How will Americans adjust to life in an authoritarian state?

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Sanders said you should peacefully protest or debate noxious speakers not ban them. Sanders is the most left wing mainstream politician in America. He is a true democratic socialist so by definition that makes one anti censorship. Also wokeness centers on group identity while socialism centers on economics. There are plenty of people who fit both categories of “leftist” but Bernie is not one of them. Bernie believes in working within the system because Bernie believes that while the system has been corrupted big time the main ideals are good. Wokes believe the system has to be destroyed and replaced because the system has been racist and evil from the get go, that the ideals have always been a smokescreen to cover this up.

Proud Boys were trying to overthrow the government. The Nazis overthrew a whole bunch of governments. MAGA terrorists have killed dozens maybe over a hundred. The Nazis killed tens of millions and you are seriously trying to compare them because they both are fascist?

The problem with overuse of Nazi comparisons is that it creates a boy cried wolf effect. People become desensitized to the terms Nazi and fascist. What this does is cause people to underestimate both Nazis and often the people who are being compared to Nazis. A good example is your conflating MAGA’s with slacker Bud Light drinkers. That is a stereotype that is often not true. If definitely is not true for the January 6th rioters.

They're both right. It's a matter of perspective. Bernie could use a few tweaks to the system, but doesn't perceive problems with a system that benefits people who look like him. More melanated people of the global majority have seen the systemic racism from the inception of the system and this don't believe a few minor improvements are going to get the job done.

Those proudboy dipshits would have been happy to kick off 'merican fascism nazi style if they got away with their coup to install that troll trumplestiltskin as their dictator. Let's not pretend otherwise. They got caught early on and sentenced to decades in prison for their BS, preventing such a downward spiral from occurring.. but let's not pretend for a second that they weren't aiming for it.

I meant bud light drinkers are the epitome of cancel culture, not anyone on the political left. The political right screams about cancel culture but then it's them who cancel things, like the most popular beer in the USA for one Major shining example.

Bernie wants a lot more than a few tweaks in the system.

As far as conservative cancel culture. No need to lecture me about that. I have been discussing this on WP for a while now.

That the Proud Boys probably want to be Nazis is not the point. The price Antifa members paid was getting pepper
sprayed, a bunch of bruises and maybe broken bones. The price American and Canadian troops paid were often being in a wheelchair the rest of their lives, being horribly disfigured for the rest of their lives. The price their families often paid was being widowed, growing up without a father. To compare those sacrifices with those Antifa weekend warriors paid is one of the if not the most insulting things I have ever heard.

Without quoting anybody, I can see that people are comparing the current state of affairs in the US with the situation in Germany once the Nazis had achieved absolute control and had begun expanding across Europe. This reasoning is specious. In fact, there are HUGE parallels between today's US and Germany in the days when Hitler was writing Mein Kampf.

This may be a bit extreme but enjoy:

https://www.salon.com/2023/09/26/how-you-lose-your-democracy-shocking-new-research-shows-americans-lack-basic-civic-knowledge/

And Britain. Refugees are kept in concentration camps now...

One of those people was me. You may be referring to a thread I started that got locked that compared America today to Germany in 1933 the year Hitler took power specifically in reference to “anti trans” laws. I have not changed my opinion on that topic. What I am offended by is indirectly related to that, the conflating of Antifa to allied troops in WWII.

Personal Note:
During Antifa’s heyday this conflation was commonly made and I was always offended by it but it was so common and accepted that fighting it seemed like a lost cause, and getting into social media spats is always a lost cause. But after a certain amount time I just had enough and vowed to call people out on it the next time I saw it in a non social media setting. Then Antifa faded and so did the conflation until Goldfish and here we are.



The central premise of the article is that lack of understanding of civics and the reasons behind these concepts is an important causation of our voluntarily throwing away our rights and protections. I completely agree with this premise. Even when we went to school in during the ‘60s and ‘70s civics was beginning to be deemphasized in favor of social justice oriented subjects. Since then this has only gotten worse with emphasis on teaching the test and STEM subjects. The purpose of the primary school system has changed from teaching you to be good citizen to making you employable.


Without this knowledge people are more vulnerable to emotional appeals and acceptance of authoritarian rule especially when the rights of those evil people are being taken away. In woke ideology the evil people are those advocating for merit and color blind policy to excuse a country that is and has always been primarily defined by systematic racism. For the authoritarian right it is a cabal of deep state transgender ideologists grooming your kids.

Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 27 Sep 2023, 11:11 am, edited 1 time in total.

I was not referring to that thread. In fact Antifa originated in Germany (although I have no evidence to support that) but the fact is that, when Hitler was still securing his grip on power, he was years away from battling Allied troops. That is why I question the analogy.

A quickie research of Antifa’s origins finds oversimplifying things that the movement is neo antifascists opposing neo nazis. There were anti fascist movements during the 1930s. Specifically Antifa is described as a successor to those movements originating in West Germany, Great Briton, and the United States during the 1980s in reaction to skinheads. These originators are described as hard core Maoists, left wing punk rockers etc.

wtf tho ? you're the one who just made that comparison, not me. guess you insulted yourself ?? (Although people were killed in the blm riots, as well as at the unite the right rally, and on/after J6..)

Antifa = opposing fascist ideology/system of government/rule. Full stop. Some went to war as necessary, others protest. Would it have been appropriate for people to go to war against magas and the proud boys a couple summers ago in order to better qualify themselves as antifa to you ?

This is from 1932:



Had Germans paid better attention to their message then, the world might be very different now.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifaschistische_Aktion

At least we have the benefit of hindsight. No excuse for us

EDIT I wonder what is the opposite of "false equivalency" IOW when an equivalency clearly exists but somebody seeks to deny it?

As explained above Antifa is not commonly used to describe people who protested and fought against fascism during the 1930s and the 1940s. Antifa is commonly described as a loosely or unorganized group of activists stating in the 1980s. Nobody associated with Antifa died on January 6th. Antifa and January 6th is a MAGA conspiracy theory. Heather Heyer who was murdered at the Stop the Steal as far as I know did not associate with Antifa.

Are you really comparing the risk of getting killed by a lone wolf MAGA terrorist to the risk the Allied soldiers had of being killed by the German military?

Maybe some Antifa members would have been great WWII soldiers. But we will never know. But they are not in that situation. Making assumptions is just wrong.

Antifa does not even face the risk that some people associated with “New Left” faced during the Vietnam era. Some did in a vague sense go to war by engaging in acts of terrorism. Others left everything behind rather than accept being drafted. Instead Antifa gets credited by MAGA’s for January 6th and gets lionized for being proper successors to allied troops during WWII. Life is not fair.

Allied troops stopped Hitler. What effect did Antifa have on stopping the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers etc? As you have been repeatedly mentioning it is the Justice Department that is making progress on that front.

The intention of antifa, as a theoretical concept, is sound.

From what I have seen of the execution of the concept and the profile of individual members of antifa and their behaviour, they are sorely lacking and cannot reasonably be compared to heroic allies in world war two who fought the Nazis.

In light of recent events, if Americans can't support Ukraine then I question whether they even deserve political freedom.

Fair. Some of that whackadoodle nonsense has spilled over the border into Canada, too.. with conservative right wing trump fans suggesting we shouldn't be spending money to support Ukraine in their war against russia, that Ukraine is run by nazis and it's none of our business if russia reclaims their territory blah blah blah ummmm wtf ?

1) That's russian propaganda.

2) It will cost less to defend Ukraine than ALL OF EUROPE if we were to allow russia to take Ukraine and then carry on into other countries.

Exactly.

And Russia have openly stated their imperial ambitions won't stop with Ukraine.