the leftist position is that people's positions, even if horrific, have roots in their material reality. the liberal position as best i can tell is that 20-30% of the country has an irredeemably evil soul. i guess im going with the one you could actually do something about.
- @brianonhere on hellsite
This isn't what I wanted to write my first post about on here, but between hobby work and Work Work I've not had the time or creative energy to think of something to write. This post will mainly be stray thoughts and sharing ideas from smarter people than me. So a disclaimer that this is unedited and rambly.
I saw Brian's tweet this morning, after waking up to the confirmation that Donald Trump had won both the electoral and popular vote. Some were quick to point out that many Trump voters truly are hateful beyond repair. In typical hellsite fashion, this meant that Brian's entire point is invalid. This is too narrow an interpretation of the thought, though. I fully agree that many or most Trump voters are beyond saving; one of my grandfathers is one of them. But we can't forget that they weren't always beyond saving, in a theoretical sense at least. Like all of us, they're ultimately victims of capitalism and its contradictions, brutalities, and propaganda.
It's probably cliche at this point to quote Art Spiegelman:
Suffering doesn't make you better. It just makes you suffer.
Of course he's right, and victims of capitalism aren't off the hook for supporting a monster and begging for fascism just because they're victims. What Brian was getting at is that treating a large fraction of the population as inherently evil isn't useful unless you plan on fighting a civil war or ushering in your own ~good guy~ form of fascism against them. (That's not to say fascists should be given any quarter socially -- excising them from groups, institutions, and family dinners is of course mandatory for our own sanity.) Rather we need to work to reach those who aren't fully gone.
The difficulty, obviously, is offering an alternative to fascism. Americans are inundated with capitalist propaganda from birth that instills a brutal winner-takes-all mindset. For those not in the know, when we say 'liberalism breeds fascism' this is what we mean. Liberalism cannot resolve the contradictions of capitalism, so even good-faith liberal attempts at an egalitarian society are doomed to fail. The contradictions become obvious but unspoken by those with the power to change the system. And if fascists are good at one thing it's offering easy solutions (read: scapegoats) for pesky questions like "if Joe Biden says the economy is great, why can't I afford rent and healthcare?" When Facebook is owned by a billionaire, it's not going to be serving up articles on why billionaires, not immigrants, are where all your money is flowing.
And while I'm certain there are a multitude of factors why Harris lost, I'm equally certain one of those factors is that the Democrats simply refuse to spurn their donors by acknowledging, much less tackling, the contradictions in the system. (To say nothing of their ongoing funding for Israel's genocide in Gaza and beyond, a level of depravity that throws all their professed high-minded ideals into doubt, especially when they seemed to take the votes of the victims' families for granted.)
Fuck Elon, Bezos, and Zuckerberg for their dedication to pro-Trump misinformation, and fuck the Democrat Party consultants who are salivating at this winter's fundraising numbers. Approach corporate-funded media with skepticism (that includes NYT and NPR!) and brace yourselves. Material reality doesn't care if you're not a materialist.
Also, check out my fishtank! If the coelacanths can hang around this long, maybe we can too.
