Seems appropos
Unchecked conservatism naturally develops into fascism. Genocidal oppression is the natural tendency of conservatives. It always has been.
Democracy dies with half the country cheering
Erich Kästner wikipedia.org, a german writer and satirist of the time, had this to say:
The events from 1933 to 1945 should have been battled in 1928 at the latest. Later was already too late. One must not wait until liberty is called treason. One must not wait till the snowball has become an avalanche. One must squelch the rolling snowball. The avalanche can’t be stopped anymore…
One important lesson of the Nazi rise to power and the Holocaust is that Nazis characterized their enemies as disgusting rather than scary.
Disgust is a different feeling than fear, and it leads to different responses. Hitler used imagery of infection and disease to describe not only problems in society but eventually groups as well. This talk of filth and infestation laid the emotional groundwork for the “purge” solution.
If we want to avoid another Holocaust, we need to be wary of analogies like rot, cancer, infection for describing people and points of view.
Curious if the word “deplorables” count.
I see such disgust coming from both major parties. Feels like either one can easily fall into this.
I don’t know honestly. Isn’t that one of the castes in India? No that’s “untouchables”.
Where is that word used?
It was used by Hilary Clinton to describe Trump supporters. A “basket of deplorables” I think was her term.
Not an expert but it seems to me the most important thing is education. In the U.S. they’ve been chipping away at that since at least the eighties. I’m not “handing it to them” but the right has put in the long term work to get us where we are today, with only feeble liberal centrist pushback.
Lotta very well-educated MAGAs. Not sure if education cuts to the heart of the illness.
Also a lot of well-educated and intelligent people who are not happy and/or governed by their inner darkness. Education is important but I think there’s something far more fundamental at issue
There are well-educated racists, but there’s MORE uneducated racists. The well-educated racists spread their ideology and weaken their opposition by hurting education, then they get to rule over the other racists by using their education.
But the bigger issue is the racist part, there must be people in history who were vehemently racist who had a change of heart…
What does it take for that to happen, is there a way to nudge them to take off their jacket in the warm sun
There’s not one illness, strictly speaking.
Russia found a guy who appealed enough to the legacies of confederate know nothings who were about to become politically irrelevant if the GOP had died as expected in 2015.
The two illnesses are A) lawful evil, Roman republicans who are working to sell us out to Christian fascists. B) patriots of the Confederacy who think that if they lie to themselves long enough it will become truth. The stupidity of people in group B is profitable enough to turbocharge into political power for people in group A. The heart of the illness is the entire mass of B being held together by group A disinformation, you could call it propaganda but that would imply concern with truth. The hearts of the illness are the links holding them together.
Being MAGA and being educated are mutually exclusive.
To believe in MAGA you need to believe there was a time in the past where America was great, but that that time has passed and that somehow there is a way to return to it.
Anyone with decent education realizes the myriad flaws with the very idea the movement is based on.
I’m sure you’re correct. Just as a poor education along with lack of socio-economic opportunity and inavailability of mental healthcare might contribute to radicalization in the working poor, it stands to reason that a basic lack of empathy, whether taught or innate, likely coupled with greed must play a role for radicalization of the wealthy.
