the past 4 years can provoke a full-blown chimp out. Trump Would Do Worse makes up the vast majority of everything I hear from them whenever they pester those like us who can no longer stomach the rat race. I think the reason they're so aggro this cycle is because deep down they know that they don't really have a leg to stand on beyond bluanon crap. They can't accept the fact that you simply can't claim to be anti-cop and anti-genocide and then not only vote for them, not only stump for them, but also bleat when we refuse to. It stresses them out to address that contradiction and call it out for what it is, self-interested fascist apologia. This is what happens when your only perception of what fascism is comes from Spielberg movies and other holocaust oppression porn.
If I were you I would probably either ignore them or corner them if you're already stuck in a conversation and ask point blank if non-American lives are worth sacrificing to them to get what they want: Trump crying on election day so they can gloat and over-post about it for the next 4 years and go back to being blind, deaf, and dumb to geopolitics (whilst pissing and moaning ineffectually about SCOTUS and congress every day).
Thanks for the very detailed response. It’s interesting insight.
I don’t think I’ll speak to them again, or want to at all. They have already angered a few other people, and I think they’ll eventually get isolated because nobody will talk to them (apart maybe from the couple other American exchange students). We really did our best to make this student feel included despite their unrelated mishap (calling our school racist because we didn’t have any black people, in a country that’s 95% culturally homogenous and speaks a Slavic language).
Yeah, it sucks but we're not therapists or priests. We're leftists. We can't give them absolution for the despair they feel about the fact that their way of life is threatened, or the guilt they feel about choosing to live in denial. Which is what I honestly think they're looking for when they do the "well what DO we do except vote?!?1" thing. I had to hit rock bottom a couple times before deciding to change the way I think and dispose of old ideology so I guess that's what it's going to have to take before they maybe open their minds.
We can’t give them absolution for the despair they feel about the fact that their way of life is threatened, or the guilt they feel about choosing to live in denial
Honestly, I don't want them to get absolution, or to escape their guilt. Not until they finally figure it out, come to terms, and start acting like decent human beings (ie. not supporting genocide directly or indirectly, for a starter).
Until then, I'm perfectly fine with them continuing to make an ass of themselves, or even heading in self-destructive ways before imploding or ending one way or another. Fuck them, genocidaires and their ilk get what they get.
The rest of the world, thankfully, is not made of AmeriKKKan libs (and even of Anglo libs, those who have a shred of decency will eventually move on- those who won't, will stay libs). And the rest of the world has moved on past their murderous ways, at least, the vast majority of humanity has, and sees them for the faux-progressive, chaunvinistic, brainwashed aberrations they are.
They can figure out human decency, or head straight to oblivion. The metaphorical beatings (of being faced with reality and the facts they are terrible people and everyone knows it) will continue until they either die or learn their lesson. Either is perfectly fine by my books, either is an ideal outcome when we're talking about genocidaires.
Agreed. I just don't have any sympathy left. Seeing the fake leftists immediately get with the program as soon as the dems shed their skin and crowned Kamala really made me realize that USAmericans like them fundamentally don't understand or care about the nature of their empire. The most galling thing I think is the Buying Time assertion, wherein voting for the dems will give leftists the space they need to work against fascism. Just don't ask them what that actually entails, or what they've been doing since 2020 and 2016 when that talking point was also deployed. Nor should you ask how that can be true when the dems have been actively quashing free speech since last October, going so far as to legally codify dissent as anti-semitic "hatred".
It's extremely self-indulgent, self-aggrandizing thinking that conveniently lets them defer any serious political action until after they know they've gotten what they wanted.
I'll remind you once again that that was what these same libs said in 2020 and I think we all know that they've pissed away all that time buying into poli-tainment as usual instead of "preparing" as they put it. I'm going to just start asking "buying time for what?" because I genuinely have no idea what they mean.
Couldn't have put it better myself. If they can't get with the program (of not backing genocide) then they can go straight to hell and I'll be glad to see them go. Those who clown for Klanmala deserve nothing less as I see it, they aren't friends, they aren't comrades, hell, while they're technically of the same species that is only a mark of shame on the rest of us.
These scum could have a thousand, or a million years even, and it would never be enough. If they cannot demonstrate the bare minimum of human decency as to stand against the empire, the genocide, the warmongering, racism, etc. here and now they can and should die for all I care, I'm glad the rest of the world is moved past them and I'll cheer on the destruction of the west should society at large continue to fail at that lowest possible criterion of humanity, even if I go down with it. They're nothing more than another competing variety of fascist in the clown show of empire (where all the various fascists are accusing each other of being the "true fascists").
Yes, I've had to reevaluate my own models of why American "leftists" do what they do this past year and engage in some self-crit.
Even after all this time I was still operating on the admittedly liberal logic that they just didn't have all the facts and were propagandized and that our duty was to provide that information. I failed to understand that they're only human and won't turn on the ideology that's provided them with what they materially want and need. It's not that it's impossible to convert them. I just think it's likely that lib idealism eases their contradictions more effectively than ML ideology does.
The worst part about it is that I was also roughly on their level only 2-3 years ago. I know exactly what they think. They think that there will be some magic combination of elected representatives to defeat the SCOTUS and the parliamentarian and all the other obstacles and booby traps their system throws up to protect itself.
I guess the bottom line here is that history tells us that cooperation with libs holds very little promise of us getting what we want because they are not living in reality and as such will not behave realistically. I'm willing to be wrong if any comrade can explain why but I see no way to make them understand.
The worst part about it is that I was also roughly on their level only 2-3 years ago. I know exactly what they think.
Almost all of us were some number of years ago, and we know exactly what they think because we used to think them. It’s pretty funny/annoying when they say we’re in an echo chamber/bubble, as if we haven’t been receiving exactly the same indoctrination, education, and propaganda as they our whole lives. Everything they know, we also know, so who’s the one in a bubble?
Exactly. I never actually say "I heard all of this shit back when Kamala as POTUS was a laughable notion and Biden was considered our saviour from fascism" but I should probably start doing so. These lib cheerleaders have inherited their master's desire to only acknowledge history if it somehow benefits their short-term goals. Maybe Trump getting elected will prompt them to think about fascism beyond Death Camps and being mean to minorities for fun. Probably not though.
In moments of weakness (or when they’re incorrigibly fascist) I do a little dunking, but I try to think about what rhetoric would have worked on/for past me and use that.
Huey P. Newton:
I dissuade Party members from putting down people who do not understand. Even people who are unenlightened and seemingly bourgeois should be answered in a polite way. Things should be explained to them as fully as possible. I was turned off by a person who did not want to talk to me because I was not important enough. Maurice just wanted to preach to the converted, who already agreed with him. I try to be cordial, because that way you win people over. You cannot win them over by drawing the line of demarcation, saying you are on this side and I am on the other; that shows a lack of consciousness. After the Black Panther Party was formed, I nearly fell into this error. I could not understand why people were blind to what I saw so clearly. Then I realized that their understanding had to be developed.
True, very true. I suppose that lately I've decided to focus on studying theory more now that I have the time, but also because I think I've hit the wall when it comes to getting liberals to understand that revolution isn't something we have to totally make up from scratch. Plus I haven't completed some key texts. I just don't think that I could ever successfully play a role evangelizing libs to be leftists, since that is apparently what we're talking about here.
I've been where they were once myself, as well (several years back now). Killing off the last ignorant seeds of electoralism in me has been a process that probably only really died completely in the later years of Trump, if not during the Biden term (not an American- Canadian- but nowadays I won't so much as touch that trash, frankly if I did it would probably only be a spite vote for the more "accelerationist" and disruptive domestic party- which in itself would be the opposite of acceleration for the rest of the world as the western regimes as-is have nothing to be salvaged from whatsoever).
And it's because I understand these "leftists" that I have no sympathy for them whatsoever. They can either get with the program- or not, and hopefully die with it instead. They can convert, but the rest of the world won't wait for the slave-owners, the genocidaires, the "golden billion" in their garden to take their time to do so, and right up until they do I have nothing pleasant to say to them or think of them.
The rising anti-Asian hatred and preparing to destroy the prosperity of China (as an ethnic Chinese) and ASEAN (where my family is from) already had made me bitter and alienated as all hell. Then the outright crusading against Russia and the goosestepping towards yet another front for WW3 simply confirmed that bitterness. But seeing industrial genocide against the Palestinians was truly a complete breaking point; by all means, these scum (liberals) deserve everything they get and more, right up until they learn or die from it. And one way or another I suspect they'll either learn or die from it, considering how the empire is spiraling, and that can only be a good thing.
If they want to promote death so much, if they want to promote the so-called "lesser evil" (that is every bit as evil as its counterpart), if they want to "buy time" and "comfort" at the expense of the rest of the world, then they can and should have all the death and evil in the world done unto them, and they can and should choke on it.
Indeed. I fr think that the past 25 years of seeing chaotic imagery of the middle east on CNN has desensitized the vast majority of North Americans to violence that is outsourced. As someone whose childhood perfectly overlapped with that period, it applied to me too as much as it disgusts me now to admit it. Not an original thought of mine, but the US learned a very valuable lesson after Vietnam which is that as long as conscription is off the table and that type of interventionism happens via an abstraction layer of Proxies, the American public has a vastly higher tolerance for imperialism.
The Kamla stans demonstrate this by accepting(!) that some kind of genocide is going to happen and that Trump Is Worse in the reality where he wins. The version that Kamahalah practices is then implicitly more "under control" and better but it's still a genocide. They are aware of this. They patently accept the reality that genocide must happen for their government and status quo to operate. If they didn't do this math before endorsing the program then in their own words, caveat emptor.
because we didn't have any black people
Yeah that tends to happen when your country doesn't abduct over 20 million people and take them across an ocean to another continent so they can be used as slaves lmao
The country I live in indeed never did any of that. True, I won’t whitewash it and say that it never did again wrong, but we had no colonies. We were often subjected to colonization (in our case, by Austria)
chimp out
Isn't this phrase associated with, like, stereotypes of Black people being aggressive?
The only other time I've heard that phrase was in that wow_mao video "I CAN BE WAY MORE RACIST THAN YOU", where it was uttered by some Anglo nationalist who also kept calling the other guy that term for people with Down's syndrome with roots in 18th century racial pseudoscience
wow_mao isn't someone I pay much attention to, but he was on The Deprogram not too long ago because a bunch of classified Pentagon documents were leaked in his Discord server last year, and my cousin likes wow_mao and we talked about him once. My impression is that wow_mao mostly just makes shitposts.
The same Infrared Haz, dipshit spokesman of the "American Communist Party", who was banned from Hexbear way back when?
I'm not going anywhere, I just think it's funny that he was banned from Hexbear
I really have no idea, I can't say I spend much time in the same spaces online as racists.
I will add something I haven't seen here that may help.
First off, you're in the right.
It's possible that the wording and tone you used were different than this person usually deals with. Eastern Europeans in my experience are much more direct, in a way that can come off as aggressive- to Americans. Many if not most Americans are not used to this, they're much more passive-aggressive, are used to changing up their word choice and tone with different audiences and subject matters, often trying to avoid confrontation. So saying your thoughts clearly to them may have actually seemed like you were attacking their beliefs. Challenging someone's thought processes, especially around politics, is something Americans often don't deal with outside of confrontation. You're not supposed to think about that, you feel right or wrong. Interrogating what you believe to attempt to come up with a better political view is never spoken of here in the mainstream, that's a very foreign concept I usually only see in leftists, go figure. Of course there are still many Americans that aren't like this, but I thought I'd offer this up as a possibility.
Because most Americans have been fooled into thinking that all possible scenarios in politics are found by the two parties, as right as humanly possible are the Republicans and left as humanly possible are the Democrats with “moderates”* in between…
So any attack on Kamala means that you are literally MAGA.
- “American moderates” tend to know absolutely nothing whatsoever about politics. These people don’t even watch the news or follow politics at all but usually vote because they’re bored or some misplaced feeling of civic duty.
All true believer liberals are, ever notice that the biggest political party in america is 'undecided'?
The deranged nature of american liberalism isnt lost on them either.
wait is this for real? they sound like a CIA bot. they are brainwashed. the US has the best propaganda in the world and definitely the largest propaganda budget.
Highly recommend you read Masses, Elites, and Rebels. I was just corrected myself on the topic of brainwashing the other day by some people here. They are not a brainwashed CIA bot, they are a beneficiary of imperialism who latched onto propaganda as a means of justifying their place in the world and their continued inaction.
Ya, that's just how Americans are, this coming from an American. All the looting of other nations goes to your head. She has probably never been asked that hard of a question before. To be honest she is probably just super alienated from reality.
You’re probably right, it did occur to me that you have to be from a certain socioeconomic background to be able to study here.
I have one related question, which also stems from me not knowing much about the anglosphere: I’ve read a few responses, and some people are assuming this person was a woman. I didn’t specify their gender on purpose in the OP, but they were a man. Why did people assume they were a woman?
I basically asked them: Why would I vote for Harris? How would that improve the situation in the US and abroad? I’m not too familiar with her, but her politics don’t seem too appealing, especially her support for Palestine and her incarceration background.
I think they misread this as applying to the lib rather than to Kamala.
I think for me it was a few different things, that largely boil down to
- Misremembering the post (i.e. "her" referring to both Harris and the lib, the accusations of misogyny being a weaponization of the lib's gender)
- Making assumptions based on my own mind's eye
- Reading singular "they" more like a marker of social distance than a marker of explicit gender-neutrality, and thinking that women are more likely to get they-ed than men, because men are often a little ashamed of associating with women in a way that women aren't with men (this requires assuming OP is a man)
- Reading JaredLevi's comment first and assuming it was correct about the lib's gender
And these things are honestly all pretty problematic, I should've done better.
