Shit man, next year we're gonna be a decade old. Its also wild that you can trace the line of dominoes from us to the exposure of all the current day insanity, one event and regime-double-down at a time.
You're viewing a single comment thread. View all comments, or full comment thread.
Comments (58)
sorted by:
I generally agree.
Both GG and Trump were wakeup calls, shocks to the system. With how the indoctrination works, the soft libs - the ones who just think they're "liberal" by default - often just need a jolt to make them realize the weird discrepancies and juxtapositions.
I know that's how it went for me. I grew up in a very liberal/progressive environment, Republicans were evil (I mean, sort of true for many of them at the time, and even still now, but it's still a harmful view to cut off a side completely and side with another without even making a conscious choice), progressivism was the way to go...I mean, hey, progress is good, and the like...all by default.
When even minor questioning got you in trouble, despite not being outside your own beliefs, it makes you realize you didn't know your own side at all. Wait, so we're not allowed to question anything, even if it makes no sense? Wait, you'll try to completely destroy me for saying some journalists might be bad? Despite bitching about journalists yourself?
Something relatively innocuous like GG or even Trump, can wake up the defaulters, because it makes them question both what they actually know about the "other side," and what their own side is like.
Sadly, I wonder how many soft libs are left. That's the downside, waking those people up helped solidify both the left and the right; the left kicked out those that weren't True Believers, and hardened their base massively. Proportionally, the left is now much more hardline than they were.
Still, it's a good thing overall. As you were getting at, we would have lost utterly on the slow boil, now we have a chance. As frustrating as all the forced division is, we do need to draw battle lines if we're going to fight back the cultural rot. As you say, we now have at least a sliver of hope. Maybe even more.
The problem is not regarding Republican politicians as evil, which of course they are. The problem is regarding rank-and-file Republicans (or Democrats, who are just brainwashed) as evil, or imagining that because you support Corrupt Politician A rather than Corrupt Politician B, he is somehow good or the messiah. The left has this problem of imagining that goodness consists of agreeing with whatever they are told to believe by the media.
You only realize that you are in an invisible cage when you step out enough to bump up against it.
Very true. I was mainly talking about politicians, but you're right in that Republican voters are/were viewed as evil, which is a much bigger problem, and that's what I should have focused on. Because, yeah, fuck most Republican politicians. The bigger issue was that, at the time, without questioning, I bought the narrative that The Other were indisputably the Bad Guys.
I remember there was a right wing family in my school/friend group, and the other parents badmouthed and excluded those parents. I never bullied them or anything, and I realized it was wrong, but I was too young to either do anything about it, or fully realize how disgusting it was. And, yes, there was basically only one conservative family in my immediate circle, and they were somewhat outcasts. They seemed to do well regardless, though, which isn't really that surprising. I think the more conservative ideals are - in moderation, of course - much better for raising children.