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this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2025
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I just saw another video of Theo Von clearly struggling with his support of Trump. I’ve seen so many others in that same position. On one hand, yeah, it’s easy to call them idiots for not seeing it sooner. But on the other, I get it. You go from being a comedian to suddenly part of this powerful inner circle, and that kind of validation is intoxicating, especially for someone with addiction issues who’s always chasing a high.
What frustrates me is how we, especially on the left, tend to fumble these moments. Instead of recognizing that some of these people might be waking up, we rush to humiliate them. We waste the opportunity to build something better just so we can rub their faces in it and get our own little high.
That’s something that really pisses me off about the left: the way we seize the worst possible opportunities and completely ignore the critical ones. Right now, yeah, some MAGA influencers are doubling down. But others? They're starting to crack. And instead of isolating them even more, maybe we should be thinking about how to help them speak about their shift in perspective.
I'll give a prime example of this: Liz Cheney.
Now don't get me wrong. I disagree with 99.9% of her policy decisions. And yes, she helped create the beast. But we keep asking when Republicans are going to finally say "I've had enough of this." and stand up to Trump. And she did. Again, say what you will about her policies but in the end, she literally put her career on the line and got excommunicated from her own party in order to expose Trump and attempt to hold him accountable.
And we responded to the courage it must have taken her to be the first prominent member of her party to break ranks with Trump by ostracizing her too. "HAHAHA now teh leopardz r eating ur face". We laughed as she was basically run out of politics at warp speed. Rather than at least try to work with her and use her to build a bipartisan coalition against Trump, we decided to get a few kicks of our own in while she was down. And then we wonder why nobody else from the party has followed in her footsteps.
I'm not saying we should have thrown her a ticker-tape parade or anything like that. But we keep asking what it's going to take for Republicans to break ranks and cross the aisle to stand up to Trump. How can we expect them to do that when that is how they're going to be treated? If the best Democrats have to offer them is to make fun of them and kick them while they're down, it shouldn't be a surprise that they stick to the abusive relationship they're already in. And I'm not saying that we needed to vote her back into office. But there was an opportunity to use the influence she had to at least try to build a bipartisan coalition against Trump and we squandered it because we have also allowed politics to get so tribal that anyone on the other side is always wrong no matter what and is always the enemy forever and ever and ever amen instead of ever admitting that they may actually have a point once in a while.
This is something that really bothered me about the recent election. It was clear that Cheney was only campaigning with Harris because she wanted to stop Trump not because she agreed with the policies of Harris. She was still a believer in "Republican" policies but understood the danger of Trump winning and did what she could to make him lose.
The left then said that because she was being put out there by the Harris campaign as someone who would help get people to vote for her that must have meant she agreed with all of Harris's policies. Which means Harris must have been a Republican and had all Republican policies despite her having multiple rather progressive policies that the majority of people support.
Instead of having the completely rational thought that if a shitty Republican like Cheney refuses to vote for Trump and says we should all vote against him then that's a positive and should help convince independents and non voters that this was such an important election, they ignored that and made BS assumptions and accusations about the entire Harris campaign. It fucking sucked.
The context was us asking for Palestinian or queer voices to be part of the campaign, and we got a neocon instead. We could have had "all of the above" but they were only interested in inviting those further on the right.
But there were queer voices speaking for the campaign. There weren't really trans people, even though there should have been. But there were definitely queer voices being out there. Also many many progessives campaigned for her as well. Fuckin hell Tim Waltz is an incredibly progressive governor and he was on the ticket.
As for Palestinian voices, sure. Those should have been there absolutely. But them not being there doesn't somehow invalidate that there still was a coalition of people trying to join together to fight against Fascists.
It kind of does though? It is like the inverse of the Nazis at a table story. If a Nazi stands at the door to keep Jews out and liberals are inside dining but don't ever talk about the Jews or invite a Jewish person in then it really does call into question what they are against the Nazis for.
I don't think that's what actually happened. I think people just used it as an excuse. I think it amounts to people not wanting to admit they are <racist, misogynist, Nazi, homophobic, etc> and are looking for an excuse, any excuse, to vote for their secret interests. "Oh I would have voted for Harris, but... She laughed this one time... And really, Trump just feels like a better use of my vote now."
That's fair. People were definitely looking for any excuse.
Dems never learn. Republicans will not abandon their hatred no matter how nice you are to them. They only understand cruelty. Republicans want nothing to do with Cheney and have zero respect for Democrats, and anyone to the left of George Bush hates Cheney. Mythical moderate Republicans were the only people who could have embraced Cheney im a meaningful way but they do not exist. Move left and embrace populism or lose forever on behalf of corporate donors who are happy under fascism.
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/liz-cheney-electoral-fiasco-kamala-harris/
They do not respect your opinion. They could care less what the mainstream thinks of them. If you are a Democrat what you actually believe has no impact on any Republican. They will make up whatever they want about you and believe that instead. Just fight already
Even in this very thread I see neolibs have not learned. Unfortunately just like the rise of fascism 100 years ago, neoliberalism once again is the kindle to the flame.
The thing about authoritarians is they never, ever wake up. They will justify, compartmentalize, excuse, hand wave, and intellectually retreat to protect their forgone conclusions. There is no reason behind their beliefs or behaviors, no knowledge or logic that led them to being authoritarian, and nothing will lead them out. Their identities, personalities, and egos are built wholely upon those foregone conclusions and to change their minds about those things is to essentially kill themselves and destroy their very reality, which is unthinkable. It is a mental illness that cannot be cured. It can be dampened slightly through first-hand exposure to diversity, but never completely cured. It is a significant, serious, and dangerous mental illness that has been allowed to propagate.
I think you are spot-on. Too bad I can only up-vote you once ;)
Yeah and that is the problem with team A vs Team B mentality at the end we are all in this together.
And the fact that it’s basically playing into Russia’s hands, who has worked to divide us and destabilize us as much as possible
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics
And is also the goal of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment
Which seeks to accelerate the collapse of all countries so they can be run as fiefdoms by billionaires
Ok - on the one hand we could permanently convert one of these folks from a die hard to a never-Trumper.
But on the oooooother hand we could get some social media juice making another tired Leopards Eating Faces joke. It’s really a toss up, ya know?
We should be taking pages from their own playbook and weaponizing their own converts against their own cult.
I agreed with everything you said except the show them mercy part. They are worthless animals not fit to be called humans and liberals again and again giving them chances is why we are here.
They don’t deserve chances. They deserve public mockery, shame, and if we can get things right again, exile.
Why do they deserve that?
How does it benefit you?
It removes them. At this point I don’t even care if it’s violently or non violently. I want MAGA and every right wing sympathizer gone.
That's the kind of attitude towards fascists that leads to complacency and a belief that it couldn't happen here or we're better than that. The most important thing to understand about a fascist is that they're a person like you. No one is immune to the risk of falling into it. All it takes is the right circumstances to incentivize a person, and there's a decent chance they will take up fascism.
If we hold that Nazis were monsters, or subhumans, or some other kind of beast entirely unlike us, we will never dig deep to understand what makes fascism appealing or what needs it serves, and we will miss the warning signs in ourselves and those around us should we start sliding towards it. I think most Americans missed their own country's capacity for fascism until it was right on top of them, because they had spent decades imagining the Nazis as some special kind of inhuman monster. That attitude is dangerous. Fascists are ordinary people like us.
You got it all wrong, pal. Tolerance is what lead to complacency. They need the same treatment thrown back at them ten fold.
If they lose a job, cheer. If they are homeless, tell them to ask daddy Trump for help. If they are isolated from family, play the small violin.
And why the fuck should we keep trying to understand them?
I'm not saying we should tolerate fascists, or expend all our energies trying to understand why a hateful person is hateful. But we have to recognize that they're not monsters or subhumans, they're people. Cruel and hateful people, but people like us. Those tendencies are in us all, but in some people they become totally dominant and in other people they shrink until they're almost not there. But they're there.
I came here to post a derisive comment, but you've changed my mind. Well said.
Edit: derisive
I tried to say that once on Reddit, it didn't turn well.
https://media1.tenor.com/m/NKO9zN6OzDIAAAAd/steve-buscemi-fuck-all-that.gif