the alt-right

ftr my own take here (or some other thread?? idk) was along the lines of not bothering with these minor symbolic battles. at present this minor symbolic battle has taken up a lot more social media oxygen than the latest SCOTUS decision on transgender troops has, for example.

i do think elevating these kids to villain status gives them a bit more added clout on the right, vs the positive changes that could be made by focusing on what is needed to get done. my suggestion here isn't the same as "this isn't a big problem" it's more like "fix the problem with solutions and pushing forward with positive energy." i think so much time is wasted on hating the right wing*, sure fuck em but don't spend time fucking with them. they do not give a single shit and the scales will not fall from their eyes.

*if you're a member of a group actively fucked with by the right wing, i think a lot of the movements have been extremely positive. i think the social media battles are often just counterproductive.

yerac, "stop being trash people" is def not a persuasion you learnt in rhetoric class

- do we know what the black israelite group was there for?

they don't believe native americans are native to america. they think they are on the lost tribes of israel, the tribe of gad

"one of"

the left has important agendas (climate, economic) that it could easily win broad popular support for but instead it engages in these trivial worthless battles that can accomplish nothing but galvanize the opposition.

― Mordy

like "the left" is some monolithic entity and our responses are determined by a central committee somewhere

for me coalition politics is that people have different priorities and different things that are important to them and i support the priorities of other people when i can. or at least refrain from openly browbeating people who aren't listening to me anyway about how they're doing things all wrong and the BAD GUYS are going to WIN

I don't believe in persuasion anymore; bullying bigots until they shut up has a track record of success

bullied this bigot right into the national spotlight, a major television appearance and a visit to the white house. maybe the strategy is that if we give him all the platforms he'll eventually get bored?

Not this one but you play the odds with these things

for me coalition politics is that people have different priorities and different things that are important to them and i support the priorities of other people when i can. or at least refrain from openly browbeating people who aren't listening to me anyway about how they're doing things all wrong and the BAD GUYS are going to WIN

look i know it's unpopular to tell marginalized ppl that you disagree with their strategy - even if they aren't all marginalized people but some and even if other marginalized people agree with you. however, there are positive programs that would have huge impact on marginalized communities that don't include picking fights with alt-righters or waging cultural wars. they do include things like prison reform, or measures to increase household wealth in their communities, or raising the minimum wage, or legislation that could reduce police violence (like mandatory cams). there are lots of policy options for every member of our coalition that are positive worthwhile steps. i'm not saying their pain and suffering is unimportant. i'm saying that this particular way of addressing it is unproductive esp compared to the alternatives.

I think that perceiving this overblown clickbait crap as "the left" isn't useful when there are so many people who are working with solid stances on particular issues and out there trying to get things done

the two things I concentrate on are how to elevate particular issues I care about and the ways we can convince politicians at a local, regional, and national level to advance those positions without diluting them in the name of compromise or outright ignoring them due to other issues

the rest is mostly noise

Por qué no los dos

you're right mordy i'm sorry i booked this asshole on the today show, i'll cancel his booking right now

man the hell with playing the odds, if someone behaves badly i'm not going to politely ignore it on the off chance that bringing it up might embolden them, god knows i've spent enough of my life doing that shit and i am done with it.

do it irl. don't join the online mob. you didn't shame this kid. you just temporarily made yourself feel better. you know when you'll know bullying a bigot made a difference? bc it was hard and scary to do and you forced yourself to do it because it was right.

some of y'alls closest encounters with "the left" seem to in fact be encounters with a norms superego that only exists in cherry picked tweets and whatever tut tutting cultural marxist is in your head

xxp yeah kind of glued the two together: it's 1. finding issues to care about and advance 2. making sure those issues are brought up, undiluted

Thank u for dn hoos

xpost Yeah, I am confused about this. I assume that social media/ilx life is very different than what people may do in real life? Opining about maga teens is still part of the larger picture but it's an easy online amuse bouche topic.

look i know it's unpopular to tell marginalized ppl that you disagree with their strategy - even if they aren't all marginalized people but some and even if other marginalized people agree with you. however, there are positive programs that would have huge impact on marginalized communities that don't include picking fights with alt-righters or waging cultural wars. they do include things like prison reform, or measures to increase household wealth in their communities, or raising the minimum wage, or legislation that could reduce police violence (like mandatory cams). there are lots of policy options for every member of our coalition that are positive worthwhile steps. i'm not saying their pain and suffering is unimportant. i'm saying that this particular way of addressing it is unproductive esp compared to the alternatives.

― Mordy

so you wish human beings behaved more like wonks and less like human beings?

"it's human nature" is normally a reactionary argument

I'd like to know who on ilx is actually "the online mob" because as far as I can tell we're trying to break down this particular thing in our somewhat insular community and no one is cheering on anyone calling for overt action *on the internet* against people we have no personal association with

Yerac otm, nobody is retweeting this thread and saying "go get them"

culture produces politics xp

Glad I read that McWhorter piece.

do it irl. don't join the online mob. you didn't shame this kid. you just temporarily made yourself feel better. you know when you'll know bullying a bigot made a difference? bc it was hard and scary to do and you forced yourself to do it because it was right.

― Mordy

i try not to join online mobs, this was a nice little pleasant thread for low-key schadenfreude until the morality police suddenly broke in and got on their high horse about how schadenfreude is wrong and how dare we etc etc

when people say 'the left' as a stand-in for whatever they're mad about today i call it a chait & switch

culture produces politics xp

maybe. or maybe the opposite. often the political structure generates the culture, esp when NOP breaks down.

I am not on twitter at all so I need to know specifically where these mobs are located. If they are virtual, regional, irish...

"it's human nature" is normally a reactionary argument

― Mordy

oh god, is steve porcaro alt-right too?!?

i can think of lots of cases where the political circumstances forced the range of cultural possibilities that were available.

when people say 'the left' as a stand-in for whatever they're mad about today i call it a chait & switch

i'm pretty sure i did clarify who i meant and not the left as a whole so don't worry i wasn't talking about a h00s

i try not to join online mobs, this was a nice little pleasant thread for low-key schadenfreude until the morality police suddenly broke in and got on their high horse about how schadenfreude is wrong and how dare we etc etc

― The Elvis of Nationalism and Amoral Patriotism (rushomancy), Tuesday, January 22, 2019 4:45 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

respectfully, this is fucking dumb. the only reason this story was interesting to talk about was because it completely captivated the attention of the entire nation and led to the kid receiving death threats etc. national publications ran thinkpieces that posited the kid was a symbol of toxic privilge, "we've seen this face before," etc., it wasn't low leven schadenfreude

and obviously the kid is a disrespectful shit but it's still a weird norm, as a nation, to turn things like this into national stories.

Like I said upthread, he should’ve avoided being photographed at the news

the morality police! do u remember when ppl would talk about being policed in their speech and like silby would bust in kool-aid man style and be like derisively "the police eh? did they cuff you and force you to jail poor thing?"

(sorry i don't remember if it was exactly you silby or just someone who sounded an awful lot like you)

lmao I only pull the kool-aid man shtick on here, it’s a release

In real life I don’t know anybody

idealism/principles vs effective strategy/optics is a v old split between the left and the centre, this argt will rage long after we're all dead

Results for politicians, principles for the people, imo

fwiw i disagree that this is a left/centrist split. i think that you can be a leftist and support openly and radically leftist solutions and still think that there are more and less effective ways to pursue them. the division between the left and center should be policy + goals not necessarily tone or strategy.

u don't see AOC opining on this smirking shit (i hope i hope i hope)

i don't think it's idealistic or principled to join a pile on like this

the center (in our society at least) generally wants hawkish foreign policy, neoliberalism at home, austerity, capitalism, the status quo, etc, and uses tone policing to keep legitimate critiques of those things from progressing. but that doesn't mean that worrying about rhetoric and strategy is therefore centrist.

I am not on twitter at all so I need to know specifically where these mobs are located. If they are virtual, regional, irish...

― Yerac, Tuesday, 22 January 2019 21:47 (twenty-three seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ey lady dont pin this shit on us

respectfully, this is fucking dumb. the only reason this story was interesting to talk about was because it completely captivated the attention of the entire nation and led to the kid receiving death threats etc. national publications ran thinkpieces that posited the kid was a symbol of toxic privilge, "we've seen this face before," etc., it wasn't low leven schadenfreude

― Trϵϵship

this thread existed before two days ago, if people want to have a discussion about toxic discourse online i guess that's their right but it seems to me rather like fighting fire with fuel

i guess i should stop posting here and let the rest of you work yourselves into a lather over the latest example of america being bullshit but i'm bored

People can bitch and actively do stuff at the same time. This is not new. (i read the article, he seems fine).

darra, I need you to tell us that we are being too american.

couldn't tell xp

maybe. or maybe the opposite. often the political structure generates the culture, esp when NOP breaks down.

― Mordy, Tuesday, January 22, 2019 9:46 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

its ourobouric, right, normative culture produces the bounds of political possibility but subcultures can introduce new political horizons built on refreshed norms ("the world is on fire and everything we love is going to burn unless we do something? we're not taking action fast enough, it doesn't matter what the old rules are, we've got to move big and fast") -- in a period of historic polarization it doesn't make any sense to worry about winning over the opposition, you mobilize your people and a segment of the persuadables to win on paper and as the change cements itself over time it becomes the new norm. all this is to say that

there are positive programs that would have huge impact on marginalized communities that don't include picking fights with alt-righters or waging cultural wars.

battles over norms matter, but the fact that people engage in them oughtn't be misunderstood as organized political activity when there are plenty of people actually doing political work while a thousand nobodies flood the phone line of the catholic school's principal

darra, I need you to tell us that we are being too american.

He does that every day and it makes no difference tbf.

i don't think we disagree fwiw xp

if it were up to me we'd all be talking about rupa biswas's 1982 record "disco jazz" instead right now

but hoos otm, as usual