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.
"BECAUSE ALL OF THESE COMMUNISTS ARE RUNNING THE BIG BUSINESSES" -an actual thing I've heard a man say in the Midwest.
I'm under the impression these people play politics like sports and it's more about their 'team' winning and any actual ideology plays second fiddle.
"Blackrock is communist because they have a diversity equity and inclusion policy and are taking over the world so they can enforce it!"
Is one I've seen.
I tried my damnedest to explain to Nebraskans that the whole bud light controversy was hollow capitalist marketing but they're still convinced that the beer people are pedophiles now.
Blackrock? Jfc they are like Uber capitalists.
Is 'corporate communism' still a used phrase?
See, cuz, its communist because they control everything and the people at the top get all the money, and they use the money to influence society by paying off politicians!
Oh, like a mega church?
cue angry noises
It’s definitely all about attitude. Republicans have systematically worked to demonize and defund education. Nobody cares to be actually correct, or to find real truth.
They just want to listen to their own echos. They want to be pet and pat on the head and reassured for every hateful, lazy thought they’ve ever had
They get into the work force, (factory, farm, other blue collar jobs that are being exploited by corps) where they all complain about how stressful and seemingly fruitless their day-to-day lives are, and blame whatever the nearest and easiest target is.
Literal witch hunts. All the while getting bent over by the actual enemies - the cheats, the hateful, the liars, the lazy, the greedy, etc.
I mean ffs practically every religion out there points this shit out as bad, and yet everyone willingly sucks these types of awful people off, despite the fact. It’s mind numbing
edit: Fixed some shitty, aggro wording against my fellow working class people. that was shitty.
I used to live in central Louisiana. When I talked to the people I used to work with, it was very clear that they are in favor of what would be considered to be socialist. The MAGA folks really can be comrades if we just reach out to them like human beings and try to communicate to them on their level without being too condescending.
The hard part will be convincing them that people they don't like deserve basic human rights. The right wing religious propaganda has really taken hold of them in that regard.
I'm a big advocate for the idea that we need to start selling "manly socialism."
I want to see grainy low contrast posters of a guy in wrangler jeans posed next to an F-150 with a sledgehammer over his shoulder and text that says "You're really such a pussy that you just let some rich asshole in Redmond walk all over you? Real men unionize."
I want to sell solar power to midwesterners with video ads of rugged manly men getting off the grid. "My daddy taught me to do everything with my own two hands. Instead of suckling on the teat of that big ol power grid, I get my own from God's beautiful bounty."
I want videos of church goers saying "I'm voting for public healthcare because God told me to lift the poor and the weary."
I think there's real legs to this. Meet people where they are.
(And before anyone starts, I have no desire to break bread with these people. They hate me and everything I am. I have no illusions about that. But for real change to happen, it takes a village; even the parts of the village you want absolutely nothing to do with. I don't have to break bread with them to get them pulling in the right direction; I just have to help them see what's in their best interest.)
The MAGA folks really can be comrades if we just reach out to them
Just be straight, Christian, and white.
The hard part will be convincing them that people they don’t like deserve basic human rights. The right wing religious propaganda has really taken hold of them in that regard.
remember when mandela actually became president of south africa after spending 27 years in prison, he made a speech and said something like "the boers are no longer our enemy, they are our countrymen." Basically, they are our enemy now, because they've fallen victim to the propaganda that's been fed to them by the television they watch, the online communities they frequent, the churches they go to and the radio personalities they listen to. But if one can reach out to them, talk to them and get them to listen and hear, then it might be possible to deprogram them from those hateful stances they hold against people who are not like them.
For example, one can try to talk to them about immigration by asking why they don't like immigration. they might respond like "the immigrants take our jobs", which is the lie that is told to them so that they want to fight other working class people instead of focusing that fight on the people who actually are responsible for their suffering: the wealthy.
remember when mandela actually became president of south africa after spending 27 years in prison, he made a speech and said something like “the boers are no longer our enemy, they are our countrymen.”
But if one can reach out to them, talk to them and get them to listen and hear
Facts Don’t Change Minds – Social Networks, Group Dialogue, and Stories Do
The best way to break someone out of a partisan media death spiral is to cut the power cord to their television.
I absolutely agree that there are a host of people in a gray zone of misinformation who can be pulled back from the brink. But I'm not multi-billion dollar media mogul capable of saturating their every waking hour with counter-programming. And I'd be foolish to assert I could undo in a few short dialogues what they've ingested after decades.
If you look at what the Feds did with TikTok, that's the real working strategy. Cut people off from a contrary media diet. Shut down radio stations. Starve out newspapers. De-tenure professors with unorthodox historical bias. K-Street Project any lobbyist who won't exclusively back your people. Purge political parties of anyone sympathetic to rival views. Blacklist the Dixie Chicks and get Donahue fired.
That's how you shape the public discourse.
Not by politely asking your 60-year-old uncle to turn down the Michael Savage Radio Hour for a minute and reconsider his white nationalist views.
“the boers are no longer our enemy, they are our countrymen.”
South African here... a disturbingly large proportion of the "boers" don't see it that way - and it's been more than thirty years.
When I was a lad we used to say
the only reason to be Christian is to be in the closet with a priest
The other two were definitely musts though you would see “n-words beware” “no n-words allowed” graffiti on signs and others of that ilk. Even today you will find Swastika drawn on things around town
Been saying this for a while.
We have to work harder to communicate with some of these people. There's definitely a lot of right wingers that are straight up gone(genuine fascists/neo nazis who know what they're doing), but there's a lot that are simply brainwashed or fear mongered. Instead of laughing at them we should be trying to bring them back to the right path.
"... reach out to them like human beings and try to communicate to them on their level..."
So which is it? Are we supposed to treat them like human beings able to have a rational, reasonable, and logical discussion, or do we communicate on their level of bigotry, hatred, threats, and violence? How do I lower myself to a level that wholeheartedly believes that certain races are subhuman and don't deserve rights, that females have a place and that place is subservient to men, or that homosexual people should be put to death?
I get that it's distasteful to give anyone their due when they have hate in their heart.
That said, people are mutli-faceted. We can engage with one another on one or many axes, and GP is suggesting that we pick and choose the ones where there is common ground. The key is to be mindful that this person is not your friend, but when it comes to some specific political point, they are aligned with you. Demonstrating that this is possible and fruitful is key to fighting back against polarization and black/white thinking.
The alternative is a permanently divided political landscape where everyone and everything is deadlocked, and we argue about wedge topics forever.
This has been happening for decades.
Just the other day someone posted a video from the 80s when more strict seatbelt and drinking + driving laws came into place.
The chuds were all bleating about communism....
It was common where I grew up well into the 90s for people to go on about how seat belts “trap” you in a car during a wreck… as opposed to flinging you from it to die on the road instead, I guess?
Survivor bias. My uncle survived because he was thrown clear!! Dead men tell no tales, etc.
Normally I don't have any time for stuff making fun of trump supporters. Vile as their views may be, most memes and comments I see in this vein make me feel uncomfortable - maybe it feels like punching down or making fun of the disabled, or maybe a lot feel classist? I dunno.
Anyway this I like. So thanks!
Well said. I haven’t felt exactly the same for the average meme, but when views are mischaracterized it can be frustrating. When someone so awful wins a presidential election, it’s time to try to pull apart the stupidity seen on the surface, and make a good faith effort to understand where it came from.
Sometimes it’ll be hopeless, maybe often. Blind hatred isn’t going to be too productive to analyze, but somebody moderately conservative feeling unheard in a “flyover state”… progress could be made there. Sometimes!
Probably. Does anyone really believe all the BS spewed forth by conservative politicians?
During COViD, I did have a bit of a discussion with an anti-vaxxer. He denied believing a lot of the extreme views, although said he had more conservative family that did. For him, it came down to being low risk as someone rural and not wanting the government to tell him what do. He also had a naive look at statistics showing Florida did pretty well without any precautions.
I didn’t have the statistics to give a closer look except to talk about some of the differences. I didn’t get anywhere pointing out that he visited more populated areas and was in Boston right then. I didn’t even get anywhere pointing out that they ran a home daycare.
So, I don’t know, definitely conservative, definitely in denial, definitely not able to look at the bigger picture. He denied extremist views but did seem to accept them as common background.
making fun of the disabled
I wonder why it feels like that
CAPITALISM IS WHEN YOU CONSTANTLY YELL ON THE INTERNET BY TYPING IN ALL CAPITALS, RIGHT?
i guess i'll be the anti-capitalist in this thread.
AnArChY aS uNdErStOoD bY a ThIrTeEn YeAr OlD!!!
Capitalism is patriotic! That's why Washington DC is there
we laugh, but this is just incredibly sad. everyone is succeptible to propaganda (even you) and sadly the richest people have used that fact, plus a decent chunk of cash, to manipulate the most succeptible, least educated, and least likely to encounter counter-propaganda of those into believing their lie.
does that forgive their crimes? fuck no. but it speaks to the deeply corrupt power of capital and white supremacy, how it is used to keep down the very base that claims to support it.
Our biggest problem is that we started fighting back 20 years too late.
Right wing radio has been polluting their minds for decades and calling us Satan lovers and baby killers, and all we did was watch the Daily Show and chuckle away at the "dumb people"
Well... Those dumb people, poisoned by decades of propaganda, came of voting age, have infected all levels of government and now we're standing here with a pikachu face.
We have a huge uphill battle and it's going to be very hard, particularly because progressives are so easily fractured. We put up these ridiculous Puritan tests that no person can survive and we keep losing ground while the right lines up lockstep behind their candidate no matter how revolting, because 20 years of propaganda has thought them that no matter how vile Trump is, Biden must be JUST AS vile as him and even worse on top of it.
i agree but 20 years is putting it mildly. Overman and HUAC was almost a century ago and McCarthyism has been well and alive since.
a systemic disease has a systemic root. i wouldn’t put the blame on any one generation of leftists when capitalist white supremacy spans dozens.
I'm a simple man. I simply just hate my life and the difficulty to live it comfortably
Just remember, he's voting.
I've heard that the idea for outsourcing labor came from observations American capitalists made of factories in the USSR, so maybe they're onto something /s
This meme is communist /s
This is the truest of memes.