Political discourse

Right there it says that there are other measures that led to the reduction in poverty. Here’s my thing, if you increase the minimum wage, don’t change the definition or the line at which someone is considered to be living in poverty, and run a census the next day poverty will appear to have been reduced by a lot because everyone is now making the increased minimum wage yay! However if there’s inflation, in a few more months we might be back to where we were in the first place in real terms, however unless you change the line in which poverty begins, you will still be able to clam that you decreased poverty. Poverty is not about the money someone is making, but rather how much what they make buys.

I’m in favor of social nets but, again, I dont see compelling evidence that raising minimum wage is anything but a placebo.

Then what is it? Because it sure as fuck doesn’t sound right wing but someone just called me right wing because I agree in some points with MAGA.

See, the problem is that you think immigrants don’t deserve basic human dignity, while we do. I don’t care if someone is born in Missouri or Mexico City; they both deserve guaranteed access to basic services, and we as a country are more than wealthy enough to provide it.

So to sum up:

1. You think punishing immigrants will fix issues caused by capitalists somehow, don’t worry about it they deserve it anyways

2. Whatever sciences you dislike (you keep saying social sciences, which I assume is a dogwhistle for anything you consider woke as you won’t give specifics) are fake, but you can’t prove it, just google it bro, you’ll find the truth

3. You believe the fascist regime is doing a lot of things right

But it’s us leftists that argue in bad faith and have no ideology, and are wrong for opposing things like fascism.

Thanks for playing.

And if they suffer under that Christofacist regime they helped bring about? That is righteous and holy suffering, and their reward will be eternal in Heaven.

Voting against their interest? No, they are voting in their eternal interests, so what does it matter if they endure poverty, violence, sickness, famine and the destruction of our biome in this life? 'Tis but a moment before the beauty they have earned in the Here After brother!

Wow my guy, just wow. Bravo, you’ve turned this into an art.

The very model of the modern major liberal.

I never said the opposite. But social nets have their limits because resources are not infinite. First we need to make sure the material needs of our people are met before we can help others. I don’t understand how this is a controversial thing to say.

The left is also fighting itself. Literally the comment chains in this post are prime examples.

People who probably align with the majority of the stances, tearing each other down with bad faith arguments, grandstanding over the remaining things they disagree on.

“Perfect is the enemy of good.”

I might not politically align with the average .ml user, but my views are a hell of a lot closer aligned with them than MAGAt views.

Where is the left fighting itself? I only see leftists fighting liberals in the comments.

OK, so just to recap:

1. You start off by deriding anyone that isn’t carrying the same label as you as either evil or stupid.

2. Immediately and unironically say that it’s only the Right vs. everyone else after just saying that it’s the Left vs. everyone else because they’re either wearing your label or they’re Secret Hitler or an idiot.

3. Double down and imagine that everyone actually has secret but strong political feelings and simply are confused or too chicken shit to reveal them, but that all the secret opinions of average people are not just mildly conservative, but actually full-on far-right?

My friend, I’m not sure you understand how many people don’t spend 18 hours a day online reading political news. Because that’s exactly how you end up alienating normal people who are all out of fucks to give about politics, and fracturing opposition to fascism like you’re doing here. You’re not helping anyone but the fascists by calling the people stuck in the middle fascists for just trying to live their lives.

Case in point, this is a shitpost comm and you’re too wrapped up in your self-labeling to read the room and the meme that most people don’t care about the things you care about. That’s the meme, and lesson, that you missed.

Polls are usually pretty consistent in that the majority of people (usually between about 65% to sometimes up to 80%): 1) Don’t actually care about politics at all, which is a big part of why we have a representative democracy in the first place, 2) Certainly don’t keep up with political news or even the actual news that much, 3) Are so self-absorbed and wrapped up in their own affairs that until the rapid disintegration of the nation and Constitution affects them specifically, they won’t even notice because they have a job and kids and a universe of other shit to be doing so they want the status quo always, whatever that was.

Which is all supported in depth by game theory studies about what it takes to get people out in the streets. Which you clearly can’t be bothered to think about because we’re all secret nazis and idiots you wouldn’t associate with in the streets, right?

You’re taking the same bait that Mandella fought against people taking in South Africa. Apartheid specialized in turning everyone who wasn’t white against each other. Fracturing opposition was how a small minority stayed in power for generations.

Which is exactly how the GOP managed to work out Red Stating and Gerrymander me and my formerly solid blue district into a solid red district. That’s not on me. That’s on you for fracturing opposition to fascism, like you’re happily doing here, because all the rest of us aren’t “pure” enough - because most people are either secret Nazis or idiots, right? I get the same shit from the GOP, but they actually accomplish the shit they set out to do, so at least I have something to react against.

For the people who not only do care about politics, but also hate every bit of it and just want people to shut the fuck up and do rational policy stuff without egos like big boys and girls, it’s cringe to see shit like “Hur durr, all Centrists are just closeted Nazis!” because it undoes coalition; it accomplishes exactly what fascists love to see - infighting among their opposition. You give them power like this, with uninformed blanket statements that alienate people who actually ARE fighting these people and now know that you can’t be counted on as an ally. But that’s fine, I know for sure that I 100% can not count on the Left to accomplish a damn thing because y’all are too enthralled with the Old Money Traditional Branding BS the Dems offer you so they can once again use you up to trot out Candidate Dickbag and get you genuinely thinking “yeah, this time, they’re gonna win!” before they lose again and steal your money and time and energy.

But I expect you stopped reading 4 words in and said to yourself “yeah, secret Nazi I think. Or idiot. Either way, I have to hate that one, too” and turned away an ally once again.

Edit: Downvote all you want - look at exactly what the Democrats are doing to the Left right now. This is not an appeal to centrism - this is a party appeal to stay in power because they’ve fucked themselves.

The idea that we don’t have the resources to help everyone is patently false. We could provide for everyone on Earth with about 40% of total production. The problem is not the very poor, crammed into tiny apartments and eating bad food. The problem is the ultrawealthy controlling orders of magnitude more wealth than they could even remotely need.

Secondly, again: claiming we need to help ‘our own’ before ‘others’ is inherently exclusionary. I count every person on Earth as ‘our own’. You apparently don’t.

Perfect example of this was Jimmy Kimmel. He openly said that shooting a commentator was a horrible thing, and tried to call for moderation. MAGA declared that wasn’t enough, and ordered him fired.

They have specified that if you’re not with them, you’re against them.

if you were a centrist before 2020, and you still are in 2025, then you’ve moved Right, since the Overton window shifted Right.

if you kept your principles you’re now Left. that’s how the window works.

it is very clear you don’t live in a small southern county

True we have the resources in theory. The problem is that the necessary structural change to do that right now is so great that it can only be done by literally nuking civilization out of existence and starting over again. Seeing as that might not actually be a good option, we need to slow walk it because the other ways have been tried and they don’t end well

And yes I’m exclusionary because everyone else is. I would love to hop on a plane and move to somewhere in Spain right now. But guess what? They don’t make it that easy. That’s what I meant earlier when I said something about everyone being on the same legal framework. I couldn’t find th right words but the gist is that unless every country on earth has open borders then no country on earth should have open borders.

Nope. Other countries having bad policy is no excuse for our country to. We’re the fucking wealthiest country on Earth. Oh, and people like you who insist that structural change is impossible is the reason change is impossible. You are a self-fulfilling prophecy that continues our country’s policy of commiting social murder. You are the problem.

I’m too uneducated on politics (read: stupid) to even know what left and right means. Where do I land

Right: in favor of privately owned means of production.
Left: in favor of publicly owned means of production.

It’s weird that all countries have the same policies if they are so bad. But here’s the fact: the stronger your safety nets, the more difficult do you have to make immigration lest the system collapse. And allowing immigrants that cannot access the safety nets is a sure fire way to increase your crime rate because now you have a underclass that wouldn’t have existed. So yes the US should have laxer immigration policies than other countries, but not full blown open borders. Not unless there is a practical reason to do so, which there isn’t.

I never said it was impossible, I said we need to slow walk it because it can’t be radical, not unless you are willing to commit literal murder. I’d advocate for accelerationism first before I advocate for killing people who oppose you ideologically.