Thank you.
I don’t agree.
Are the Democratic party a socialist or capitalist party?
“Look what you ‘made me’ do” is the bullshit gaslighting rhetoric of every abusive parent and every abusive spouse that ever was.
FUCK THAT NOISE.
Don’t be manipulated. I used to get suckered by these appeals to my better nature until once I said I don’t care because I’m a dick. It quickly became obvious that their concerns were ingenuine.
It’s since become a hobby of mine to bait suddenly compassionate conservatives on forums and the results are predictably the same.
To add to this these people are often very manipulable themselves and don’t actually have any views except for what they perceive to be correct in their community. Think the name calling trial in idiocracy. By being passive you allow their minds to be made up by louder voices.
As my mentor once told me, never try to appeal to anyone’s “better nature,” because they simply may not possess any. Instead try to appeal to their self interest because everyone has that.
It’s in everyone’s self interest that the current occupant of the Oval Office is removed from that office as soon as possible, as he is a threat to the well being of us all, whether ‘all of us’ are willing to admit that or not.
American
America is a place, not an ideology
Are the Democratic party a socialist or capitalist party?
And Dems are definitely fucking capitalists, just as much as the GOP is.
There’s touches of socialism here & there mixed into our system of governance, but it’s primarily based upon capitalism/imperialism.
Moderate Capitalists?
Everyone earns a living wage?
I’d like that.
This is such a great movie.
I love how threads like this wag the finger about insulting conservatives, while simultaneously infantilizing the fuck out of them, portraying them as idiot children so filled with spite that they’d burn down their own house to get at their roommate.
Sigh. Assuming such a simplistic target attainable, it is ONLY attainable with tightly regulated capitalism. Regulation that acts in favour of the citizenry and the state that represents them. With meaningful taxation to pay for common public goods, including much infrastructure, as well as empowered governmental agencies that act to protect the state and its interests - being the interests of the citizenry.
There are capitalists that will tell you this is socialism. That anything other than free-market, untrammelled, do-what-we-like-and-whatever-is-best-for-the-corporation-is-best-for-everyone capitalism is socialism.
Define ‘Moderate’.
Define ‘Capitalists’.
Define ‘living wage’.
Continually amazed that the Dilbert creator is a pro-Trump bastard. 
Part of the problem is that we allow merit to be measured by how much money one has, or one makes, rather than by how hard someone works or how important someone’s work is to society. We’ve given away merit to the money-grubers, most of who got money from hardly working (investors & inheritors) or doing work nobody gives a shit about (finance and banking) and allowed them to be the driver of society. Predictably they’ve concentrated on consolidating what they care about, while the rest of us suffer under managing that which we don’t care about but are forced to be consumed with. Money.
Well, they did vote for Trump, whose gutting of the government is harming them directly, and if asked why say they did so because “the liberals” didn’t pay enough attention to them. Their actions speak for them.
People who behave like that are behaving like infants.
THIS!!! ALL OF THIS!!!
(The whole of lava’s post, that is.)
Empathy and sympathy are not the same thing. Confabulating the two really muddies the waters. (in a way that Trump supporters find convenient)
To “know thine enemy” requires empathy. Trump’s opposition has so far shown a great reluctance to look under the hood, to see what all the worms are feeding on. And that’s made it much harder to effectively counter him and his enablers.
None of which says we need to sympathize with him or his followers. It’s the same frame of mind I learned about during the torture debate, when US intelligence officers would talk about effective interrogation techniques. You had to get into your opponent’s head… but that never needed to confuse anyone about who was on what side.
A huge part of the problem is that the authentic left has two completely different types of opposition to fight. Besides Trump and his crew, neoliberal democrats are quick to say, “It’s our weak tea, or the red team’s piss water, you don’t get to have any real progressive policies”
And the big money is funding both red and blue, fueling a false choice for real progressives.
None of this is a game. I have compassion and empathy for people. We all deserve that.
Doesn’t mean they get to treat me like shit, take away my or other’s rights, etc.
[ETA] I think a big part of our problem is that too many people treat these issues as an intellectual exercise or a game to “pwn” the other guy. It’s more prevalent on the right, in fact it’s pretty much the core of Trumpism, that mindset. I’ve seen it on the “liberal” side, too. Much less so among real leftists (though sometimes…). But the fact of the matter is that we have real problems that need addressing, starting with the pandemic, to public health overall, to racism and other forms of bigotry that permeates our institutions still, to the housing crisis and student debt crisis… not to mention global issues that are civilizational crises - climate change, resource access, refugees coming from conflicts based on resource wars and ongoing acts of ethnic cleansing… If we don’t stop acting like this is just a neat thought exercise or a fucking game, we’re going destroy ourselves.
