I mean, yeah America's rightward spiral is depressing, especially if you live there. But it's not exactly an American-exclusive phenomenon. Italy elected a far-right party, France might in their next Presidential election, and even Germany's far-right party is surging in the polls. Honestly, I'm struggling to think of a country that hasn't seen a massive rightward surge over the last few years.
In Australia we recently had a considerable shift towards progressive politics after a long ass run of conservative government. The centre right (moderate conservatives) were absolutely demolished in our last election in favour of progressive minor party candidates. Our centre 'left' party has certainly moved further to the right (this has been happening for a while now though) but they are having their asses handed to them by our progressive left party who is growing in popularity, especially with younger voters.
We are historically a very conservative country and I have no doubt we'll eventually trend back towards this tradition. But for now I'm enjoying being the exception to the rest of the world.
What happened was, for the GOP, all their propaganda was made for the plebs. They knew it was all bullshit.
However after a generation you get a bunch of true believers whom were raised on Fox News and AM radio, and this is what happens.
Trump for example was never "in on" the propaganda, he was just a boring asshole that only watched Fox News and underage beauty pageants. So of course he's a true believer. It's also the reason why he resonates with his "base" because he literally talks like them on Facebook. Word for word sounded like some of my distant "kinfolk" and one of the reasons why I ditched Facebook. It's literally "he's like me frfr" except everything that matters ie rich, coastal elite.
The only way to get his cult to back off would be if he said he was a Democrat now.
Trump doesn't believe in anything except himself. He threw out the 'Mexico will pay for the Wall' in a speech and when the crowd reacted, he repeated it.
Or trump has perfectly mastered the art of « dumbing down »
There's a theory that societies experience 40 years of progress followed by 40 years of regression in an endless cycle. I hope the theory is wrong. I can't take decades of these idiots running things.
And it's happening in a lot of other countries - here in the UK the political culture is more right-wing than any time since at least the Second World War (and that's saying something).
It's Late Stage Capitalism: in order to continue business as usual in the face of all reason and evidence of its devastating effects, capitalists look to authoritarianism and fascism to ensure capitalism's continuation.
Right cause the US is the only country with racists in power lol
Trump is a poopee cacca. The GOP is a cacca poopee.
This is unironically the level of discourse modern Conservatives deserve.
At least then they'd understand what we're saying.
I just watched a video where a woman from Tennessee explained that every resident was required to get a new license plate that year, and that they had the choice between 2 standard options, the only difference being that one said "In God We Trust" and one didn't. Oh, and the ones that had "In God We Trust" had the numbers come first. So for example, every "Christian" license plate reads 123 ABC, and every "atheist" plate reads ABC 123.
What the fuck?
What is wrong with people, why is this even necessary
For me it is weirdly entertaining and frightening at the same time.
Seeing the humor in things is an amazing coping mechanism. Otherwise, I think I'd just go insane myself.
Jimmy Buffett has a good song about that.
If you like pina coladas...
Changes in Latitudes is the song name.
"If we couldn't laugh we would all go insane"
"If we weren't all crazy, we would go insane"
That's Rupert Holmes, not Jimmy.
That was my take on Brexit (American here)
That must be why I get so turned on.
If you're from another country just being exposed to American media and not familiar with why that media is the way it is, it may seem like this hate and racism thing wasn't around as much before and is around more now. Unfortunately, if you are familiar with American history or have spent any time in a predominately conservative area, none of what you mentioned is anything new or even at higher levels than it has ever been. Almost all these hateful bigots have been that way for their entire lives. Politicians are just directly pandering to them now since Trump proved it wouldn't destroy your political career when you are totally open about demagoguery rather than dogwhistling like right wingers used to think they had to do.
I know that America has been built on the blood of the natives. I know that the country’s been racist for a very long time.
But I also see the good. I balance this pessimistic vision with all the creatives, nice folks from America.
It’s not just the consumerism, the racism & the guns. It’s the diversity, the craziness, and the exploration of a big country full of nature.
My country is a lot of things, for good and bad.
I think our country is going to be openly and unashamedly fascist in less than ten years, personally. The PR people will come up with a better name for it (kind of like how they swapped out 'white nationalism' for Nazism) but it'll be functionally the same.
Biden is supposedly a progressive, but he's done too little as most of the country contends with a 30% to 50% increase in their cost of living. People aren't going to care that Trump/DeSantis are fascists if they're the candidate of change in the next election.
Sadly the phrase "it's the economy, stupid" is still relevant when it comes to voting.
There is only so much POTUS can do without the support of the Congress, and the House is currently controlled by people who would rather watch America fail than a Democrat succeed.
He had Congress for two years.
Obama had a supermajority for part of his presidency.
The problem isn't congressional control. It's that we have bipartisanship only for things that are absolutely shitty. That's why they can make 100+ billion appear out of thin air for another country's war, but won't spend a dime trying to help Americans affected by massive inflation.
As young people I think it is really easy to feel like our time now is the worst ever, the most difficult that's ever been, etc. because it's all we see or expose ourselves to seeing. The truth is far more complex than that and any glance back at world history can tell you that we are experiencing challenges which happened before in history. While it's true that things like technology make awareness of these issues more easily accessible, the issues themselves are always the same: racism, intolerance, wars, corruption, abuses, injustice, on and on. The fact that this country is still in its infancy as a world power compared to European nations for example, also makes these issues here even more poignant but, humans being what we are, also clearly inevitable. It is sad, but it is also indicative of opportunities we always have right in front of us every day to try and make things better when and where we can.
One of the things that helps me maintain this view is my work with older adults (which I have now been doing for decades). When you sit down for example and have a candid, genuine discussion about life, politics in particular, or world views with a person in their 90s who lived through so much of what we only now read about - it puts a lot of this in perspective very, very fast. It is a shame that in this country we often just set aside our elders and completely devalue them (unless we are talking about Native Americans, who most definitely do NOT do that in my experience), because having access to perspectives outside our own generational bubble is really important.
I really like the way you see things! Internet gives the impression that we’re living in the apocalypse because we’re aware of all the shit happening worldwide :)
Thank for enlightening me!
This was about 35 years ago. It's an illusion that any of this went away
There's other forces fucking with our politicians, both inside and out of the country. Our ~~government~~ politicians basically have a combination of ransomware and no soul.
(Aleksandr Dugin waves cheerfully from behind the shrubbery)
starring into the abyss of contempt, chaos, and bigotry… it also makes me sad.
I started experiencing it in 2014 when Cambridge Analytica was building up their pro-Trump stuff. Reddit and Facebook really changed that year, and it's never gone back.
I really hope that people have a sense of urgency that it took a lot of time to get humanity more towards positive after world war 2, and we could do better, and it really isn't worth hating each other on this planet.
A world-wide funeral for those we lost in the pandemic would be nice, but it just doesn't seem to form. Plenty of people with social power who could spread the idea.
As a non american i gotta ask....are...are they just noticing this now?
Edit: wow the exceptionalism is real. We all know US politics and social issues, you've made it the world's problem for quite some time now
As an American, I'd say no.
We've known about these things for a long time, but our public education system doesn't adequately teach people our history in most states (because the curriculum is controlled at the state level). I'm well read in history and I didn't learn about the Tulsa Massacre until my early 30's, reading a history book for my own personal enjoyment. That should have absolutely been part of the history curriculum I was taught about the history of civil rights in this country, but it wasn't.
Obama's presidency marked a major cultural shift, where things that people may have tolerated previously were (rightly) no longer acceptable. Trump's presidency marked an equal and opposite shift in the other direction, where people, looking at Trump's example, understood free speech to mean they could say whatever they wish without any form of accountability.
The easiest way to say it is that our country's relationship to race is complicated.
Political extremism has been on the rise for more than a decade. Especially with the help of the internet, radicalization has been getting easier and easier. You just need a reasonable-sounding speaker and before you realize, you are far gone.
Both sides in the US have been getting more and more extreme, pulling away from the middle One side will openly talk about their extreme ideologies, which attracts many with the same beliefs. The other side hides behind compassion and helping people, only to stab you in the back when it's too late to run.
I am sure the 2-party system does not help. You are forced to either vote bad guy n.1 or slightly less bad guy n.2. With no other option, it will not take long before you end up listening to your new side and well...you know what happens next. With no space for a more reasonable side to enter, everyone gets radicalized and then a third side becomes a solution no more.
Hope the government falls and is rebuilt, before it all turns into another herrible page of history.
There's an irony to comparing it to a Lovecraftian tale, considering how racist the guy was, and how his stories allegorically supported racism.
I mean they opened Pandora's box and saw that it worked.
Relaxed section for discussion and debate that doesn't fit anywhere else. Whether it's advice, how your week is going, a link that's at the back of your mind, or something like that, it can likely go here.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
