Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
No AI generated content.
Content posted must not be created by AI with the intent to mimic the style of existing images
I agree. Trying to fix the conservative voting bloc from the ground up isn't going to work. We're boxing puppets, wondering why they won't go down, when we're ignoring the strings holding them up. You can't honestly question them on their positions because their positions, when regurgitated, are often barely digested at all.
They are just handed the rules of engagement from up top.
And "up top" is all billionaires.
Bridging gaps, forming strong alliances and communities, starting movements, and organizing with like-minded people for change and mutual benefit is how acceptance becomes broader and is the catalyst for culture wars to fizzle out. These actions are the spark that allow people to broadly start to realize there is nothing to be afraid about. A person who is perceivably different or a minority existing, having rights, and thriving doesn't harm anyone or have to be at anybody's expense.
Our politicians and governments no longer represent us and the laws aren't moving in the right direction any time soon. Fighting unjust laws and restrictions and winning politicians over is typically what you'd do as a minority to have your existence be legalized and protected, but I'd argue that we are past the point of no return - laws, reform, and protections aren't going to come quick enough and we need to act urgently.
The more we polarize ourselves against others for holding less than tolerant views and sitting in judgement of them, the harder it is for us to focus on joining hands, organizing, and focusing on solutions and the change we'd like to see (and be). I'm not saying that we should put up with violations of our personal sovereignty, consent to being restricted unjustly by the law, consent to being subject to abuse (physical, verbal, or any other form), or enable or platform these behaviors.
Win the battles you can win - that means focusing on solutions with people that are actually on the side of all of humanity (which includes all people and minorities). The planet and all life on it is at stake.
I feel it's ideal to be generally kind to others to hope for kindness back. Some might say that bigoted and hateful people don't deserve kindness and I'd wholeheartedly agree - you don't owe them anything and it's not your job to force their heart open. But I feel it's important to listen to our hearts and act on them - kindness has immense potential to soften hearts and dissolve boundaries - hate often has the opposite effect.
For example, do you let a person with conservative views who is intolerant, ignorant, and hateful stand in your way and eat your attention and precious life - or do you join hands with others in mutual support for progress and forward movement in our societies?
We can be an unstoppable force by moving out of the direction of the immovable objects and going beyond.
All war is class war. Skip the middleman. Culture war shit is class war. Divide and conquer tactic.
Wish I could focus on the class war, but as a trans person I'm kinda the focus of the culture war and have to be on the defensive.
Culture wars that are especially distracting and polarizing are:
Yeah the generation war idea needs to die when you have Genx, millennials and genz billionaires all attending the commemoration party of the boomer who won the presidency. And the house itself stretches across all generations of assholes. You got leavitt, Johnson, Vance, Elon, Donald doing gross things daily. Every generation is represented here being capable and willing to be full on assholes.
Male vs. female
GenX: "We voted for the same assholes as the Boomers. Forgotten generation ftw"
j/k
but seriously, GenX really is forgotten in the culture wars too
I don't think that's a bad thing. Everyone should be forgotten in the culture wars and we should focus on the class wars.
Yeah I just thought it was funny lol
As someone new here, and not on the left, this is the most interesting/healthy discussion I've seen on Lemmy so far. Thanks!
So lets just pretend other forms of discriminations don't exist ? or what exsctly, is your goal here?
Focussing on those is a distraction, that you can engage in, if it makes you feel better (and maybe you'll reach minor improvements for some discriminated group), but once you realize that capitalism is the problem, you'll realize that solving that problem would also remove all other forms of discrimination that were brought to us by capitalists to divide us.
to your last sentence. Yes capitalist use bigotry to divide the working class and distract from the actual solutions to the massive inequality of capitalism.
I agree with that point My other commemt mostly refers to opressive hierarchies being older -for example patriarchy.
No it would not. Yes capitalism must go so do the colonial structures where it originated from. And yes current forms of discrimination interact with capitalism and our current systems and societies. How ever systems of oppression are far older than capitalism and it is at least my goal as of many other leftist mostly anarchists to have a society where hirarchies of opression don't exist.
It is my observation which is not representative obviously, that people who advocate to soley focus on class, who usually ignore the struggles of opressed groups in our society, often hold bigoted views about at least some minorities.
As in your case against people with mental illnesses autism etc.
Back to the previous point.
To just focus on class completly ignores the struggles and the contributions of movemtents that fougth and still figth for the liberation of oppressed groups. like black liberation and queer liberation. just as an example. These things are not distractions. Not only has there been social progress which bettered the lives of people, although that progress has always been a compromise.
In fact your are not going to get a true liberation from capitalism without overcoming colonialism which has also intersections with hetero-cis-allo-endo normative patriarchy, and those are also linket to capitalism. I could list more structures of opression.
Dismanteling capitalism wont solve all problems. It is however an important step towards a liberated world if the systems that follow it are better.
Those ants out number us 100 to 1 and if they ever figure that out our way of life will end.
in my experience this is said to absolve authoritarian leftists of needing to defend minorities and queer people, like don't worry guys, we'll 'take care' of you AFTER the revolution
Why? Are cultural topics not what people vote on?
They shouldn't be. But it is what many have substituted in place of being informed on the issues.
They shouldn't but, they do.
So I guess my question is, how does this rhetoric push liberals/conservatives left?
Forcing someone to do something against their will, only makes them resent it more generally. There is no way to actually push anyone left. You can only lead them there. And only by example. It will always be their choice to follow or not.
For as much as the left likes to lament that Democrats could win if they just embraced the left. The left has never shown that. Which is silly considering how much everyone hates both regular options generally. A group running to support their communities in local office and not some "party". Would seem a really popular in the face of it.
I disagree, I think people can be pushed leftward. I do think they can be lead there but, that includes cultural topics of discussion. It would be nice if the person persuading is an example but, I disagree with it being only by example.
I agree, it will always be their choice but, I think that ignores the meme. The left would have to persuade people with rhetoric. Those people would then be more inclined to vote for a leftist candidate.
I believe not talking about culture war topics denies the use of that rhetorical tool.
The left has never shown that.
They have indeed, which is why the Democrats now rig their primaries and have argued in court publicly that it's their right to do so. The problem here is Democratic corruption is valued more than leftward movement. It was the leftist wing of the party that got Obama nominated and ruined the first crowning of Hillary Clinton too, before they opted to start rigging primaries. (Granted, they were sold a rotten bill of goods.)
How else was Harris going to be a candidate if it wasn't rigged?
Further, I'd say take a look at Missouri, which went red while voting for state constitutional amendments that further the Bernie platform: $15 minimum wage, required paid sick leave, and repealing an abortion ban.
You are a perfect example.
This is exactly how delusional so many are. That you seriously imply that the 2024 election was some Machiavellian scheme to force Harris on everyone. Instead of ineptitude and failure on every front by the Democrats.
Even more absurd for the fact that you didn't name the so-called leftist threat that a ringer like Harris was brought in to defeat lol. Not that you could. 90% of the people didn't even know the name of anyone who ran in the few little primary races that they had before biden said that he was staying in.
It's not at all unusual for the party not too primary the incumbent officer if they desire to run again. And while this situation was slightly unprecedented. It is not at all that unreasonable or unusual to consider the vice president as the successor. Again still total incompetent on the Democrats part. But not some Globe spanning conspiracy.
If there is a classless society, will beautiful people be at an advantage?
I would think so. In other words, there will always be at least two classes.
Who cares, as long as they're not disproportionately represented, which is exactly what's happening with the current class system.
Sure, but there's a difference between being at an advantage and being the politically dominant class. The crucial thing about the working class owning class divide is that the owning class essentially has all the political power, and uses it to subjugate the working class. So what you're saying is a truism, but it misses the point that the interesting thing isn't the classes themselves but rather the power relations between them.
Actually if you object to me turning every conversation into a Brave Conversation about my pet issue you're literally a Nazi and it's your fault (not mine, never mine) that Donald Trump won.
so we're done with defending trans rights?
defense is different than waging war