• abc [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Me explaining to my roommate last night that idrc about the protestors at the Capitol getting charged/arrested because fundamentally, most of them are just ignorant boomers who have felt like there is something fundamentally wrong with this country for years (imperialism/forever wars/capitalism/etc take your pick) but have merely fallen into the QAnon/Trump cult because they're typically not products of a great education system and have had this country stab them in the back time & time again in various ways.

    That's discounting the large number of petit-bourgoise present at the Capitol, but I'm not saying a lot of them probably aren't genuinely racist/fascist - but unlike my roommate who initiated the discussion with her wild ass comments - I don't think the 'way forward' (lol imagine thinking there is a way forward) for the country is to "line them up and shoot them all". I'll agree that it would probably be an overall net positive for the country world as a whole, but I don't think its gonna strike at the heart of why Trump/QAnon freaks exist.

    • axont [she/her, comrade/them]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      Libs believe reactionaries are permanent features of humanity. You can't get rid of them. There simply must be some delusional, racist, backwards part of any given society because they're just stupid and have freely chosen a path of ignorance because it was easier. That's the only diagnosis a liberal can give. Everything is the product of personal affectation and if you have the incorrect affect, you're simply a lower form of human who should be regarded and treated as such. At best you can give reactionaries positive media portrayals of the people they despise, you can do hare brained lectures about Judith Butler at them, or you try to shame them into changing.

      Also personal affectation is completely independent of class, material interest, historical context, or anything like that. There are bad people and good people and those are their primary qualities.

    • the_minority_retort [he/him, any]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      That’s a discussion that at least entered an explicit prescription phase, which is further than I usually get with libs.

      “But they’re racist”

      “Yes. So what are we going to do about it”

      “How can they live with themselves? They are a disgrace”

      “ok so.... I’m hearing your prescription is labeling and shaming, while making no real attempt at anything other than the most superficial possible root cause? That may.... have some issues”

      And then the same libs claim to care about “muh nuance” and “my intellectualism” after the high water mark of their analysis depth on this couldn’t sustain an amoeba.

      /rant

      (Hence my username, re: “but they’re racist”)

    • BeamBrain [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      imperialism/forever wars/capitalism

      Don't the Qanon types support those things?

      • abc [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Yes. I didn't mean they were realizing those were the things fundamentally wrong with the country, but instead have fallen into the QAnon/Trump Cult because of their mislabeled feeling of something being wrong with the way this country operates.