3d ago

Only Real Goal

50 comments

I disagree. You must understand how we got here because we are simply perpetuating the cycle due to a fundamental misunderstanding of the problem.
You cannot beat the Republican party because the problem is not confined to the Republican party. This is not a both sides same argument. Yes, Republicans are 100% a problem, but they are not 100% of the problem.
The problem is the idea that conservativism is an ideology. It isn't. You cannot argue with a conservative because there is no logic behind the thought process. You cannot challenge conservative values because they do not exist. You cannot fight the Republican party because they aren't even in the ring. They are describing a fight on the radio to their listeners, describing how they are hitting you, how you are crying and flailing because you suck, how you're cheating and vomitting because you suck so bad, and the viewers and listeners are cheering along as they narrate a fixtional fight. The moment you climb into the ring, you've lost because you're feeding the idea that this is in anyway a fight. The Republican Party can simply declare victory, because you've agreed to perpetuate their lie.
The lie is that conservativism is a valid ideological position.
That's why it is so difficult to attack. There's nothing there to hit. Conservativism is one simple, foundational concept: I am a good person.
Because I am good, what I want is good. It doesn't matter what I want, it is good because I want it. It doesn't matter if what I want changes, it is only good when I want it. It doesn't matter what other people want because I want it and that makes it good.
Because I am good, what I say is good. It doesn't matter if what I say is true, or fair, or logical, or even internally consistent. It is good because I said it. If I was wrong, it is good that I was wrong.
Because I am good, what I do is good. If I hurt people, those people deserved to be hurt. If I violate the law, the law is bad. If I force my will upon others, it is necessary to obtain the good I deserve. Any obstacle to my power is bad.
Anyone who challenges me is bad. Anything they say or do to oppose me is bad. It doesn't matter if they use my own words against me, it was good when I said it and it was bad when they said it.
On every issue, Conservatives will draw a chalk line around wherever they are standing and decide that those are the battle lines between good and evil. Every conservative does this, because conservatives are told it is OK to be a political narcissist.
The way to oppose them is the same method to dealing with narcissists. Establish boundaries, ignore their bad-faith arguments and personal attacks, reject their artificial reframing of the issues, and stand fast on your principles. You're not going to convince them they're wrong, you can only hope to demonstrate a better way to be.
- Please adapt this comment to a post in !YouShouldKnow@lemmy.world to reach a bigger audience. It's a truth that everybody Should Know.
  A lot of people know that the conservative mind runs on fear and disgust. A friend years ago clued me into the key bit of insight that merges this observation with the "I'm a good person" ethic into a Grand Unified Theory of the conservative mindset: Underneath it all is a deep self-disgust. They fear more than anything else that they are not good people, and hence subscribe to an ethic which axiomatically says that they are. But somebody who truly believes that they are a good person could sit quietly at home in an aura of smugness. (Which, to be brutally honest, we can all probably think of some leftists like that.) The conservative, who doesn't believe it deep down, has to have it constantly demonstrated.
  And that explains everything about the performative cruelty that they go nuts for.
  The example that perhaps makes this dynamic most obvious is the deeply-closeted, evangelical Christian, homosexual men. But, everything they do comes back to this truth. Like: "re-open Alcatraz" -> "exaggerated, symbolic vengeance against criminals" -> "performative cruelty against bad people" -> "performed by good people" -> "I'm a good person".
- How do you know my father?!
  
  It's literally every person who has ever described themselves as conservative anywhere since the beginning of conservativism. Since Chateaubriand.
  
  Nah, he’s just a narcissist
- I heard recently the phrase "MAGA isn't an ideology, MAGA is an ethics" which sums this up beautifully if you know the academic meanings of "ideology" and "ethics". I think I heard it fron Steve Boots, Canadian left-wing political commentator.
  
  That's fairly close to what I'm saying, except it's absolutely not just MAGA. It was Nixon and Reagan and Bush I and Gingrich and Bush II and Cheyney and Delay and Boehner and Romney and every Republican in leadership positions over the last 100 years.
  
  gingrich started the whole thing in the senate where they would refuse every bill til the dems capitulated, which mitch also caught on and started doing ti since.
  
  I don't disagree, I was just trying to quote what I heard as exactly as I remembered it.
  I would argue that there is a version of conservatism that is an ideology, but it hasn't been the predominant form in the US for quite some time.
- You've just described narcissim, which seems about right.
- Establish boundaries, ignore their bad-faith arguments and personal attacks, reject their artificial reframing of the issues, and stand fast on your principles.
  How do you do that politically? Especially the establishing boundaries. The rest is easy to visualize, but I'm having trouble in the first one.
  
  Excellent question! It's something Democrats are terrible at doing. You pick a political issue and you describe what is and is not acceptable. Human rights, for instance, are not negotiable. Everyone is entitled to due process. There is no room to discuss alternatives, and you can not engage in a debate outside of those boundaries. There is no compromise outside of those boundaries, and no wiggle room on the Overton window.
  
  Thanks, that makes sense.
- This resonates so much. I think you've struck a fundamental truth.
- it’s really not complicated
  changing laws/regulatory capture -> fuck tons of dark money, billionaires heritage foundation etc
  attacking education and public institutions -> stupid people and racism
  fox news, murdoch etc propaganda
  all kinds of electoral interference and low level to now high level court stacking
  end game acceleration
  stopping the idiots is pointless, preventing the above is what the democrats should have been doing
  
  I think the best recourse is to flip the script about what is non-negotiable. I think the best answer is to instead weaponize that ethos against them.
  Human rights are good because I said so. Your (their, as in conservatives) view on human rights is wrong because I said so. Why is it right when I say it? Because I'm not conservative and that makes my beliefs more important and more correct than yours (theirs). And because you (they) don't agree that human rights are non-negotiable, you (they) are objectively bad and thus your (their) argument is now moot.
  Now this doesn't exactly solve the problem and it is of course subject to the same systemic failures that conservativism has so lovingly adopted. But it should at least be able to fight back.

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