There’s a reason Proud Boys and southern Oregon neo nazis show up to large Portland OR rallies. The rationale is no different than what The Atlantic discusses here, even the context is the same, only shifted away from the keyboard.
Comment on The Right Has a Bluesky Problem
cygnus@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
This ties into the age-old debate about platforming bigotry in the name of free speech. Bigots don’t care that much about talking with like-minded people — they want to subject others to their beliefs and to feel as though they are a righteous majority. Without their hapless victims they become like a schoolyard bully alone in the schoolyard, impotently yearning for a victim.
zephorah@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 4 weeks ago
Very good callout. It’s the same reason why they’re bigots - they have to feel bigger than someone. They always have to feel superior in every way. There’s a reason that immigrants and “the other” are always demonized and belittled by them, and it’s because they have to feel bigger than them. If they didn’t well, let’s look at where the majority of them actually fall on the societal ladder. The bottom. The vast majority of them are on the bottom rung of the societal ladder. Not having the others to make fun of/belittle/feel superior to would cause them to actually realize where they are and how much they’ve been screwed in life, and I think that actually terrifies them.
Liberals just actualized and realized where most people are in society. I think the vast majority of conservatives are just manifesting pure denial.
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 weeks ago
…but that’s not true. The evidence bore out that Trump voters were largely white middle class. The kind of people who would have a big stupid truck, a boat, a generator, and any other number of things that take fuel, which is why they care so stupid fuck much about the price of gas.
They were white uneducated middle class, but middle class nonetheless. Middle managers and “small business” owners.
They already do have power over other people, and they like it that way. What they’re fighting against is anyone who wants to take away from their fake meritocracy where they can continue to control and abuse the lives of the people who are under their thumbs in the workplace.
The biggest reason Office Space is a fantasy is because the Bobs do their job and remove the actual waste in the company. That almost never happens in real life. In real life Lumberg and all the other bosses would be safe and every low level employee would get the shaft. Trump voters are Lumberg and the other middle managers who take great joy in micromanaging. It’s half the reason they want people back in the office, too. They don’t actually care about efficiency, it’s about control.
Let’s stop pretending that all Trump voters are uneducated yokels. They’re uneducated and they’re yokels, but they’re more than that. They’re every shitty fucking boss you’ve ever had.
Glide@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
This is the part that needs to get repeated over, and over again. What we’re fighting against is a group that wants to maintain the status quo because it advantages them. Nothing more, nothing less. If we want to win, we need them to see that cooperation is in their greater interest. Unfortunately, the left-most available political parties have failed to show them that time and time again, so they’re turning the other direction.
t3rmit3@beehaw.org 3 weeks ago
Had us in the first half, not gonna lie…