Comment by estearum
9 hours ago
Yes, but they should be criticized all the while... obviously.
In fact, beyond criticizing them, they should be denigrated and made fun of incessantly. Ostracized and reaffirmed as low-status individuals, no matter how much wealth they can acquire through low-status bullshit, they'll never be worthy of respect.
Isn’t that how we got here? Making fun and ridiculing the low status, dumb people said “fuck you” with their vote for him, twice.
No, actually. It's a cute story but there's no evidence of it.
We got here by putting two of the most hated people in the country on the ballot against him, twice.
One was actively hated for decades by the ultra-powerful evangelical voting bloc and hardly loved even by her own party, then another who couldn't be more closely affiliated with the incumbent during a period of high inflation (globally) that ousted incumbents in virtually every election (globally) that year.
These are especially doomed against a completely amoral propaganda machine that's willing to say, in private, that the candidate is "a demonic force", while in public doing everything they can to get him to power (see: Tucker Carlson). Earning legitimate democratic victory against people who are quite literally and explicitly bad-faith actors is very hard.
And lastly, Roy Lee, Marc Andreessen and their ilk are nothing like the people who you're referring to. Being a low-status, cheating, amoral loser like Roy Lee is completely distinct from being a lower- or middle-income American worker.
> We got here by putting two of the most hated people in the country on the ballot against him, twice.
I hate this victim-blaming. Democrats deserve heaps of criticism for how they handled the last few elections, but Clinton was the most qualified presidential candidate we've had since maybe McCain in 2008? (I didn't vote for McCain, but it would be hard to argue he wasn't qualified).
You said yourself where the blame should lie:
> These are especially doomed against a completely amoral propaganda machine... Earning legitimate democratic victory against people who are quite literally and explicitly bad-faith actors is very hard.
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> hardly loved even by her own party
But why tho? And what does that say about voters who apparently "loved" Trump, a guy who mocked a disabled reporter at a campaign rally, more than her?
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No. Fearmongering and lying is how we got here.
The narrative of "oh if normal people weren't so mean calling out the awful things these voters say and do, they would have behaved otherwise" is simply not true. For them it's a matter of "winning" and "losing" and damn the consequences. Treating them nice doesn't change anything.
"Look at what you made me do."
Has it ever occurred to these low status people that their low status is due to their bad choices in life? No, it's all the fault of others: the black people, the brown people, the weird people...
> Making fun and ridiculing the low status
You mean like how Trump mocked a disabled reporter at one of his early campaign rallies?
No, I don't mean that. Being a cheat is low-status. Being disabled is not.
Americans actually agree on this, by and large.
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