I assumed it was a joke.
No.
It’s like standing with MLK or standing with Lyndon Johnson, the extsvlidhment Democrat who will only be dragged into the future kicking and screaming, then claim credit once you get him there.
5 Likes
Jman, I’m temperamentally inclined to agree with you about civility. But I’m not sure we are correct about its efficacy. Having a deniable troll army may be the optimal play for Bernie. That said I think it’s more blown out of proportion establishment media bullshit to cudgel him with. It seemed to work in 16, so they’ll trot it out again.
it was not a serious comment. i am not on the “everyone who isn’t yet backing or isn’t sure about bernie is an enemy of the people” train and never will be.
edit: even though i myself am backing bernie
1 Like
Indeed.
1 Like
Because that’s what it was.
Yeah this is my thing. I agree with most Bernie supporters that not supporting medicare for all is pretty gross assuming you simply aren’t ignorant.
But so, so many people are fucking petty and childish and will legit not vote for someone because people were mean to them on the internet.
It’s true not a ton of people are apart of the extremely online crowd so maybe it won’t have a huge affect, but it costs you nothing to be chill with people, even if you think they suck. So why not do it?
MLK and his group didn’t win over the white moderates by calling them the enemy of the people and disgusting racist idiots lol. Even if they were.
I really don’t get it though. Do these people suck? Maybe. Are they trying to use it as an excuse? Maybe. But when it costs you nothing to chill out why not do it?
3 Likes
I mean I plan on canvassing with my wife for Bernie. Does that make me ardent? Though I’m probably not gonna scream at people who open their doors to me and call them fucking evil idiots. Though I dunno, you guys did change @j8i3h289dn3x7’s mind. Maybe someone should let Bernie’s campaign know.
Thinking back on the toxicity discussion, I have a theory about civility obsession.
I think centrist Dems are used to having the moral high ground, have built their entire identity around it, and don’t know what to do now that they’re losing it. They’ve been focused on Dem vs Republican their entire political lives–easy to be the good side when your opponents are actual fucking ghouls. They’ve never had to critically assess their own positions; hollow actions like token support of social justice causes was always enough to remain morally superior to the ‘other side.’ It’s why so many of the complaints about or attacks on Trump have ignored similar criticisms that could be made against mainstream Dems. But now that there’s an actual leftward movement, the positions of these centrists are being revealed for what they are–not so superior after all.
Rather than face the fact that they’ve actually been falling short all along, they attempt to reclaim the moral high ground in any way possible. On the Internet, this takes the form of complaints about civility–“these people are NASTY (but we ourselves are above that!)” followed by a self-congratulating pat on the back. It’s not a legit argument, obviously, just the dying gasp of an entire group of people who built an identity around moral superiority and are unable to accept their own shortcomings.
18 Likes
I don’t think all the people who back Bloomberg or Pete or Biden are enemies of the people, but then I don’t think all the people who back Trump are either so what do I know.
1 Like
I’d rather just throw their cognitive dissonance in their face and challenge them to change or have a mental breakdown. I don’t find any reason to try and let them down easily. I’m not a believer in painless transitions. Progress hurts people.
1 Like
Yeah but twitter users aren’t canvassing anyone so who cares if some are mean especially since a good amount are just internet trolls. I mean message boards on the internet have always had rude trolls and twitter is just a different beast with so many anonymous users, people with multiple profiles, fake profiles, and bot profiles.
This whole people are mean on twitter is such a non issue and it’s wild how much it’s being made as an issue
2 Likes
This is a very fair point and I agree with you. I guess I was speaking more about message boards like this one (maybe they’re few and far between).
Yes, definitely who cares about the cesspool that is Twitter.
1 Like
Exactly this. The “Bros” are such a small subset of online presence reaching a small subset of the overall electorate. Is it ideal? Probably not but pearl clutching about it is just as dumb.
My take on toxicity:
It’s absolutely a deliberate tactic: all of the jokes about Nazi punching and defining large swaths of the GOP as fascist. Old 2+2 pol said over and over that deplatforming, AOC style dunks etc are good.
The above is toxic to democracy.
It’s understandable that leftists would do it anyway because they believe that Trump or Reagan or someone killed democracy anyway. Also that they believe that being toxic is the best way to push leftist policy by trying to shrink the right end of the Overton Window. I lean toward agreeing with them as far as effectiveness.
So the question is whether one cares more about democracy or leftist policy. I lean toward the former, but both are good. Like most seemingly intractable political disputes, the sticking point is different people valuing different things. There is very little logic behind what people value.
Maybe I was wrong about Bernie being able to punch back.
Please let this poll be real.
1 Like