Absolutely, thank God I don't live in America cause the politics seem crazy over there.
this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2024
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Unpopular Opinion
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I wonder what the internet would be like if it was around for 1920s-30s Germany.
A huge part of the rise of fascism in Germany was Hitler's skillful use of media.
Most people got their news from papers, and formed opinions by talking with other people in person, and there was a robust culture attuned to those methods of information which enabled people to form a clear picture of the world, so that their picture was roughly in the neighborhood of reality. Hitler was able to manipulate the new mass media of radio so that he could distort and manipulate people into believing crazy things, because they still had the set of interpretations that were appropriate for an older set of media that wasn't subject to the same type of skillful manipulation. It was really effective. It was a big part of what led a fairly democratic state to freely choose to elect a person who literally went on to kill millions, on purpose, when anyone who had a clear picture of reality would have been able to see it coming a mile away.
I will NEVER vote for Kamala Harris, because genocide is a red line for me, and she's personally responsible for Gaza.
Politics is just too stressful, I try to avoid it.
I really think Jill Stein has some great things to say, I think it's a shame that the duopoly is trying so hard to keep her down when she's the only one who can really move things forward. I think I'm going to vote for her.
Voting doesn't matter. If you really want progress, you definitely shouldn't vote. I'm not going to. Why would you, even?
Whoops, sorry about that, I had some sort of fit at the keyboard. Anyway what was I saying?
It was a big part of what led a fairly democratic state to freely choose to elect a person who literally went on to kill millions, on purpose, when anyone who had a clear picture of reality would have been able to see it coming a mile away.
Just to be clear, though: Germany didn't elect Hitler. He was appointed by the President at the time, Hindenberg, on the advice of the ex-chancellor Papen (who believed he could "tame" Hitler in his post as vice-Chancellor). See the wiki. Something I'll find interesting if Kamala wins the popular vote and loses the electoral college.
Another quote from the same article, which has no relevance whatsoever to America and the GOP today:
Both within Germany and abroad, there were initially few fears that Hitler could use his position to establish his later dictatorial single-party regime. Rather, the conservatives that helped to make him chancellor were convinced that they could control Hitler and "tame" the Nazi Party while setting the relevant impulses in the government themselves; foreign ambassadors played down worries by emphasizing that Hitler was "mediocre" if not a bad copy of Mussolini; even SPD politician Kurt Schumacher trivialized Hitler as a Dekorationsstück ("piece of scenery/decoration") of the new government. German newspapers wrote that, without doubt, the Hitler-led government would try to fight its political enemies (the left-wing parties), but that it would be impossible to establish a dictatorship in Germany because there was "a barrier, over which violence cannot proceed" and because of the German nation being proud of "the freedom of speech and thought".
Impressive how quickly things when from "this is fine, we have this under control" to Hitler assuming permanent, unchecked, dictatorial power, he was sworn in as Chancellor on January 30, 1933 and the Enabling Act was passed March 23, 1933 - less than 60 days. By December, 1933, all other political parties were prohibited.
The Nazi party did not have an absolute majority, but it did come (easily) first in a free and somewhat fair election. Today, that outcome is generally perceived as winning. IMO it's too easy to blame institutions. In democracy, voters have responsibility.
Luckily, American institutions and democratic traditions are far more deeply rooted than Germany's in the 1930s. And then there's the federal constitution. Unchecked dictatorship is not on the cards. There are still plenty of bad outcomes short of that.
I'm not that optimistic. Like the "object to counting and send it to the House where they pick Trump" option, there was a spurious but plausible "legality" to Hitler's rise.
In Russia and China, the institutions still exist, and probably still pass general laws and adjudicate day-to-day matters with apparent legitimacy. But once Putin or Xi expresses his respective will, they are merely intermediaries and there is no independent check on their power.
Similarly, the press in Russia or China presumably isn't micromanaged at every level, but instead, like we're already seeing the first signs of with the Post and LA Times, preemptively compliant with propagandistic goals, with occasional punishments and examples made to keep everyone afraid of crossing the line (which is intentionally never clearly defined).
There are lots of ways that institutions are the illusion. Those institutions are just collections of people. People are flawed, open to intimidation. When Trump sends in deputized posse to arrest or beat non-compliant politicians, or editors, or judges, sanctioned by the Supreme Court as an official act because he makes some argument they were interfering with executive duties, the rest of the politicians, editors, judges will fall in line. They won't save us if Trump is in power.
The USA has 240 years of rule of law behind it, plus a century or so, or at least several decades (depending on definition), of genuine democracy. Russia has 10 years of those things, and China none at all. I think you underestimate the importance of this hugely different cultural context. I agree that this does not make the USA immune from authoritarian collapse, but the American version will certainly be less extreme than elsewhere.
I hope you're right.
Apologies für stating this, but this kind of thinking being superior to such issues is also part of the issue.
As an American, I agree. The common joke is that we’re living on the worst time line (a Community reference).
Well this is not an exclusive American thing.
I see Germany Italy Hungary France UK Turkey India Russia and Netherlands have entered the chat.
It's the world's most powerful military and largest economy, unfortunately for the rest of the world, we're fucking nuts too.
Hey, don't sell us short! We also tend to be ignorant and uneducated.
First past the post inevitably converges to a 2 party system, with all the frustrations that brings.
You see it as well in UK, Hungary, Turkey, ...
Be carefull whenever someone suggests: the prime minister/president/... should come from the biggest party. It can take a few election cycles, but it ends up with a 2 party system, as that's the dominant strategy.
Anything is better when all you engage with is mindless entertainment
I wish Lemmy was more entertaining, and not just a million Linux articles wearing a trenchcoat
Came to say this. Yeah. Echo chambers feel good, but they are trash-tier entertainment, like drugs.
Not unpopular. Lemmy politics is a garbage dump, the entire platform was created as a safe haven for commies and we're still reeling from it, with many users (especially from .ml) sharing biased news and "memes" that are nothing but propaganda and DAE AMERICA BAD????
Having political takes isn't necessarily a bad thing but when your entire personality is "capitalism is bad" then you're an insufferable twat ruining the platform for everybody else
Having political takes isn't necessarily a bad thing but when your entire personality is "capitalism is bad" then you're an insufferable twat ruining the platform for everybody else.
Man that resonates...
But what if America good? Harris! - lemm .ee / world
Idk about all, but hexbear.net and lemmygrad.ml are both unpleasant. I'm glad lemm.ee leaves it up to the user rather than censoring it from the instance level though
I like that connect let's you block an instance and then has comments from users of said instance overwritten with a spoiler-type tag. That way you can decide to read those comments or not (I sometimes open them in non political threads).
Filtering out words in posts has worked well for me. I can still get news/politics in small doses without 90% of the noise
What the hell is left to browse after that?
Lemmy is small enough as it is.
I don't disagree as such but, eh.
The obvious ones like cats, linux, and star trek but also meta-posts like these, comics, non-political memes, greentext, bikes, general technology. There are collapsniks and conservatives have been trying to settle recently. There's a wide variety of niche content but they are small enough that for every 10 visitors you need someone to post something. There's a lot here, it's small compared to extremely large sites but is still an active message board.
You forgot LOTR and German memes!!!
I like comics, movies and the piracy communities.... But even then like... Super quiet in there.
For me, there's so many undesired communities and political communities that it's easier to just pick the communities that I like subscribe to them instead of blocking everything else. There's too much to block
i kinda like the fire hose
I do check the all feed for stuff i like from time to time
That's what I was thinking.. that's literally what subscribe is for...
Even if you want that stuff, you get a much better perspective in World News and News communities.
Politics and PoliticalMemes is just a bunch of redditors who aren't used to being in a non echo chamber social media platform.
Dnc shills
There isn't a non political community here. Every mod of every community makes sure of it.
Mods sure seem to love the political posts in unrelated communities but God forbid you call a jerk a cuck.
Naw, they only like it when you are with them 100% on every detail of their extremes.
Lemmy is a group of closed in group thinking communities and if you don't fit in they will remind you of it.
That generally holds true for life as well.
An allow list is easier than a block list
that it do
Cut off one head, two more grow in it's place
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