I've been shushing people who say there won't be free #elections in the #USA anymore

[regguy@mstdn.social]

@benroyce And write it in COBOL to run on IBM 360 systems in keeping with the IRS system.

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@RegGuy 😂

[wry@mstdn.social]

@benroyce I keep telling people this is the real reason he keeps saying it. If everyone gives up hope then it doesn't matter if it's true or not.

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@wry

Unfortunately there's enough mindlessly cynical cowardly spineless Americans out there that #prematureCapitulation is a real effect. These losers (literally, not an empty insult) just give up merely because malice exists in the world. In some ways they are worse than #MAGA. You can fIght MAGA. What can you do with empty inert lumps ready to just submit? #Cynicism is acceptance

[asbestos@pnw.zone]

@benroyce
There is no one as tedious and annoying as the "both sides suck" "you're just voting for the lesser of two evils" edgelords

[em_and_future_cats@mastodon.social]

@PamelaBarroway @benroyce
Amen sister ‼️

[em_and_future_cats@mastodon.social]

@benroyce This ^ , this makes me so weary, tired (& somewhat angry) that I hear people saying things like this… & *some* are definitely not naive & are very learned people (who are much older than me & have had a lot more experiences) But they don’t seem to understand, well, this ^!
I keep fighting them back when they say things like this. Sometimes it just comes down to “this is not the country I’m fighting for” & I just tell them that they are going to make it worse by talking like that .

[darkphoenix@universeodon.com]

@benroyce @wry sheeple

[em_and_future_cats@mastodon.social]

@benroyce regardless how I have been “mistaken” about the core values of this country… it still has to be said that there are enough of us who believe that this is the “land of the free and the home of the brave” for ANYONE who calls this country their home… and that’s the country that I want to see “reborn” as it were… and none of this white-supremacy Nazi tolerance. 😾✊🗽

[wry@mstdn.social]

@benroyce I have more hope than this. It's why I haven't stopped talking to people about it.

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@em_and_future_cats

This whole era has taught me so many on the right are ignorant bigots. Which you could say I should have known and I agree but I did expect more infighting and not such vast meek complicit silence from so called "patriotic conservatives" against obvious fascism

But also much more sadly many on the left are impotent spineless whiners who won't fight

Vote. Protest

Wringing your hands and paralyzed in mindless cynicism and toxic idealism is just pure loser

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@wry

Thank you. I'm a hothead and a loud mouth and I just yell at them. But I admit your approach is more constructive

[wry@mstdn.social]

@benroyce Hotheads have their place too. It will take all of us to survive this mess.

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@wry

The good cop bad cop routine

We'll make it work

[wry@mstdn.social]

@benroyce 😆

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@em_and_future_cats

💪

[starkrg@myside-yourside.net]

@benroyce @em_and_future_cats When you say "the right" do you mean "the American right" or "the right everywhere except the US"? Because *normal* moderate right are only slightly bigoted. The Democrats are moderate right (which hasn't really changed for their very long history, significantly longer than the party that calls themselves old), the Republicans are literal extremists, though they weren't always.

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@StarkRG @em_and_future_cats

I agree but absolute ideological position globally has no meaning. The left in Saudi Arabia might be to the right of the right in Denmark but the only metric that matters is the push and pull to either side of the ideological center of a particular country

It does no good to say "the left in the USA is the right somewhere else" because all we care about is making the USA more left. We work with what is and iterate. This perspective is the only effective perspective

[starkrg@myside-yourside.net]

@benroyce @em_and_future_cats I mostly disagree. By any definition, the Democrats are conservative, they maintain the status quo, only doing the minimum to show that they're better than Republicans, and they *definitely* are, don't get me wrong. Now, it's entirely reasonable to argue that conservative and right-wing don't mean the same thing, but they usually do. The closest the US has to a left wing, the Green party, is a joke, something to make the Democrats' centric stance more reasonable.

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@StarkRG @em_and_future_cats

Again you're absolutely right. I'm just asserting that the functional perspective is more important than the structural perspective. We both want the USA to be more left. I'm concerning myself with how to do that while meanwhile this 10,000 foot view of the status quo you're providing while accurate doesn't provide any analytical value of how to do that.

We start where we are and iterate left. That where we start sucks is true but noting that it sucks doesn't help