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Elections Have Consequences (lemmy.world)
submitted 6 days ago by to c/lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world
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[+] -30 points 6 days ago (40 children)

I don't mind the pronouns, but this shit is what created MAGA.

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  • [–] 47 points 6 days ago (3 children)

    No, MAGA would have latched on to anything. This is just one of their scapegoats, MAGA always existed.

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  • [–] 8 points 6 days ago (2 children)

    They didn't latch onto anything, though. They latched into the things that got their base to turn out strong for bullshit candidates.

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  • [+] -8 points 6 days ago (1 child)

    Yeah literally giving fatigued people annoying prods with every email or online interaction at work or home to vote against this new source of fatigue

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  • [–] 9 points 5 days ago

    1. Who is? The Democratic Party? Did they make it a law that companies have to include pronouns in all their emails? Or is it a bunch a random people in random organizations independently choosing to be accommodate to shifting norms?

    2. "Fatigued" is so laughable.

    Dearest Teresa, I fear whether our correspondence may continue, as my hands grow weary and more weary with each passing day. On the eve, the Union army (my coworker) hounded and harried us (politely asked me to add pronouns to my emails) until my feet grew blisters and I felt I could press on no longer, but still I knew, I could not grant myself a moment's reprieve, lest I be caught, and killed in cold blood (get an email from HR).

    Y'all desperately need a reality check.

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  • [–] 25 points 6 days ago*

    I mean, mostly. The amount of right-wing fearmongering before Obama was elected was intense, and after he won, a large portion of the Republican party lost their goddamn minds, convinced it was the end of white people. This led to the Tea Party movement, which fed directly into MAGA.

    On a more personal level, Obama mercilessly roasted Trump at the 2011 White House Correspondents' Dinner, and the notorious slumlord was so monumentally, volcanically pissed-off at being humiliated by a powerful Black man that he became determined to prove he was his better, leading to his presidential ambitions, and courting of the existing Tea Party movement who became his initial base of support. (MAGA is basically TP 2.0.)

    The culture-war stuff was red meat for keeping the psychos' attention, lest they wander off into dumber, less controllable conspiracy theories. But it could have been anything. (Sharia law, Socialism, FEMA camps, White Genocide, Great Replacement, Blood Libel, whatever the Murdochs could get their talking heads to complain about, basically.)

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  • [–] 21 points 6 days ago (3 children)

    dont take the responsibility away from maga please. trump is president BECAUSE he knows they want someone who hates the same people they do. trump is a symptom, not the cause.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 days ago* (2 children)

    A symptom of...

    waits for noone to point out freedumb of speech that includes praising slavers and nazis in scholastic environments and actively punishes teaching the ugly side of history

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  • [–] 14 points 6 days ago

    Not even close. Reactionary movements grow when standards of living drop while costs simultaneously rise, especially if the shift is significant. Much of this is usually attributed to weakening energy inputs (or at least a rise in their cost), as energy is foundational to post-industrial societies. Organized movements will latch onto cultural issues like "pronouns" in an attempt to divert blame for the deterioration in living towards an easy exploitable marginal group so that elites avoid things like guillotines. "Pronouns being in emails" is merely incidental and is not even close to how a movement like MAGA started or rose.

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  • [–] 5 points 6 days ago* (26 children)

    Not gonna lie, I saw this meme and thought, "You're learning the wrong lesson!"

    Let's not fuck this up lefties.

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  • [–] 5 points 5 days ago (25 children)

    How?

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago (24 children)

    There was a lot of legitimate issues with the "woke" movement. Republicans used this as motivation to turn out the vote. Democrats have since chilled out quite a bit. Most didn't do a 180, but just quit focusing on it.

    This win was more a reflection of that than it was legitimizing the "old ways".

    Besides, pronouns never left the emails.

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  • [–] 8 points 5 days ago (23 children)

    I don't recall the Democrats ever being so woke that it was a legitimate issue. Random individual people with zero power might have said or looked "cringe," though, and that was somehow upheld as representative of everything. Virtually all of the backlash to "woke 1" was just memes and Youtube videos usually featuring the same three random nobodies...

    ...putting words in their mouth, taking them out of context, and holding them as representative of all liberals/leftists.

    What was one actual policy position advanced or enacted by the Democratic party that was problematic because it was too woke?

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  • [–] -1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (22 children)

    I listen to some podcasts that talk a lot about polling data, and analyze not only how people vote, but why. It's not political, and just about analysis.

    It's my understanding that there was a backlash to democrats going all in on woke issues. This drove republicans to the polls when they might have been more likely to stay home.

    It's fine to be woke, but let's just stfu about it. Last thing we need is to encourage republican backlash.

    This same thing applied to guns. Democrats talked too much about gun control, which drove Republicans to the polls at massive levels. Now they don't talk about it, and that's one less motivation for Republicans.

    Edit: I'm not saying republican objections were fair or even honest. Just that it was effective.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 days ago (21 children)

    It’s my understanding that there was a backlash to democrats going all in on woke issues.

    I asked for a specific policy, not vague allusions to "going all in on woke issues."

    If you're focusing on rhetoric rather than policy, then fine, provide me some actual, specific examples of that rhetoric.

    Relying on vague perceptions and imperfect memories is just bullshit. How I remember it is very different from what you're saying.

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  • [–] -1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (20 children)

    Relying on vague perceptions and imperfect memories is just bullshit. How I remember it is very different from what you're saying.

    We're just 2 people sharing our imperfect memories on the internet.

    Do you disagree that "woke" issues were a motivating factor for many Republicans in the past 5-10 years or so?

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  • [–] 4 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (19 children)

    That's completely shifting the goalposts. Whether Republicans viewed the Democrats as being woke is an entirely different question from whether the Democrats actually were woke. Republicans believed Democrats for reasons I already explained, in my first reply and elsewhere in this thread.

    The reality is that the Republican perception of the Democrats had more to do with their own minds and their own circles and their own conditions, rather than what Democrats actually said or did. Many of these people are just diehard reactionaries and unreachable anyway.

    Also, Democrats won midterm races regardless of what their stance on trans rights was. El-Sayed for example did not (to my knowledge) adopt any anti-trans positions, and politicians like Talarico and Hamilton (Kansas) conceded on sports but overall had positive messaging.

    This is exactly why it's important to ground your narratives in hard facts rather than vague memories, because if you compare politicians' rhetoric then to now, how much has it actually shifted? It's more that Republicans overplayed their hand on the issue, while also fucking up in other, bigger ways, like in Iran. So the rhetoric that's remembered as being "too extreme" and the rhetoric that's seen as "reasonable" could be the exact same words, and what's actually changed is people's perception of that rhetoric. Which is meaningless for the conclusions and narratives you're drawing.

    So much of the rhetoric about "woke 1" is just "you remember how crazy it was, right?" without ever actually discussing what specifically was so crazy about it. And the reason that there's nothing specific anyone can point to is that it was massively overblown. The left was never anywhere close to the levers of power, it was always centrists who at best sometimes pandered to an organic movement while doing little in terms of actual policy. It's the same shit with like, "remember when the Democrats defunded the police" when in fact police budgets were raised almost everywhere, it was just a perception that that happened.

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  • [–] -1 points 5 days ago (18 children)

    I definitely don't have time to go through a decade of social media posts and news articles, so the best your going to get from me right now is my memory.

    Fact that candidates like Talarico and Hamilton were able to say they didn't support trans people on the issue of sports without the wrath of the left ending their career is evidence the Democrats are no longer "all in" on woke. Newsom said exactly as much 2 yeas ago and was branded a transphobic bigot immediately. Even though he also said very supportive things of the Trans community in the exact same podcast and has done supportive things. To me, this reaction from the community was a problem. It didn't help that he sucks in other ways, so nobody really wanted to defend him.

    "remember when the Democrats defunded the police" when in fact police budgets were raised almost everywhere, it was just a perception that that happened.

    Perception was based on comments by many people on the left supporting this idea. Both politicians and the community. No actual legislation came from this, but the stigma was left behind as a result.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago (17 children)

    I think you've blindly accepted this narrative as dogma without any real evidence and anything that happens you could just twist into supporting the narrative. If Talarico and Hamilton had lost, you'd just say that it shows they were too supportive of trans rights, since they won, you say it's because they weren't fully supportive of them. Meanwhile, the example of El-Sayed is just written off because he doesn't fit the narrative you already decided on. It's nonsense.

    To me, this reaction from the community was a problem.

    Both politicians and the community.

    Ah, see, there you have it. The community. When people talk about the left going too far, what they mean is almost always like some random Tumblr blog with 10 followers.

    Guess what? There are still random Tumblr blogs with 10 followers saying all sorts of crazy things, wielding zero political influence just as they did back then. Fucking, saying crazy shit is part of growing up, part of sorting out ideas, and some of the "crazy shit" that's taken to represent "the left" is literally just some 15 year old. You're never going to enforce any kind of "party discipline" across everyone in the country.

    What's changed is not that teenagers suddenly stopped saying crazy shit, or lost the power they never had in the first place, but that the Republicans fucked shit up badly enough that people started having better things to worry about. And to some extent, people have just become more accustomed to the internet and the fact that there are always people saying all kinds of shit and it doesn't fucking matter. And frankly, the most woke shit by the edgiest teen could barely compete with the shit Elon Musk tweets out regularly to huge audiences anyway.

    So, in my opinion, this whole narrative is bullshit based on nothing but memories of perceptions.

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  • [–] -1 points 5 days ago (16 children)

    If Talarico and Hamilton had lost, you'd just say that it shows they were too supportive of trans rights

    Lol, now you're just making shit up.

    As for El Sayed, I'm not saying everybody has gone full anti-woke. I'm just saying the Democratic party has chilled out in general. There's gonna be exceptions.

    So, in my opinion, this whole narrative is bullshit based on nothing but memories of perceptions.

    Ok

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (15 children)

    Lol, now you’re just making shit up.

    The point is with this sort of narrative that isn't really based on hard evidence in the first place, virtually anything that happens can be spun to support it, and the inconvenient parts just glossed over. It's just based on feelings so the only way to refute it is if you just happen to feel differently.

    As for El Sayed, I’m not saying everybody has gone full anti-woke. I’m just saying the Democratic party has chilled out in general. There’s gonna be exceptions.

    So what you are saying then is that everybody had been woke. Because otherwise, if it's just that there are some politicians that are woke and some that are anti-woke, and it was like that before, then nothing's really changed.

    But that's the thing. Not everybody in the party was woke. And if you relied on actual evidence instead of memories and feelings, you'd see that that's obviously true. If everyone had been woke, that raises the question of why wasn't there legislation that you can actually point to?

    If anything, politicians generally didn't really talk about trans people or have clearly defined stances, until Republicans decided to make it a central issue of their campaign.

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  • [–] -1 points 5 days ago (14 children)

    Politics is not always "hard facts" and sometimes it's just "perception and feelings". When I saw this meme I had a reaction based on what I have seen over the last 5-10 years. I am one person on the internet. Feel free to ignore me, but also feel free to recognize that I may be representing an opinion shared by many other people that are not commenting on this thread.

    I see posts on here all the time and comments on here all the time that collect to give me a perception of the "community". Along with talking with friends and family. And not only reading headlines about things a politician said, but listening to their actual words. It is not worth it to me to google sources for you for every opinion or perception I have.

    You mentioned El Sayed as an example. I saw a headline yesterday praising him for not turning his back on trans people in his 60 minutes interview. I listened to that interview and didn't hear anything particularly pro trans. He basically said the government doesn't need to get involved. Which is a great opinion to have.

    Do I feel like having it out with you about how "woke" he is as a candidate? Not really. Especially not when it doesn't matter.

    So what you are saying then is that everybody had beenwoke.

    No, that's not what I'm saying.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago (13 children)

    He basically said the government doesn’t need to get involved.

    That's literally what the Democrats were saying in "Woke 1."

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  • [–] -1 points 5 days ago (12 children)

    I don't know what "woke 1" is

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (11 children)

    The time we're discussing when the Democrats were supposedly "too woke." They had the same positions then that you call reasonable now.

    You just don't know it because you don't care about the facts. The Democratic Party was never "particularly pro-trans" beyond the government staying out of people's business.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago (10 children)

    I didn't want to have to google, but you made me. This article seems to be saying many things I am saying. Democrats went to far being "woke" and have chilled out some.

    https://archive.ph/FLtUR

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago (9 children)

    Christ, finally. The amount I have to twist people's arms on this website to do the most basic homework to support their positions. It's completely ridiculous.

    That article is very scant on details and specifics. It mentions "defund the police," which was mostly a slogan used by activists rather than the party, and which, as the article mentions (and as I mentioned previously) never actually went anywhere and was walked back, with Biden calling specifically to "fund the police" and with many places raising police budgets instead. In spite of this, there was a perception that Democrats actually did defund the police. Not the reality.

    It doesn't really talk about democrat's positions on trans rights at all. It mentions #MeToo, and one random state assemblywoman who talked about cancelling Thanksgiving.

    My whole point is not that there was no perception of the Democrats being woke, but that it was just a perception. Nothing in that article actually challenges that. It just quotes other people who had that perception. You can say, "politics is about feelings and perceptions" but all that makes me think of is how Republicans "felt like" Obama turned the country into a socialist republic.

    Here is a Ballotpedia page for Hillary Clinton's stances on LGBT rights in 2016. I would love to know which parts of it are "particularly pro-trans" rather than just keeping the government out of trans people's business and ensuring equal protection under the law.

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  • [–] 0 points 5 days ago (8 children)

    Christ, finally. The amount I have to twist people's arms on this website to do the most basic homework to support their positions. It's completely ridiculous.

    I got better things to do with my life than to dig up sources to defend my opinion to a random person on the internet. As I said, I read plenty of things, news articles, lemmy articles and comments. There's podcasts that I listen to. I am hyper aware if what I'm seeing is facts or opinions. I love polling podcasts as they are pure numbers and facts.

    I do all this so when I need to have an opinion on something, I don't need to spend hours "doing homework". If I felt like I didn’t understand something and needed to research it, I would.

    I didn't know what "woke 1" meant, I googled it and found an article that seemed to validate exactly what I'm saying. "Woke 1" is not used as a good phase of the democratic party. Period. The end. That still not good enough for you? Fine.

    Honestly, I feel like you and I are 75% on the same side here.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago (7 children)

    I got better things to do with my life than to dig up sources to defend my opinion to a random person on the internet

    If you have better things to do than source your claims, you probably have better things to do than to make them in the first place.

    I love polling podcasts as they are pure numbers and facts.

    Well, facts about people's perceptions of things.

    I do all this so when I need to have an opinion on something, I don’t need to spend hours “doing homework”. If I felt like I didn’t understand something and needed to research it, I would.

    Then I would think that providing a source would be trivially easy. You're saying that you've already done your homework, you just didn't want to show it to me because... I don't really know why. Like, when I ask for a source, I'm asking where your information is coming from. If your information is coming from a podcast, then cite the podcast. It's not a question of whether you've researched it. Do you think of sources as proving to some teacher that you put effort in? They're about showing the reader where the information comes from, so they can evaluate follow along and evaluate it themselves.

    I didn’t know what “woke 1” meant, I googled it and found an article that seemed to validate exactly what I’m saying. “Woke 1” is not used as a good phase of the democratic party. Period. The end. That still not good enough for you? Fine.

    The perception of "woke 1" being bad is something I never once disagreed with. What I disagreed with was whether that perception reflected the actual reality of what the Democrats said or did.

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  • [–] 0 points 5 days ago (6 children)

    If you have better things to do than source your claims, you probably have better things to do than to make them in the first place.

    Nope, I enjoy having conversations IRL and online. When I have a different opinion I try not to say “cite your sources or your wrong”. A lot of times 2 people just have different opinions.

    Fact is, I could very easily find 5-10 sources, but you would likely just find some nuance that proves your point while ignoring all the nuance that proves my point. It’s pointless.

    We are just 2 regular ass people that disagree with each other. It’s a miracle we found each other!

    The perception of "woke 1" being bad is something I never once disagreed with. What I disagreed with was whether that perception reflected the actual reality of what the Democrats said or did.

    I’m not really sure the point you’re making. Are you saying that democrats, either as individual politicians or colllective groups that represented the party, were not the ones peddling ideas associated with “woke 1”. Are you saying the ideas of “woke 1” in its entirety weren’t actually bad, but it was perceived as bad unfairly? Or are you saying something else entirely?

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago (5 children)

    Fact is, I could very easily find 5-10 sources, but you would likely just find some nuance that proves your point while ignoring all the nuance that proves my point. It’s pointless.

    Then talking is just as pointless! You're assuming that I'd dismiss your sources without even giving me the chance to look at them in good faith. That itself is bad faith.

    Are you saying that democrats, either as individual politicians or colllective groups that represented the party, were not the ones peddling ideas associated with “woke 1”. Are you saying the ideas of “woke 1” in its entirety weren’t actually bad, but it was perceived as bad unfairly?

    Yes, both of those things. The ideas that the democrats espoused during that time were not as radical as they were perceived. More radical ideas were espoused by random individuals who were nowhere near to the levers of power. Now, obviously, I can't vouch for every idea on every 15 year-old's Tumblr blog, but whether ideas that random people had were good or bad is beside the point.

    "Woke" is a flexible word that can mean basically anything. If you want to define it such that it's in line with the Democrat's former policies, then fine, my position is that "woke" ideas were not that extreme or bad. If you want to define it as including more extreme positions, then my position is that the Democrats were not as woke as people think. But just alluding to these vague concepts makes it impossible to actually evaluate anything and ground it in facts. Which is why I've been trying to shift the focus onto specific policy positions.

    Which brings me back to my question of whether there's anything in Clinton's 2016 platform regarding trans rights that goes beyond equal protections and privacy rights, the same sorts of things that El-Sayed supports. If you stop talking about these "perceptions" of vaguely defined terms, and look at specific policy positions, then we can have an actual, grounded conversation, that isn't just your memory of a perception against my memory of a perception, which obviously goes nowhere.

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  • [–] 0 points 5 days ago (4 children)

    Then talking is just as pointless!

    We’re random people talking shit on the internet. Of course it’s pointless.

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  • [–] 0 points 5 days ago* (3 children)

    It's possible to learn things or better understand how and why people think differently from you by talking, to convince or to be convinced, and putting it on the internet doesn't somehow change that. So I don't consider it pointless at all.

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