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Late Stage Capitalism
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You do if you want to defend the claim you made. We’re going in circles, the burden of proof is on the one making the claim. This is like first week of rhetoric 101 stuff here.
Right, like I already said, it’s a self soothing narrative for liberals, that’s why they buy into your claims even while you’re openly saying you aren’t going to provide evidence for your claims.
Maybe getting a little deeper into will help you to understand the point I’m getting at. I kind of wanted to avoid getting this deep into this because its honestly pretty heavy and complicated and there are a lot of moving parts. I am defending the ml’s position, you just don’t understand the ml position.
This may seem like a strange place to start but I think if I start with a simplier example you’re primed to understand maybe you’ll see more of what I’m saying.
The self soothing thing — it’s ideological function is the same thing as MAGA saying immigrants are criminals. Sure you can find examples of immigrants committing crimes, but on average immigrants commit less crimes than native born citizens.
So why do they buy into this narrative about immigrants being criminals? You could say racism and that is absolutely part of it. But almost more importantly if the immigrants aren’t the problem that means conservatives and republican leaders are a big part of the problem or even more scary maybe capitalism is part of the problem. They can’t accept that, so they scapegoat immigrants. It's pretty simple psychology to understand in this case.
To start the parallel the democrats are also part of the problem. But liberals can’t accept that in the same way that conservatives their leaders are part of the problem.
So what is the failure that liberals can’t accept about their leaders? Well, Biden then later Harris funded the genocide in Gaza, that cost them Michigan, there was no path for the democrats to win the presidency in 2024 without Michigan. It was the same in 2020 and 2016.
Let’s get into the specifics of why Kamala couldn’t win Michigan. In Dearborn, Michigan there is a large Palestian-sympathetic Arab community. People who literally have family members in Gaza.
Here’s the meat and potatoes of the point I’m trying to get to. There is nothing you can say to someone who is actively having a genocide committed against their family to get them to vote for the person funding the genocide. Michigan was gone if Biden and later Harris didn’t change on this issue, the election was over before it started.
The response to this situation was the uncommitted movement. The uncommitted movement —which was largely organized by the Arab community in Dearborn— was uncommitted to vote for the democratic candidate if the candidate didn’t change course on the issue of the genocide in Gaza. They voted ‘uncommitted’ on the 2024 democratic primary ballot, they had an impressive turnout. Definitely enough that Biden/Harris should have taken it seriously.
The ‘tankie’ response to the uncommitted movement was to have solidarity with the Palestian-Dearborn community and put more pressure on the democratic candidate try to get them to change course. The liberal response was basically to scream VOTE at ‘tankies’ and refuse to engage with the problem, kinda similar to what has happened on this thread.
If instead the liberals had taken the time to listen to the more complicated and nuanced point ‘tankies’ and put more pressure on Harris, she might changed course and she might be president today. So contrary to the narrative that was implied by your little comment the ‘tankies’ were actually doing more to try to help Harris win than the liberals were. Not necessarily by voting but by putting the pressures on Harris in ways that she needed to get over the finish line.
Back to the self soothing, it’s an attempt by liberals to wash their hands of their complicity in this genocide, “its not my fault its those “tankies” posting “don’t vote” on social media made Harris loose” they say to themselves. It’s the same scapegoating behavior that conservatives engage in. It’s bullshit.
I understand this very heavy shit, you probably want to reject everything I’ve said, and you’ll probably find a way to rationalize doing so. But everything I’m saying is true.
Seems like a false dichotomy, it seems like its probably both to me. These are deeply held beliefs that many people have very good reason to be hysterical about.
You should look up the motte and bailey fallacy.
Respectfully, no I don't. Because the validity of my claim is not in question because the only relevance it has to my assertion is whether or not I talked to ml folks with that opinion and I'm not digging back through years of DMS to find it for you. So again, take my word for it or don't. I'm fine if you don't believe me.
We've both wasted enough time and you just litetially called everyone else delusional so that's a logical stopping point. If you have more I will read it but I will not reply.
Its OK I think its better we both stop running around circles in this discussion too.