I mean, yeah, this guy is wrong for thinking Trump will keep us out of wars, and the idea that you would vote for someone you think it like Hitler to stop new wars is both contradictory and morally reprehensible. But I’ve heard this take before (well, except the Hitler part, that’s bat-shit insane) and it might be worth reflecting why a lot of the electorate no longer sees the Democratic party as the anti-war party. That’s a big shift that’s occurred in my lifetime, and it’s worth examining.
But I’ve heard this take before (well, except the Hitler part, that’s bat-shit insane) and it might be worth reflecting why a lot of the electorate no longer sees the Democratic party as the anti-war party. That’s a big shift that’s occurred in my lifetime, and it’s worth examining.
Because they’re idiots?
Every major war started in my lifetime (including the “war on drugs”) was started by Republicans.
The Democratic party is the party of complacency, I’ll grant them that, and we were in wars for several administrations that Republicans started. So it’s hard for their donkey brains to remember when and why the wars started and when they ended. A lot of people think that Obama was in office when 9/11 happened. The country is full of idiots.
I think you can’t approch it from a party line issue. People want to see it in fact as action for the candidates, and at least right now Biden dropped the ball on Isreal badly. He should have put harsh levers on Isreal to get them out of Gaza quickly, Ukraine is a more complicated problem, but the US should focus more on ending conflicts quickly rather than let them drag on forever. But that takes real policy and leadership.
Neither war is happening on US soil (or between the US and any country involved) and the US and Israel have had an alliance – which will remained unchanged if not strengthened in the Trump-Vance administration – spanning decades. In addition, Congress allocates funds to send to other countries and the President executes the orders he is given. Biden could’ve vetoed the aid bills I suppose, but there is a good chance that they would’ve overridden his veto. He could’ve impounded the funds, but I’m not really sure how strictly-speaking legal that even is, and Democratic administrations face pressure from both sides to follow norms (i.e. I wouldn’t be surprised if Biden’s own party members would’ve impeached and removed him given just cause for doing so).
But, as per usual, people like yourself expect the impossible (world peace) under Democratic administrations and yet many of them will turn around and think any war that Trump starts is fully justified and support it bigly until the next Democrat (if there is one) gets in there.
In addition, Congress allocates funds to send to other countries and the President executes the orders he is given. Biden could’ve vetoed the aid bills I suppose
Biden literally bypassed congress to send more aid than what they had approved multiple times.
I hate the way liberals just shamelessly lie about this stuff, you don’t even have the excuse of the election anymore.
The article you linked, did you even read it? That is approval of weapons sales, not sending them more money.
Congress allocates funds in our government.
I hate the way liberals just shamelessly lie about this stuff
I hate the way label obsessed “leftists” don’t know basic shit about how the government works, and spend all of their time online talking out of their ass and name-calling.
That is approval of weapons sales, not sending them more money.
And that matters why? We shouldn’t be giving them aid or selling them weapons?
That’s right, just accuse me of lying and post ap news articles that don’t disprove anything I said, and then when it turns out you were wrong…words no longer matter!
Saying they’re the party of complacency isn’t really accurate. Obama may not have started any new wars (although there’s an argument to be made that his operations in Somalia represented a new, unsanctioned war front), but he didn’t get us out of Afghanistan, kept joint military operations going in Iraq, and created a massive, unaccountable robot assassination program that killed thousands of people, including U.S. citizens. That’s wasn’t an act of complacency, it was expansion.
To me, the difference in Democrats’ and Republicans’ positions on military use can be best summerize by how Obama and Trump reported drone deaths. Obama reclassified every adult male in a target zone as an enemy combatant so that he could artificially lower the number of civilian casualties. Trump just stopped reporting the numbers. One is obviously better than the other, but I wouldn’t call either anti-war.
But let’s say you’re right; the Democrats are mostly anti-war, but they’re too complacent with the status quo, and Trump voters are all idiots who can’t tell the difference. What are we gonna do about it? 51% of the electorate went to Trump. Are the Democrats going to stand up to the military industrial complex to make their anti-war stance so clear even an idiot could see it? Or are they just gonna lose forever?
The democrats are not anti war.
Yeah, that’s certainly how I feel.
But let’s say you’re right; the Democrats are mostly anti-war, but they’re too complacent with the status quo, and Trump voters are all idiots who can’t tell the difference. What are we gonna do about it? 51% of the electorate went to Trump. Are the Democrats going to stand up to the military industrial complex to make their anti-war stance so clear even an idiot could see it? Or are they just gonna lose forever?
You’re predicating your false dichotomy on the idea that: (A) the electorate will vote consistently for pacifism and for pacifists, (B) the electorate tracks the policy positions of politicians. Neither of these things are true.
This single issue did not decide this election, and it will not decide future ones (if we even have them) either.
The electorate is vibes based and has been for some time now.
Well, I would disagree with a lot of that. The average voter may not understand policy nuance, but it’s not just vibes based. Trump made a case for being anti-war. He won the first Republican primary in no small part by being the only person on stage to say that the Iraq War was a mistake. He promised to bring the troops home from Afghanistan and then set a withdrawal date (and then changed it several times, and eventually set it to after his term ended so that Biden would get all the bad optics). I think Trump is a manipulative liar, but his supporters have concrete examples of things he’s said and done that make them think he’s anti-war.
The economy was the number one issue for voters, and I don’t think voters’ reaction was vibes based either. Democrats almost always improve working class conditions more than the Republicans, but look at what happened during the Biden administration; inflation went way up, the interest rates went way up, and what the best jobs market for workers in the last 40 years got nuked. People might not understand why that happened, but they know what happened.
From where I’m sitting, the solution is to go so big that voters can’t misinterprete where you stand. Biden and Harris could have gone after the price gouging that was responsible for so much of the inflation during their administration, but instead, it was a footnote on the campaign. They could have come up with some kind of endgame for Ukraine other than, “send them as many weapons as they need indefinitely.” They should have taken a more confrontational stance with Netanyahu, since he was actively sabotaging the peace process while holding out for a Trump administration.
But again, let’s just say I’m entirely wrong: voters are idiots, they understand nothing, and their decisions are based entirely on vibes, not reality. The question remains the same; what do we do? Because right now, the strategy seems to be offering them incremental, technocratic solutions, then insulting them when they don’t understand how they’re better than Republican lies. And it doesn’t seem to be working.
The question remains the same; what do we do? Because right now, the strategy seems to be offering them incremental, technocratic solutions, then insulting them when they don’t understand how they’re better than Republican lies. And it doesn’t seem to be working.
I’m not a political consultant, but one of the things – if it were me (which it isn’t) – would be to start talking to people in this country not as if they’re involved people with a lot of knowledge about how anything works, but rather on their (4th grade reading) level, and keep repeating simple messages. At least for your mainline politicians, it’s important to appear somewhat stupid, so that the American voters think you’re one of them.
Bernie was actually very good at this IMO. I’m not sure his policies would’ve ever gotten anywhere – who knows? I would’ve loved to find out – but he was very good at repeating the same shit over and over again and speaking at a stupider level (most likely on purpose, because he’s not a stupid guy).
Yeah, I think that’s absolutely right, and I think that’s why he’s been so effective at winning over people who have gone to Trump. We can argue over whether or not the political class would ever let him have been the nominee, much less allowed hid agenda to pass, but I think his policies are very clear to everyone: higher minimum wages, higher taxes on billionaires, Medicare for everybody. People find that much easier to understand how that will improve their life tomorrow instead of a small business tax credit program.
The small business tax credit program Harris spent so much time talking about seemed like exactly the wrong thing to be talking about to exactly the wrong people.
It would maybe work for people who are fiscally conservative and socially liberal (AKA nobody). Deeply nerd-brained capitalists that think “gee whiz, this market is not competitive, competition could be grown by creating small businesses for the giant corporations to compete with!”…it’s a completely bookish garbage policy competing for ad space in an environment where her opponent was talking about how Harris was for giving transgender, border-crossing, violent criminals “sex changes” for free with “your tax dollars”.
When I saw the “She’s for they/them, not for you” commercials airing on NFL broadcasts this year, I shuddered to myself and I got that bad 2016 feeling all over again.
It’s because they aren’t. Clinton and Gore were 100% interventionist, and had no issues with preemptive war, some accused Clinton of starting a war to boost his popularity. Kerry was anti war historically, but pragmatic on Iraq, Hillary again with Bill not at all anti war–>
Obama’s military adittude was ‘‘a Democrat can’t say no to the military’’ and allowed whatever the joint chiefs wanted, which is never going to be anti war. And Biden was the same. Harris clearly not anti war either. Trump says he is, and that’s more anti war than any Dem in my lifetime. Can he effectively govern for war reduction? No. He’s an idiot, and liar. But he’s selling it.
Being “pragmatic on Iraq” turned off a lot of the left. Ralph Nader’s running mate, Peter Camejo, remarked at the time “Kerry isn’t Bush Lite. He’s Bush Smart! We do not need a smarter Bush!” Apparently the electorate agreed, because W. Bush went on to win a second term.
Hillary again with Bill not at all anti war–>
Directly responsible for escalation in Libya, as Sec State, and the deaths of tens of thousands as a result.
it might be worth reflecting why a lot of the electorate no longer sees the Democratic party as the anti-war party
The only reflection I am able to accomplish is to look at the GOP and say “Worse, tho”.
If you aren’t voting for the lesser evil, I have to assume you hate America and want it to fail. And that’s worse than genocide.
The only reflection I am able to accomplish is to look at the GOP and say “Worse, tho”.
OK, but so far, that hasn’t been a very effective electoral strategy. I think we should try something else.
It doesn’t need to be effective, because the pendulum of politics always swings back in the end. Trump will become the next scapegoat of American politics just like he was back in 2018 and then 2020. If the economy tops itself (as is increasingly likely), they’ll be facing even bigger headwinds. Even if it doesn’t, inflation and sky high rents aren’t going away. Consumer debt isn’t getting any lighter. The Trump Admin isn’t going to be nice to people.
That’s the electoral strategy at the end of the day. Just to keep being the Other Option and wait for people to come around. Wait as long as it takes. Maybe it’ll take twenty years, like in Arizona. Maybe forty years, like in Georgia. Maybe it’ll be over 60, like in Utah. Doesn’t matter. Just keep squatting on the Other Option until the day comes.
It seems like having policies that make people want to vote for Democrats would deliver more immediate and lasting results than allowing American conditions to continue deteriorating and hoping our opponents receive the blame.
Dems have to deliver on those policies when given the opportunity. If all they can deliver are excuses, they won’t have a base that trusts them.
Go down to Mexico and see how this is done. AMLO and Sheinbaum have been on a historic electoral tear, in large part because they’ve been so effective at delivering their reforms. They’re crazy popular right now.
First off, that’s a ridiculous assumption. Not everyone subscribes to your ideology of lesser evilism, and the vast majority of people who correctly reject that ideology are not accelerationists.
But secondly, just curious, if I was a German citizen who hated Nazi Germany and wanted it to fail, would that make me worse than the Nazis? The Nazis were just doing genocide, after all, but I committed what is apparently a far worse sin in your eyes, of insufficient patriotism.
Not everyone subscribes to your ideology of lesser evilism
If they don’t subscribe to my ideology, they must be a greater evil.
if I was a German citizen who hated Nazi Germany and wanted it to fail, would that make me worse than the Nazis?
It would make you a Communist Fifth Columnist Jew-Loving Traitor and earn you a ticket straight to the camps.
The Nazis would absolutely say you were worse than them.
The Nazis would say it, sure. Would you agree with them? Because it sort of sounds like you’d agree with them.
In times past, I was fascinated by Hitler and WW2. It was a lifelong obsession that I had since childhood. But ever since the Trump era started it started to wane due to the fact that WW2 and Hitler just didn’t seem so distant anymore… the world felt like a repeat of what was happening in those days and looking up facts felt, in part, like learning more to understand what is happening now instead of about history.
But if there is something that I need to point out is that Hitler was a SHIT leader. Germans and Germany ever since the Kaiser era were portrayed as hyperefficient and militaristic, and people then claim the Nazis were the same. They weren’t. Nazi bureaucracy was bullshit and most of their economic growth was based on plunder (initially from German Jews and other marginalized groups and later from other countries) and almost purely military build up. Germany actually lagged behind in technological build-up to most countries, despite the stereotypes of the Wunderwaffen of WW2 (Fritz-X bomb, the ME-262, etc), and industrially as any technology that didn’t have a direct military benefit was discarded. They didn’t even have any proper anti-biotics during the war!
Even agriculture was fucked by the Germans. Despite the romanticization of the German peasantry and the countryside by the Nazis, they could not sustain their population at all. Most German food was imported, and they were preparing their population for harsh wartime rationing even before the war started. They fed their population almost entirely on stolen food from Poland, France, the Netherlands, and Ukraine. Also by killing a lot of people in the death camps they saved on food that way as well.
People stereotype communist countries as having no food when they don’t realize that fascist nations just can’t feed their own folk. Nazi Germany wasn’t alone in having serious food problems. Imperial Japan couldn’t feed its own population and would have had widespread hunger if they didn’t start plundering China during the war.
Hitler lead Germans and Germany into death and destruction and misery and mayhem. He did nothing good for Germany. None at all. Even towards the end of the war he would have been OK with the German people being genocided since if they were defeated by the barbarian orc-like Soviets and the mongrel Americans they were not the master race he thought they were and they deserved to die. There is a reason why he is remembered as one of the world’s greatest monsters.
He did nothing good for Germany.
He did kill Hitler tho.
Then he also killed the dude that killed Hitler
igual igual
true
I see where you’re coming from. Perhaps not as obsessed, but I always had a historical interest in the era until it became an alarming parallel to present day news. Most people do not know much about what went down in the pre-war period. They just have knee-jerk reactions to it. “Traditional values” were trending at the time, Nazism was marketed as the modern, cool choice. Education, administration and even scouting and chess clubs were Nazified at the time. I see it with the freaking MAGA hat everywhere nowadays. I just see it and say, fuck this is some Nazi Germany shit. To me now there are two kinds of people, those who see it, and those who don’t. People are so precious thinking that Germans went nuts with the mass murder shit and elected this guy, but themselves have been on the exact same track as Nazi Germany for years: idolizing a dangerous man without ever questioning him. Soon they will have no excuse either, only collective guilt. Some of us won’t be here to see it though, for one reason or another. I have pointed this out in my other comment: once fascists get hold of the state apparatus, there is no horror we can put past them.
i think it’s at least in part because we have always been taught to see Hitler as a monster instead of a person. We dehumanised him and the entire nazi party so much for many it sounds like a myth instead of history, the take away seems simple - just don’t be a monster.
The lesson was - some people are born evil
Instead of - anybody can fall the wrong path and find themselves committing atrocities. Even your friends, even your family, even you
i’ve been saying this for a long time - Hitler wasn’t a monster, he was human just like you and me, and that’s a hundred times more terryfing
Indeed, dehumanization of the Nazis made most people think they are immune both to similar propaganda and similar atrocities. They think that Hitler advertised the Holocaust to be elected. It was a war time state secret (although there was the “Hitler’s Prophecy” but no-one took it at face value).
Hitler regime rose to power with the now familiar rhetoric: traditional values, family, order, capitalism, down with the trans degenerates, beat up leftists they poison the blood of our country.
That is why Trump goes out so easily saying “Hitler mught have said that but in a very different way”. He didn’t. It was the same fucking way.
Having said that, consider how the “abstractio ad Hitlerum” advertized as a fallacy actually enabled, eventually, Trump to get away with Hitler shit, just by saying it is a fucking fallacy. (I think this is in turn called the “Fallacy fallacy”) This timeline is history repeating itself as a farce, exactly as Marx predicted.
I feel for some Nazi-like propaganda in times past, and I am PISSED at the people who tricked me and I will never forgive them. They weren’t born evil in some nefarious manner, I will agree, but they did fall for the same shit that anyone can fall for. This was the critical lesson that most people forget.
Also the depiction of Nazi Germany as this hyperadvanced tech nation also played a role in it. While the Germans did have some very interesting secret weapon projects, people don’t realize the following:
1: They were in trial stages and were often rushed into production well before the underlying technology was sufficient to make them operational. Meaning they would NOT have been able to turn the tide of the war no matter what.
2: The Germany military was seriously lacking in many BASIC components. They didn’t have enough trucks and automobiles to do most of their shit. The Americans were fully mechanized, on the other hand and had FAR more of the nuts and bolts needed to win the war.
3: Much of the secret weapons they tried to make were wastes of time and resources. If they had put their efforts onto the stuff that is needed to win they might have held out for longer, but their failure was their attempt to win by a magic bullet instead of real bullets.
4: The Allies also had their own secret weapons projects that were just as funky and cool as the Axis. The Allies had jets and radar controlled stuff, too (and need I mention THE ATOMIC BOMB!). The Allies even had operational jet fighter squadrons during the war, but they didn’t throw them at the enemy. Even the Soviet Union, a backwards nation compared to the UK and the US, had their own secret weapons projects, too. But Stalin, like Roosevelt and Churchill, realized that the war would not be won by magic bullets, but real bullets, and focused more on getting the basic needs of the military done.
In short the Nazis weren’t any more advanced with their tech. Their attempted use of fancy shit was done out of desperation and not an sign of better thinking.
It seems like people as a whole are very generational. Meaning that there’s a generation that struggles, one that succeeds, and one that takes it for granted and fails.
Then the cycle repeats.
Im not talking about strictly boomers to x to z, but in a broad sense.
I remember in 2016 thinking how similar Trump was to Hitler and rhetoric and everything. I was written off is basically being nothing but hyperbole and physical form unfortunately I wasn’t wrong which sucks
Yup. I have a similar argument before. If one reads more about Hitler and the Nazis, they are actually not different to any of the standard third world dictators like Idi Amin and Muammar Gaddafi. The difference is that the Nazis were only more powerful because they inherited a working institution-- especially the Prussian-based military-- while third world countries had to start from scratch after decolonisation.
The Nazis like other dictators are very inefficient. I am reading Hannah Arendt’s “Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil”. The book goes through the convoluted bureaucracy and logistics of the Holocaust. Different pen pushers and administrators arguing who should be able to use the trains for their own departmental needs. What struck me the most is that the Nazis wasted so much effort transporting so-called undesirables to concentration camps, when their own soldiers are struggling to get supplies and reinforcements to the frontlines!
More importantly, as you correctly mentioned, Nazi Germany struggled to feed their own people. As a matter of fact, there is strong evidence that Hitler started the war in Europe to stave off the looming economic crisis, which his own economic minister warned him of, thanks to endless government spending particularly with the re-armement. That economic crisis had been warded (temporarily of course) by plundering the resources of their conquered territories.
The one scary thing about the holocaust is that while it did cause some problems in shipping supplies as you mentioned, it actually didn’t cost that much at all and even produced a profit. If I had to point to the ultimate evil of capitalism I wouldn’t point to the massive wasted food or environmental destruction. I would point to the death camps. They were remarkably cheap to run all things considered AND they paid for themselves AND made a profit.
On short term the Nazis may have profited, but on the long term, all the potential talents were killed and brain drain occurred even before the war.
Absolutely. The nazis would have destroyed everything. George Orwell in his review of Mein Kampf noted that the only thing that Hitler seemed to have in mind for German culture is literally taking over land, breeding a new generation of soldiers for them to to go war again and again and again. Just a repeat of that. No culture, no real anything other than spreading themselves far and wide.
There were over 40 assassination attempts on the shit stain Hitler and all of them were domestic. The Allies fully understood who was responsible for Germany’s strategic and tactical failures and they wanted the turd alive until the end. Cadet Bone Spurs will do the same thing to the US military.
It’s such an alien thought process that I don’t even know where I would begin with discussing politics with such a person.
This is the voter Kamala was supposed to sway with “better messaging”.
No, this is the voter she pissed off Dem voters for…
It didn’t work out well if you’ve already forgotten.
If someone says trump is Hitler but they voted for him anyways…
Then he was already going to vote for trump, and chasing his vote just led to losing traditional Dem voters with literally no gain.
Moving to the right is political suicide, yet we keep doing it because that’s how you max donations. And that’s all the people running the party care about.
No, this is the voter she pissed off Dem voters for…
Not sure why you said “no”, since you’re making the same point I was. This is who the party asked her to sway, and now the party is blaming her for not working hard enough to win the votes of complete fucking morons.
I could have told you that ignoring these morons and running a campaign focused on the working class, social justice, and economic fairness would have gone 1000% farther than trying to win over fence-sitters during the most divided election in U.S. history. Not sure why the Democrats ignored this, I assume they have at least one competent advisor that said this…
I think I interpreted it the same way the original commenter did, but I see now we’re all on the same page.
Maybe instead of saying she was “supposed to” it would be more clear you meant her campaign was “trying to”.
They said “no” because to them, the most important thing is blaming Kamala for whatever happened in some way. They’re disagreeing with you because you didn’t do that, and trying to correct you on it.
You blamed the voter, which was the right response. I would expand that to include blaming the obviously Russian-influenced campiagn, however it happened, that convinced this person that Ukraine was a hugely important issue in this campaign in this particular bizarre way.
We can give some blame to Kamala for her messaging, sure. But the thing you didn’t do, that made them say “no,” was redirect the whole conversation into a conversation about how it’s all Kamala’s fault and nothing else.
ok but… the Democrats in swing states (hell, any state) who said “I’m staying home because Kamala courts Republicans, even though I know Trump is Hitler” are absolutely as shitty as the people who voted for Trump
So?
What matters is winning elections.
Stomping our feet and saying they should do what we tell them isn’t fucking working.
So if you want them to vote D so together we can stop Rs…
Maybe we should try running a better candidate than we have been?
Maybe no matter how much the wealthy insist on it, just being slightly better than trump isn’t enough.
Maybe we should just run the best candidate we can, one that already agrees with Dem voters so we don’t have to ask millions of people to hold their nose?
The excuse for running candidates further to the right then Dem voters has always been that it would magically win an election.
It hasn’t, and it won’t.
It’s a bad strategy and we’ve stuck with it for about a decade longer than we should have already.
What logical reason can you give to stick with a plan that even when it works doesn’t get us as much as we need, and fails regularly?
As a bonus, the more Dems move right, the more Republicans do.
So every election Dem voters have their potential winnings reduced and potential loses increased…
And people are really surprised why turnout was low?!
Well if the right are the only ones who constantly vote then yes they well change their views. Doesn’t matter if 2/3 of the country are Democrats if they can’t be bothered to get off their asses and vote.
Yeah, the people running the party didn’t see that they lost the left wing vote, they only care about who voted and not for them.
You mean by hanging out with Liz Cheney and talking about a ‘lethal military’?
Well he speaks English, same as you. I guess you could always meet a conservative and then ask them questions sometime. Might be a mind blowing experience to talk to someone who disagrees with you, and actually listen.
I have listened, and there is nothing worth listening to. I have to listen, because there are all around me at work. It is continuous fear and ignorance. Not a single worthwhile thing. I’m done listening, especially since they won’t return the favour. I’m not going to meet hate in the middle.
Can you promise me there will be something other than lies or misinformation coming out of their mouths when I do so this time? Because based on my first hand experience over at least the past 8 years, those are the only two things I’m going to get.
I’ve met plenty of Tories and their ilk, but none of them would vote for someone they publicly think is basically Hitler.
This bloke’s thought processes are so alien to us they I don’t think we’ll ever understand him, sadly.
Ya know… if I thought someone was literally Hitler, the last thing I’m gonna fucking do is help them literally have control of… everything.
Unless you want to bring about the end of the world. Seriously, that’s how at least some of these people think. They want to throw a monkey wrench in the works, because they think they’ll be the ones to survive the apocalypse.
Trump won’t bring about the apocalypse he’ll just bring about economic ruin. Which is a lot less fun than the apocalypse.
I want the end of the world too, but it’s because I don’t wanna survive the apocalypse, we are not the same.
Haha… I’m depressed.
But what if the country needed a change in leadership after recently being fucked up by this hitler guy, eh?
“the greatest argument against democracy is a conversation with the average voter”
Classical technocracy is where it’s at.
Tap for spoiler
/s
Marx grasped this essence of capitalist democracy splendidly when, in analyzing the experience of the Commune, he said that the oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them in parliament!
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch05.htm
That’s already more than any communist regime allowed, so lesser of two evils and all of that…
This is some quote from an ancient Greek right? Socrates, Pericles et cetera?
Churchill, so the story goes. But probably not: https://winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour/finest-hour-141/red-herrings-famous-quotes-churchill-never-said/
It’s one of the many often attributed to Winston Churchill, though to my knowledge there’s no actual evidence of him actually saying it and his other writings go against the sentiment. I don’t know who actually did say it first
It was me. Winston and I were tying one on and I said it in passing. He thought it was hilarious.
Churchill and ancient greek philosopher kings, famous champions of the common people
As others put, no, but it does remind me that Aristotle felt society should only be run by the most intelligent among us, hence the term Aristocracy.
Of course, in practice people make up bullshit rules to determine who is most intelligent and that messes up the whole concept (e.g. Jim Crow tests and such). But it’s a nice fantasy if ever we could pull it off.
If only Aristocracy actually meant society was run by the most intelligent among us. Instead, it means “society is run by me and my buddies.”
Even if it was actually the most intelligent they would still have the power to hurt others for their own gain. In fact I imagine it would be far easier for them to justify to themselves by arguing merit.
The problem is that no government can thrive as a force for good in the face of apathy, maliciousness, or a lack of duty.
Pretty much, yes. Even if you put up requirements on a democracy to require basic civic understanding, you ultimately disenfranchise a group.
Exactly and many people have misguided understanding of duty to country and the benefits that come from it. In rural America you often see people who treat military service as absolutely vital to preservation of freedom, and gun ownership as critical to preventing tyranny, but don’t see that jury duty and consistently participating in the political process with an open mind for all people’s right to live as they feel is right for themselves as the absolute lynchpins of American freedom that they are.
Protecting freedom isn’t glorious, it isn’t exciting. It’s hard mental and emotional labor that requires resisting demagoguery and bigotry even when you’re struggling. It requires understanding that giving the government unchecked power will eventually bite you in the ass, just as surely as refusing to prosecute leaders who commit crimes. It requires paying your damn taxes so the country doesn’t fall into disrepair. It involves paying the prices required of the freedoms you have.
It annoys me how some people refuse to vote lest they be called to jury duty. Motherfucker, trial by a jury of your peers is a magnificent right you hold, and that’s the price of it. Also you hold a portion of a nuclear arsenal and can’t even be bothered to find out that that’s not how the government that holds them works, or to express your will on it regardless.
Also a great argument for education reform
Tell me you are a racist piece of shit without telling me you are a racist piece of shit.
I really believe that most Americans are dumb enough to be racist and just smart enough to know they shouldn’t say it. I can’t help but read all this apologism for Trump as thinly veiled, “I know he’s a weird guy, but thank God someone is finally going to do something about all the people that look different than me”.
Saying “I voted for Trump” is saying “I’m a racist piece of shit”. We can retire the “without saying” joke in this context.
Also, misogynist. “I sont agree with his dictatorial views, but at least he’s got a dick!”
That’s sadly almost every '24 Trump Voter I’ve ever spoken to.
Bingo. This guy is likely happy about the reports that twice as many black women than white women die in child birth and after RvW those numbers doubled. He’s probably happy when he hears about family seperation, people caught in immigration prisons for dozens of years, and on and on.
You mean that, try as you might, you just can’t accept any new information into your worldview?
What information did you add to your worldview that led you to embrace hatred as a political ethos?
Trump offers no information that wasn’t already around in Germany in 1934
Are you going to supply new information? Or just say it’s there with the proper “research”
“I voted for the guy that I think is like Hitler to end conflicts and keep us out of wars.”
Did he not read the part where Hitler genocided Jews, Europeans, and the disabled?
Did he not read the part in history where Hitler caused a war so large that it wiped out entire European families, literally tens of millions of Europeans?
The white working class in this country is going to get everything they voted for. I hope Trump floods their neighborhoods with immigrants, LEGALLY.
Read!?
Ha!
Did he not read the part where Hitler genocided Jews, Europeans, and the disabled?
That’s the thing though — Hitler didn’t run on a platform of genociding people, he ran on a platform of economic improvement. Weimar Germany was economically depressed and many average people and families were suffering from unemployment and financial hardship while the rich were relatively unaffected and enjoying themselves. Hitler promised to change that (and in all fairness, he did). The genociding Jews part came much later.
Hitler was in charge of Germany for 11 years (1934-1945) — the war didn’t start until 1938, and the holocaust only began in 1942, so the voters DID end up getting at least 4 years of relative peace and prosperity. Also, keep in mind that Hitler was 45 years old when he became chancellor, meanwhile Trump is 78, meaning even if he manages to finish his second tenure successfully, he’ll very likely simply be too old by the end of it in order to continue, which makes it somewhat unlikely that he’ll attempt to stage another coup in order to remain dictator for life.
Though he could put Vance or another one of his cronies on that platform.
Possible, but Vance doesn’t exactly strike me as Hitler 2.0. I watched his Joe Rogan interview and he came off as a pretty reasonable guy.
Vance is an opportunist, and dangerously smart and eloquent. That’s actually a huge positive over Trump, I really hate we have such an actual gullible idiot in office.
Problem is I don’t really understand what is actual political beliefs are. It feels like he’s just a sycophant in interviews, given his history.
He’s hitched himself to the MAGA train, but if, say, he was president with basically no opposition and Trump dead, what would he do?
Well, we’re probably going to find out.
The thing to keep in mind about idiocy is that idiots make mistakes, a lot. At the same time, those mistakes are usually small-stakes affairs (it’s hard to make big mistakes with no money and/or resources) and are usually recoverable. The idea that their mistake could affect so many others simply does not happen, because that’s not how things typically work.
Everyone keeps looking for answers to why trump won. I keep coming back to media directed stupidity
And social media feeds.
How much you wanna bet this guy scrolls facebook a ton? Or listens to railing radio/podcasts on drives? This opinion didn’t spawn from a vacuum.
They should be following up and asking him where he got those ideas.
Yeah, media, social or mass, has guided the people incapable of sound reasoning exactly where they wanted them.
It’s like people really believe America entered WW2 to fight fascism becaus Americans are innately good…
Large amounts of the country said the same shit this guy is. They wanted to either stay out of it or outright join the nazis.
Especially the wealthy. Prescott Bush was believed to be part of the Business Plot that wanted to overthrow the US government in favor of fascism and doing the Axis powers.
They didn’t succeed (mostly because of Pearl Harbor) but his son became head of the CIA, VP, and then president. One of his sons also became president, and almost another one.
If we don’t remember what history was really like, we’re doomed to keep being surprised when the same shit keeps happening.
Ya, CCCP started it all with Hitler, later on the USA was forced in to the war.
Don’t forget.
Edit, to clarify: the USA was forced into the war, later on, they didn’t enter voluntarily. The nazis and the soviets kicked off ww2 in 1939. Sorry for the confusion.
Edit again:
Ya, CCCP started it all with Hitler
Whut?
Is this an attempt at a joke or do you really believe that?
It’s hard to tell these days when someone is just pretending
Heard about the ribbentrop molotov pact?
That was what kicked it all off.
Alright, let’s clear this up. The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact wasn’t what brought the US into WWII. That pact was a non-aggression agreement between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed in August 1939, which allowed both powers to avoid fighting each other while they focused on expanding their influence in Europe. This agreement directly led to the invasion of Poland and the start of WWII in Europe, but it didn’t prompt US involvement.
The US didn’t enter the war until December 1941, over two years later, after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. That was the actual catalyst. Up until then, despite plenty of pro-Nazi and anti-Nazi sentiments among the populace, the US had largely followed an isolationist policy, though they supported the Allies with programs like Lend-Lease to aid Britain. The US’s decision to go to war was mostly a response to Japanese aggression, and Germany’s declaration of war on the US shortly afterward sealed the deal for full US involvement in both the Pacific and European theaters.
So yeah, the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was important for starting the conflict in Europe, but it wasn’t why the US entered WWII.
I didn’t say it brought USA into the war, I said it was what kicked off ww2 and it was the fault of the soviets + nazi germany.
You are correct, but you misunderstood me, or I wasn’t clear enough.
Edit: I was not clear enough, I edited my post. In my mind the two things were separate, I just didn’t have the writing skills.
I didn’t say it brought USA into the war
You literally did
Ya, CCCP started it all with Hitler, the USA was forced in to the war.
Now, perhaps this isn’t what you meant to say. It is, however, what you said
It’s two things, separated by a comma. Like apples are green, I went to the doctor yesterday. Not very good writing I admit.
No. I mean, congrats on the mental gymnastics needed to somehow blame it on communists, but no.
WW2 was caused by thoss dastardly Judeo Bolsheviks.
So splitting up poland and the baltics wasn’t what started ww2?
Let’s hear your version.
Are you familiar with the concept of a casus belli or are you just cognitively impaired?
So it’s time for insults.
Yeah the great Soviet Union started off WW2 with Nazi Germany, like it or not. I know they don’t teach that in some countries and call it “the great patriotic war” instead. Yo know, to muddy the waters.
As a German, this the insane things our parents, grandparents and institutions warned us about. People begrudgingly accepted their lead in the hopes that “although it’s an authoritarian, maybe he will take care of our goals”. What followed was the cruelty of 1939 to 1945 and no one deserves to live through that, not even the idiots that got us in this mess.
I desperately, desperately, hoped that Germans, Jews, and especially the few remaining holocaust survivors, could somehow articulate this in a way that would penetrate at some point during the past few years.
Nope. We are literally doomed to repeat it.
Without mentioning the name of the poster, I replied to a comment yesterday that said this:
The only reason I voted for him was because we’re on the brink of WW3 and I thought he was truly the last hope of getting the wars settled. I’m scared, and I’m sorry, but shit is crazy right now. Trump at least has some relations with Russia and North Korea, that could potentially cool the pot. Feel free to tell me why I’m wrong, I’m open to discussion.
Done went from being the guy we’d kill if we had a time machine to the guy we voted for in less than a decade. Pretty impressive trick.
Because Hitler is famous for avoiding global armed conflict.
I mean it’s only because they didn’t give him exactly what he wanted and how he wanted it immediately and without any resistance that we got the war. He was the real oppressed one after all /s /s /s /s
Because I cannot emphasis enough that what I said above is sarcasm.
Well, Hitler and the nazis were inspired by the USA…
Reference: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691172422/hitlers-american-model
Right slavery is pretty much ≥ genocide
This is what happens when you systematically dismantle the public education system.
Dictators: famous for ending wars. We’ll never learn how many wars could have been prevented if only all countries had authoritarian leaders, too bad it’s never happened before.
