It’s the universe where enough people didn’t vote. If everyone who says stuff like this voted, we wouldn’t have had Donald Trump as president the first time.

People are incredibly rational. We can put people on the moon and send rovers to Mars. We are working on fusion reactors and quantum computers. Humanity is really good at rationality. People are really uniformed and lack critical thinking skills. Those things have to be learned.

MAGA supporters think they are acting in their own self-interest. They lack true information and the critical thinking skills to challenge the false information that they’ve been given. Given that they have been misled they then act in a rational way to their own destruction. Trump’s supporters think he’s going to make America great again. So they vote for him. They don’t check their zip code. They don’t check the polls. They are convinced that a second Trump presidency is in their own self-interest. So they do the rational thing of showing up and voting for him.

If all those votes were in already blue states it wouldn’t have changed anything.

That’s ridiculously unlikely. Also, what’s a blue state now may be a swing state on election day.

They’re not going to, like I did, not vote for the presidential candidate because I keep an eye on the polls and know that it’s going 2:1 to someone but continue to vote down ballot.

Polls gauge approval, which is only an approximation for who people are going to vote for. The polls aren’t supposed to be a guide for who to vote for. Vote for democracy and against fascism.

We’d all be well-served to stop thinking of voters as rational people.

It’s better to think of people as self-interested. Being self-interested does not imply a person will necessarily act or even know how to act in their own self-interest. If life was a game of perfect of information the vast majority of people would make decisions that were actually in their own self-interest. As opposed to real life where global temperatures and fascism are on the rise. It’s not for a lack of rationality that people are sleep walking into fascism. It’s a lack of knowledge and critical thinking skills. edit: typo

There’s nothing careful about it. There are posts and comments glowing like they’re radioactive.

https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/results/president

The difference in the 2020 election was about 7 million votes. Even with the electoral college, another 40 million votes not impacting the 2024 election would be statistically improbable. Biden would win in an unprecedented landslide.

We know what states have been swing states before. We don’t know which states will be swing states in 2024 with 100% accuracy. If enough people didn’t vote, any state would become a swing state. If everyone who has said “your vote for president won’t matter” or equivalent voted we would see radically different results in US elections.

I recommend touching grass. You’ll feel better.

It’s been down for about 10 minutes. The entire canvas will be down until they fix the issue, so there’s no way to access it unfortunately.

There is currently an issue. One of the devs is working on it.

Awesome! It really came together. =)

The flag is starting to take shape. The top half is 8 azure pixels tall. The bottom half is 8 yellow pixels tall. We will probably need to respect our neighbors space. I think this should be awesome! =D

This is a great shout. Let’s get the Ukrainian flag up!

Open the links to canvas in a new tab. Or open lemmy in new a tab. Either way.

Make sure to adjust the template opacity so you can see what pixels are needed! =D

Same as above, do you mean we shouldn’t harm them or we shouldn’t acknowledge how they are harming us?

We should not harm people or jail them for their vote. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging their vote is harming people. It is a factually correct statement that their vote is harming people.

A fascist that does not vote can be stopped by the force of law. A fascist that does vote decides what the law is. That is far more dangerous.

A person knowingly voting for the fascist takeover, but doing nothing else is a fascist. In the event of a successful fascist takeover they will be far outnumbered by people who do not realize what they are voting for. So, yes, fascists deciding the law is more dangerous than domestic terrorism. However, my issue is with the people who implement the fascist laws.

The legislatures who write the laws, the police who arrest the out-groups, the courts who sentence them to the camps, assuming people even get a trial, and the executioners at the camp who detain the out-groups and participate in the firing squads. All the people who are implementing fascism and those who are just following orders. If none of these people made the choices that they did, in this hypothetical, then the fascists could vote all they want, but it would get them nothing.

I’ve brought this up in my argument because the people who know they are voting for the fascist takeover when they vote are the ones who could qualify as doing something morally wrong to me. This is of course subjective. A lot of them would be invisible to scrutiny if all they did was vote. Which in theory, could be a majority of fascists.

While these people have broken the social contract of tolerance, the social contract of tolerance is not a law that carries a death penalty for breaking it. Nor is it worth punishing tens of millions of ignorant people, who did something harmful, but didn’t do it knowingly. These tens of millions of people have not broken the social contract of tolerance. Also, I would argue tolerance is an objective measurable binary. Either someone is tolerating a group or they aren’t.

Preemptive political violence is undesirable only because you lose some justification. It is often the theoretically correct move to prevent a fascist takeover, but cannot be implemented because not everyone is convinced that it is justified yet or ever. See eg. Germany, which can dismantle entire political parties if they threaten the democratic order.

Political violence destabilizes democracy, our most effective tool for resisting fascism. It undermines the peaceful transfer of power which is a cornerstone of our democracy. Germany dismantling political parties isn’t political violence, although it is a preemptive action, so the peaceful transfer of power is preserved. The dismantled political parties had broken the social contract of tolerance.

Violence after a hostile takeover is not only revenge, but also necessary to retake control. I see no issue with this whatsoever; the revenge is a bonus to the necessity.

I am not arguing this is an issue. I am arguing this is not an example of resisting fascism. This is an example of defeating a fascist dictatorship militarily. I bring up resisting fascism, as in preventing the fascist takeover, because that is what the meme refers to. Acting retroactively by definition does not prevent the fascist takeover.

The death penalty may not prevent violent crime, but education, assistance, and sanctions are much more effective.

My point being that these alternative methods are also much more effective at preventing fascism from spreading as well.

I think we’re on the same page here in terms of the appropriate response to the rise of fascism and similar ideologies. The difference is that I view it as morally wrong to fall for the grift and/or to vote for bad policies.

When we argue about morality we end up getting into philosophy which is subjective. I’m of the opinion that if a person doesn’t know what they are doing then they did nothing morally wrong. There’s no math we can use to back up our opinions. They exist purely as subjective views on life. This to me is unproductive discourse because we can argue about this topic in this way endlessly and never be able to draw any actionable conclusions.

Instead I prefer to argue about utility. Utility can be measured and thus we can harness math as part of our arguments. This is useful discourse because we can arrive at the same conclusions about a variety of topics. The disagreements we are left with become a discussion of optimal strategies which we can easily compare and contrast. We can in theory, reach a consensus about what we should do to solve problems.

You’ve said this a few times and I’m beginning to believe we might not be on the same page here. I’m not necessarily advocating for violence (although it would be valid IMO to claim that it would be justified).

This meme is about the use of violence in the context of preventing a fascist takeover. This entire comment section is glowier than a platypus under a black light. I think the feds didn’t even have to post or comment here, this is the state of left-wing discourse on lemmy. If you’re not arguing for violence then say that up front. I think violence based on voting history is actively detrimental to resisting the fascist takeover, so I argue against that. Whether or not violence based on voting history is justified is subjective and does nothing to ascertain its viability as a solution. My opinion is that violence based on voting history is not justified. And yeah, I could have used ‘it’s’ instead of ‘violence based on voting history is’ two extra times, but I decided it wasn’t clear enough, feds.

Anyone who cannot see the obvious lies of the GOP is so dumb that I don’t mind lumping them in with all the people who vote red for other reasons.

Information silos aren’t an intelligence test. Anyone who has only false information will come to incorrect conclusions.

The bottom line is, I refuse to absolve these people of any responsibility.

Whether a person should be held to account for their voting is a moot point as acting on the information presents the same issues I raised in my argument earlier. I believe people should not be held to account for their vote. If all the fascists did was vote we would be in no danger. I take issue with fascists who will do more violent things than just vote.

If you want to stay in your own little bubble and ignore the outside world, then you don’t get to subject the rest of us to your vote.

The problem is the people who are brainwashed do not know this. People are trapped in information silos via their ignorance. That’s how information silos work.

https://www.cfr.org/blog/2020-election-numbers

Trump won 74,222,958 votes

https://www.vox.com/2018/8/10/17670992/study-white-americans-alt-right-racism-white-nationalists

If Hawley is right, then the alt-right’s constituency isn’t a tiny fringe. It’s about 11 million Americans.

The wrong thing to conclude from Hawley’s data is that there’s a massive number of people who are active participants in the alt-right. Last year’s Charlottesville rally only had several hundred participants; this year’s DC sequel isn’t expected to be orders of magnitude larger.

The study is from 2018 but I think it’s still relevant even when taking account everything that’s happened since Jan 6th. The total number of self-identifying fascists in the worst case scenario could not currently exceed 11 million Americans. Even in the worst case scenario, the total number of self-identifying fascists is small compared to the US population, which is somewhere between 330 to 340 million people. The total number of self-identifying fascists, is probably at most only a few million people, maybe fewer. The right-wing infosphere’s ability to garner tens of millions of votes, despite spreading the ideas held by a small fraction of the population, is what makes it so dangerous. That’s why spreading true information is so important.

Condemning everyone who voted Trump to political violence is self-defeating. With that strategy we are effectively creating tens of millions of enemies.

edit: This is in response to the above comment’s edit. Political violence is preemptive if it’s done before a fascist takeover and it’s revenge if done after a fascist takeover. If the fascists takeover has already been completed then the revenge isn’t about resisting it. Political violence will not deter fascists. We already know capital punishment doesn’t deter violent crime.

https://www.amnestyusa.org/blog/a-clear-scientific-consensus-that-the-death-penalty-does-not-deter/

They think they are voting in their own self-interest because they’ve been lied to.

edit in response to the above comment’s edit: I’m responding to this in a later comment.

Many of them don’t realize what they are voting for. Even if a person could identify the people who knowingly vote for fascism this information does us no good. Acting preemptively on that information subverts what’s left of our democracy, which is still our most effective tool against fascism. Engaging in that kind of political violence makes it harder to resit fascism. Acting retroactively on that information is an exercise in revenge which does nothing to resist fascism. Violence doesn’t inherently make a person a fascist, but it is our least effective tool.

You’re still missing the point here. I never said I keep tabs on everyone at all times just so I can pull the eject handle if they turn Nazi, just that if it does turn out somehow that someone is a Nazi, that is when I pull the eject handle.

Not everyone in that scenario will be able to pull the ejection handle. A person cannot be expected to quit their job if they realize a co-worker is a fascist. And even if everyone could it would not solve fascism.

Pulling fascists out of their echo chambers and information silos is a job. It’s a slow, linear process, where one person is helped at a time, that is outpaced by the efficiency of the righ-wing infosphere. The fascists in people’s lives do in fact need love. It is unreasonable to expect everyone to do that. People should consider their own safety. What is reasonable is that we acknowledge the few solutions that we have. If a person has fascists in their life, has the know-how, and is willing to put in that work to help them then that is a good thing. edit: typo

Not everyone has the luxury of knowing no one who has been brainwashed by the right-wing infosphere. A person not having anyone who has partially or fully adopted fascist ideology in their life is not something to brag about. Nor should that be the goal.

People have families. People have childhood friends they’ve known their whole lives. People have classmates with the same or similar schedule as them. People have adult friends in their social circles. People have co-workers at their jobs. People cannot control the political ideology of the people around them. If someone is informed enough to know exactly who in their life is currently a fascist and can disassociate exactly from those people then good for them. The majority of people will not be able to do that. Nor will doing that solve the problem.

When the response to this

The people in our lives need love, not violence.

is this

The people in my life aren’t Nazis

That’s a purity test. Your argument is to sort ourselves by political ideology.

Easy to be a bit more understanding and accepting of Nazis when you wouldn’t be one of the first people they’d shove in a camp.

I am a Jewish, atheist, social democrat, lesbian, trans woman. I’m white and pre-transition, so I get to benefit from white male privilege for now. But if the fascists could put me in a death camp they would.

If a person is in danger from someone in their life and can dissociate from that person, then by all means dissociate from them.

The way to defeat fascism is to defeat the ideas that make up the political ideology. Isolating ourselves does nothing to forward this goal.

Responsibility implies action. The majority of people in our country who have been brainwashed by the right-wing infosphere haven’t done anything. If people are physically attacked by someone, they should defend themselves. But thinking fascist thoughts isn’t a violation of the social contract of tolerance.

The people in my life aren’t Nazis

I know the right-wing infosphere has brainwashed multiple members of my family. I don’t have a way to check the percentage of people I’ve known in my life that are now brainwashed. I know that my life would have been lesser had I not met every single one of them. I don’t see the people in my life as a purity test, they’re still the same people. What happened to them is a reminder that we must first and foremost defeat fascism, the political ideology.