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the_dunk_tank
It's the dunk tank.
This is where you come to post big-brained hot takes by chuds, libs, or even fellow leftists, and tear them to itty-bitty pieces with precision dunkstrikes.
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I sometimes peek my head into chud communities and they actually do this too, sometimes with weird funny parallels to what we get. It's why the term RINO exist. They will frequently accuse conservative figures of secretly being too liberal or too socialist. It was actually frequently mentioned by some who were critical of Trump before he got elected, he was called a New York liberal, etc. Chuds also absolutely accuse liberals of lying and actually being Marxists (don't laugh!)
Libertarians do this too, frequently accusing their own of being statists or socialists for the smallest violation of ideological purity.
Liberals and conservatives have to accuse us of lying about what we want because we often have political demands that align with theirs, especially if they're working class, and that causes cognitive dissonance. So the only mental strategy they have is to accuse us of trickery. They'll make childish analogies like saying socialists want everyone to have a pony, or they'll say our demands are so extreme there must an equal price to pay. As in, for every gain in rights for the working and poor, there must be an equal loss in rights.
That's an interesting point I hadn't considered, but I still think this is different from the ideological purity fights that are common to every ideology.
Like, when we say AOC is a liberal or whatever it's an expression of disappointment that she's not as leftist as we'd like. But we're talking about positions she holds openly, we're not claiming she secretly doesn't care about free healthcare, or that it's a smokescreen for some nefarious purpose. The conservatives fuming about RINOs and the libertarians that booed Gary Johnson for being pro drivers' licenses (lmao) are operating on a similar principle I think.
The conspiratorial "they're saying they want good things but it's a trick to gain power and become evil tyrants" brainworms are very specific to communism I think. The closest thing on our side is when we accuse the reactionary right of knowingly trying to divide the working class by blaming everything wrong with capitalism on X minority, but even then I don't think they're "faking" it, necessarily. They really are bigoted and will do bigoted things if given power. It's not a trick.
Chuds do call everyone a Marxist though, that's true![emoji miyazaki-laugh miyazaki-laugh](https://www.hexbear.net/pictrs/image/adb8ad33-cc88-4ee5-89d2-7a26f2ab6087.png)
we do this to other leftists too, it's approximately what opportunism means