Those Capitalist of the Gilded Age were fucking amateurs compared to the billionaires of the modern day, where propaganda has been distilled down to a science, and is being force fed to everyone every day at every angle.

They wish they had the tools we’re unraveling society with today.

“If properly contained” doing a lot of heavy lifting in this statement haha.

I misspoke, I believe you said facist sympathizers if they vote for trump previously.

Just general left and right. I think the majority of the issues people have with centrists is they’re looking at the overton window (and also lets be real the majority of americans thoughts dont go past “my side best side”). Which honestly i think even acknowledging the overton helps guide us farther right by allowing it to change what we see as left and right.

It sounds like were at an impasse, I want to fix the problem before it evolves farther, but you think its already past saving, or at the very least you can only see a route to saving the country that goes through calling half the country fascists and hoping they listen.

So i was going to say that this isn’t even revolutionary, its just representation. Now I’m chuckling thinking about how the founders warned us against the poison of a two party system, and they WERE revolutionaries, so shit maybe haha.

Removing a two party system is not socialism by anyone’s definition of the word though?

I never said anything about the middle. I was specific to the GOP/Trump supporters.

But there are moderate republicans that have voted red for so long they cant vote blue because of habit and endless rhetoric. While they are facist sympathizers in that they vote red with their ehad in the sand, wether they know it or not, what do you gain by calling them that? Nothing really, its just inflammatory, and it will drive them farther towards the facist ideology as it will be the only place that will accept them.

Dealing with this requires criticism, and forcing them to see the error of their ways whether they like it or not.

Hard disagree. You should look into how to change peoples minds, because if you start by calling them a facist sympathizer its over. This is the biggest reason I’m against this kind of speech, while true, that person wont identify as such, but they will recognize the attack on them, put up their guard, and then its done. If you want to convince people of stuff, you have to find middle ground with them first and then broach topics from your point of view without speaking in antagonizing labels, or find a way to show how you both actually want the same thing, its a slow process, but it requires finding common ground to approach the topics you really want to convince them on from.

The germans didn’t change their minds until they were forcibly marched to the camps to see the death and destruction they wrought upon the jews and other prisoners.

This just shows how people need proof to accept things sometimes, the conversation is about changing minds and reducing polarization though, so I don’t know what point you’re trying to make with this. If its that they need to be called facists to learn, you are mistaken. Personal attacks never lead to a change of mind. You are better off showing (note: not calling, but showing) how the republican party are facists, than by calling the voters facists. In fact even using the word facist wont help, you may have better progress by getting them to agree the constitution is a marvelous document we should protect, they will agree, this is common ground, then you say something like “its a real shame it doesn’t hold the supreme court accountable for bribes though” or maybe “its a real shame that they are trying to give the executive branch unchecked power” as this is definitely not what the framers ever had in mind, its the exact opposite,. But this is how you argue stuff to affect change.

If we are going to put effort into fixing this problem we should fix it right, we shouldn’t take half measures.

Great is the enemy of good, anything that gets rid of the 2 party system while allowing multiple parties can and should be supported whole heartedly. You cant get hung up on finding the best solution when the solution presented helps us not steer off of the cliff. But yes, we should fight for the best system, but rally behind whichever one is chosen in the end, much like every election, you wish the candidate was inline with your views, but you’ll swallow and vote for what is available anyways.

So does McDonald’s but that doesn’t mean it is a good choice.

It is better than our current system, this is good enough for me, and it should be for you, but again, any system that allows for multiple parties is a good choice.

Grow up

antagonizing catch phrase

Called it

I don’t. But I will still call republicans/GOP voters fascist sympathizers, because at a bare minimum if you’re still voting red, you’re sympathetic to Trump and therefore sympathetic to fascism. That’s still demonizing language, and it is deserved.

Yes keep pushing people closer to the middle farther to the right, dont try to meet them in middle in ideology, tell them theyre facists sympathizers so they go farther right.

And for those of his supporters who are fervent, and genuinely believe in his messaging, they’re clearly fascists. Nazis didn’t get a pass for falling victim to rhetoric, neither do fervent Trump supporters.

Yeah i agree with the fervant supporters, theyre fully in a cult now, nothing will bring them out of it.

And better voting systems will never be achievable until the two party system is abolished. The DNC and GOP establishment are both married to the two party system. We either take over the DNC with reformists, or things will continue to degrade until the point where people have nothing left to lose and take to the streets violently.

Yeah ive said about the same thing in other comments on this thread, its a pipe dream, but i can see no other way the country doesnt slip into destruction, so ill keep advocating for it.

I’d recommend you look into approval and star voting, as RCV has a number of critical weaknesses.

I will take anything that removes our 2 party system, i dont care what it is. But RCV has name recognition at this point.

Yes the media did it, then we did it online everywhere, in our social circles, on facebook, endlessly. And while i recognize that its the media fault, i can also accept the role i played in it as a stupid teenager participating in it within my own circles.

Your second argument is just in such bad faith, i feel like I’m arguing with an angsty teen. I never said we give into what they want and let them run wild. I said we need to understand them and knock off the constant demonization or all you’re going to do is bolster their numbers, fight them without the endless ad hominem, argue against the idea and not the individual, stop labeling everyone you don’t like a facist, because when you do that you’re essentially just recruiting for actual facists by pushing more and more moderate people to them. I’m fairly certain at this point you still wont understand what I’m saying and you will come up with some antagonizing catch phrase in response so I’m done here, id hope you spend some time thinking on this, but it sounds like youve made up your mind.

It will never happen, dems and gop would have to work together to dilute their own power? Its a pipe dream to be sure, but the only way i think the country can fix itself.

In the center of left and right. Think this is the root of the problem, people hear centrist and they think center of overton window, I have never and will never mean this.

True. Fox, Shapiro, and how do you miss the original right wing shithead Rush Limbaugh. Have you ever listened to what they say? I wouldn’t blame you for not, but all it is is putting a lens on shit like cancel culture, tricking them into believing that’s the way the world is ,well maybe 20% that and 80% fabricating their own new lies, but its almost entirely built off of stuff that was all originally made throughout regular news which anyone could see, which allowed people who didn’t like louis c.k. being canceled because they liked his comedy and now they’re mad, but look fox news agrees with me, ill start watching their news instead. People as a whole are extremely simple.

Its also ignoring how a lot of people on the right were raised that way, so these thoughts aren’t even their own, they’re victims in all of this too. Useful idiots yes, but also victims. I knew many people who voted for trump only because Bernie wasn’t allowed to run. Many trump voters just want to burn down the system that has robbed them of the life the country used to promise us, they see trump as that cure. they’re wrong, but the intention is important in finding common ground. In fact when I meet them, unless they’re the super unhinged maga hat wearing dipshits, which has definitely become more common. I mean meeting the “anything but dems” voters, I have real talks with them, when u get past the rhetoric the majority of them want the same stuff as anyone else, they want a home, they want a life, they want to be paid well, they dont want a billionaire class ruling us instead of ourselves. They’ve just been manipulated into thinking the republican party is the only way they’ll get it. This is why i preach cohesion. So many of us want the same thing but were too busy fighting this culture war, which the majority of Americans wouldn’t care about if the entirety of news media wasn’t shoving it down our throats, all paid for by billionaires that want us to keep fighting a culture war, so we forget they’re the true enemy.

There’s a problem with the right wing polarization of the USA, not the left wing polarization. there’s a far right party and leftist progressive people have no representation.

True but left rhetoric was rampant throughout the 2010s and it polarized the right into the facist shithole it is today. Look into trevors axiom, attacking a thing publicaly creates a platform for a thing. Its what happened to anti vax, used to be a meme, now its a significant portion of the population.

No. That’s quite identical to saying “black rights movements created the KKK”. Fascists will fash no matter what the progressive people do. The way to stop fascism from rising isn’t concessions in policy, it’s a total cancel of their presence in media and public spaces, by whatever means necessary.

I never said concessions in policy, I said that when you demonize people, you create an other side, people naturally form groups, now the other side is larger. Its like how anti vaxxers became a thing because we all joked about how they were dumb animals instead of ignoring them back in the early 2000’s. Back then anti vaxxing was truly just a meme that only a few people did, but we pointed and laughed, which created a platform for stupid people, and they used it to recruit more.

I can damn right do it if they are. You can’t tolerate racism and homophobia just because you don’t wanna annoy the intolerants.

You’re ignoring the entire rest of my argument so I cant really respond.

Maybe, hear me out, maybe, if we didn’t want fascists to start a civil war, we shouldn’t have allowed them on TV from the start, radicalizing people against queer and women’s rights, we shouldn’t have allowed them to take control of social media, and we shouldn’t have allowed them to take control of institutions like the supreme court. That’s how you avoid fascism.

100% agree, we shouldn’t have given hatred a platform, but how did they get it that platform? Was it maybe early 2010s cancel culture? Again id advise you to look into trevors axiom, humans are simple and easily manipulated, attacking a thing creates a platform for people to recruit from.

So are you saying we should just not point out that they are fascists? Because calling them (rightfully) fascist is demonizing.

Great question, Lets try not calling every single person who votes republican a facist (even though we know thats were its going, a majority of the voters are truly victims of rhetoric), because then you force them to only be allowed to associate with facists. Make sure to keep it clear that trump and his chronies are the facists, and remember that the republican voters are victims (of their own ignorance? yes, but also from the hands of the biollionaire media moguls, and a country that has been cutting back education for this exact reason).

And that would be great, but ranked choice alone doesn’t get us to actual representation. As long as lobbying is still legal, the problem will persist. As long as SCOTUS remains an unelected political position, the problem will persist. And so on.

So in my first post i mentioned that ranked choice voting is only the first step, i believe abolishing the two party system is the only way we can ever achieve the next goals youve mentioned. ESPECIALLY when its clear if u read every post here that both sides of the aisles refuse to work together, so we cant affect any of those changes. A two party system will naturally bring both extremes of the aisle back in and then we can actually fix the other problems plaguing us.

I almost agree with you, but it lacks the view of how all of this became out of left side virtue signaling. Cancel culture (thought very much overblown in reality) truly created the far right of today. Obviously the far right is a real threat, ignoring how the far right of today came out of pointing the finger at people of the right and calling them racist homophobic incels for making a joke, all that did was force people, who maybe made a joke in bad taste, forced to be on the side of actual zenophobes. Now they truley are everything we claimed they were now, because that is the only side left that will have them.

Im not saying any of it wasnt warrented, its about understanding how we got here, and knowing that we cant keep doing it. You cant call half of the entire country racist gay bashers and find any solution outside of civil war. I dont want that do you? Because thats where its going, many people want to move towards the middle but a middle doesnt exist to move towards.

You can tell someone has read a lot based on a 14 word insult, you got me.