Yeah, I don’t just see it as a boolean “yes/no” checkbox at this point. Creeping toward it quickly in my book, but it takes more than a few years for people who have been supporting a party, one of two in the country, for generations, to realize it’s no longer something they can get behind.
I strongly feel the moment you reduce the people on the border to “nazis,” you pretty much eliminate the chances of pulling them back to the light. And we really need to peel 5-10% off of their voting base off in swing areas, because we cannot allow them to hold the Presidency, much less both Houses and the Presidency, ever again.
My argument is almost entirely utilitarian. It is completely about the 5-10% of the GOP voting base who is close to done with it (made up numbers, but I feel that’s the range we need to be targeting). We need to build bridges to those people, right now, and if we lose that opportunity, I worry we may end up making the same mistakes as the Germans in the years before Hitler was voted into power.
The GOP will fester, and they are capable of winning elections still – we mustn’t forget. We don’t want a much-more-malignant version to take power in a few years. And yes, there are many levels of malignancy lower than where the GOP is at now, as history clearly shows. And I do believe they are capable of going there, if we don’t put a stop to it. I think we need to be a lot more directed than saying “everyone who’s a Republican is a Nazi!” over and over, to achieve that. All IMHO of course.
And you know what – sometimes people who are well aware make those choices, say to eat at McDonalds, knowing it’s not ideal. I hardly think it makes someone an “eco-fascist” if they eat at McDonalds once in a while, even if what those types of firms contribute to.
We don’t live in a perfect world. We can’t all be perfect actors at all times. It’s clearly not what the human experience on Earth is all about, because I see little evidence this state of perfection has ever existed in our recorded history. People have wrestled with ethical dilemmas, including ones like these, for literally thousands of years. I don’t think we’re about to solve it once and for all. I like to think moving in the right direction is the thing to aim for, vs. trying to achieve perfection that is likely impossible. I think a bit of nuance, like you said, is of much more utility than boolean absolutes, in moving us in the right direction. I think of reality as quantum, and not digital. People are like that too – maybe especially. IMHO.
As a New Agey kinda guy, it really bothers me that the QAnon cult has had some success at sucking up parts of that community with garbage “conspirituality” as it’s become referred to (and some people are taking real notice of). Obviously, terms like “light worker” are not “of QAnon,” they have existed for a loooong long time.
Do you really think that? So everyone who has bought the factory farmed chicken from the grocery store is equivalent to the poultry/meat processing managers who put their workers in unsafe working conditions then made bets to how many would die of COVID?
I just don’t see it that way. And I think we are on the same side in terms of: I wish no one supported those destructive companies. But seeing a single mom of 3 buying the “cheap” chicken doesn’t make me think she’s a monster, it makes me think she is either unaware, has limited choices, or both.
Again, I realize this is different than ballot voting. The hard-line stance is getting at my human side.
Yup. Its all a matter of how much one is concerned about the origins of their consumer goods and what they intend on doing about it. If you want to rationalize things, then you try to minimize one’s actual effects here. If you want to consider those horrible situations then you would think twice about doing so.
In an environment of unrestricted capitalism, it can be difficult finding all the information needed to make an informed choice, so there is I think a reduced culpability for some individuals, although behaviors of McDonald’s or Walmart and the like are discoverable easy enough if you care. Being poor enough to have no choice is really a different issue (my statement above about being compelled to do something under threat of death applies here).
But if you are ignorant of what your chosen political party does…you’ve already failed.
The Good Place made an excellent point about this very thing, regarding how everything is interrelated, which makes it difficult to be a good person ‘overall,’ because every action we take is not independent of each other and the world around us:
Understood, but the actual phenomenon is real. And it’s not new with QAnon – online conspiracy cults have had some overlap with online spiritual/esoteric communities since the 90s. But it’s gotten much worse from what I’m seeing – seeing directly.
That’s a system of morals that almost nobody would tend to agree with, I will point out. It would literally be impossible to live in our society, without everybody, every last person, being just as bad as the power-brokers who actually control national and global policy.
It would mean you can’t drive, or travel by car, most busses, airplanes, boats, etc. – supporting the oil industry, after all.
It would mean you can’t pay taxes, because you’re supporting imperialism.
It would mean you couldn’t shop at essentially any stores, or do business with almost any entities – because you will always be able to find some area of compromise that they have had to make, because they too exist in this non-perfect reality.
At the end of the day, it’s a form of ethical absoluteness that none of us can live by. Certainly you’re breaking the standard if you’re posting here – supporting telcos that have horrible policies, supporting electricity companies that destroy the environment, I could go on and on.
Is there a difference between a Republican Party that uses cold hard logic to construct its policies, and a Republican Party that uses Q-Anon derangements to construct its policies-- if those policies end up being one and the same?
Or merely that survival in our society means we selectively chooses what outrages us and what we do about it. That doesn’t mean morals don’t exist, it just means that we turn off our concern at certain times in order to function in a society which relies on immoral conduct. Something can be wrong and immoral, but we still accept it as part of the rationalization calculus of either being too remote from our actions or not being worth ending.
We know where it’s been since 2016 and sure, the party could fracture, but even if it doesn’t whatever is left standing at the end of the power grab we’re seeing today would have enabled the total perversion the world witnessed these last four years. The only difference is how sincere they were when cheering.
Out of all the people who voted republican, some people want neo nazis to thrive, some don’t care if they do, and some think neo nazis are the lesser of two evils (The other being either socialism, abortion or Hillary Clinton) But I don’t think there are people who do not believe neo nazis are a thing, and that they are being coddled by republican politicians.
So yes, I agree with you that all republicans are not strictly neo nazis. But they have enabled them, and it appears they will continue to do so.
Honestly though getting hung up on the name is useless, had people known what Hitler was planning to do, would all the same people had voted for him? Probably not. But you have nazis in the US today, they are looking for power and have found shelter in the republican party. We in the present day do know what the Nazi end game is, anybody called out for voting for this is faking outrage at being called a Nazi sympathizer.
I do think eyes were opened by Jan. 6th. Not many, but again, I am trying to see a path to peeling off 5-10% of their support. Trump’s popularity rating drop since then is fairly stark. No, it’s not a huge number of points – but it could well be enough to matter in 2022.
