You must log in or # to comment.
I disagree. You must understand how we got here because we are simply perpetuating the cycle due to a fundamental misunderstanding of the problem.
You cannot beat the Republican party because the problem is not confined to the Republican party. This is not a both sides same argument. Yes, Republicans are 100% a problem, but they are not 100% of the problem.
The problem is the idea that conservativism is an ideology. It isn’t. You cannot argue with a conservative because there is no logic behind the thought process. You cannot challenge conservative values because they do not exist. You cannot fight the Republican party because they aren’t even in the ring. They are describing a fight on the radio to their listeners, describing how they are hitting you, how you are crying and flailing because you suck, how you’re cheating and vomitting because you suck so bad, and the viewers and listeners are cheering along as they narrate a fixtional fight. The moment you climb into the ring, you’ve lost because you’re feeding the idea that this is in anyway a fight. The Republican Party can simply declare victory, because you’ve agreed to perpetuate their lie.
The lie is that conservativism is a valid ideological position.
That’s why it is so difficult to attack. There’s nothing there to hit. Conservativism is one simple, foundational concept: I am a good person.
Because I am good, what I want is good. It doesn’t matter what I want, it is good because I want it. It doesn’t matter if what I want changes, it is only good when I want it. It doesn’t matter what other people want because I want it and that makes it good.
Because I am good, what I say is good. It doesn’t matter if what I say is true, or fair, or logical, or even internally consistent. It is good because I said it. If I was wrong, it is good that I was wrong.
Because I am good, what I do is good. If I hurt people, those people deserved to be hurt. If I violate the law, the law is bad. If I force my will upon others, it is necessary to obtain the good I deserve. Any obstacle to my power is bad.
Anyone who challenges me is bad. Anything they say or do to oppose me is bad. It doesn’t matter if they use my own words against me, it was good when I said it and it was bad when they said it.
On every issue, Conservatives will draw a chalk line around wherever they are standing and decide that those are the battle lines between good and evil. Every conservative does this, because conservatives are told it is OK to be a political narcissist.
The way to oppose them is the same method to dealing with narcissists. Establish boundaries, ignore their bad-faith arguments and personal attacks, reject their artificial reframing of the issues, and stand fast on your principles. You’re not going to convince them they’re wrong, you can only hope to demonstrate a better way to be.
Please adapt this comment to a post in !YouShouldKnow@lemmy.world to reach a bigger audience. It’s a truth that everybody Should Know.
A lot of people know that the conservative mind runs on fear and disgust. A friend years ago clued me into the key bit of insight that merges this observation with the “I’m a good person” ethic into a Grand Unified Theory of the conservative mindset: Underneath it all is a deep self-disgust. They fear more than anything else that they are not good people, and hence subscribe to an ethic which axiomatically says that they are. But somebody who truly believes that they are a good person could sit quietly at home in an aura of smugness. (Which, to be brutally honest, we can all probably think of some leftists like that.) The conservative, who doesn’t believe it deep down, has to have it constantly demonstrated.
And that explains everything about the performative cruelty that they go nuts for.
The example that perhaps makes this dynamic most obvious is the deeply-closeted, evangelical Christian, homosexual men. But, everything they do comes back to this truth. Like: “re-open Alcatraz” -> “exaggerated, symbolic vengeance against criminals” -> “performative cruelty against bad people” -> “performed by good people” -> “I’m a good person”.
I heard recently the phrase “MAGA isn’t an ideology, MAGA is an ethics” which sums this up beautifully if you know the academic meanings of “ideology” and “ethics”. I think I heard it fron Steve Boots, Canadian left-wing political commentator.
That’s fairly close to what I’m saying, except it’s absolutely not just MAGA. It was Nixon and Reagan and Bush I and Gingrich and Bush II and Cheyney and Delay and Boehner and Romney and every Republican in leadership positions over the last 100 years.
gingrich started the whole thing in the senate where they would refuse every bill til the dems capitulated, which mitch also caught on and started doing ti since.
Does anyone else think that the emblem being basically a Q could prove problematic? I just feel like it’s going to cause a large uproar in the conspiracy crowd
I took it to imply that the crazies are now in charge of the Republican party.
“Now” lol
Different set of em maybe
