#Boomers who fought tooth and nail for civil rights

[tobiasdrake]

Survivorship bias. We think of older media as inherently superior to new media because the only older media still around is the stuff people thought was good. When really, older media has simply been curated by time.

i do think theres something sad about how largely only the literature that's considered especially good or important is intentionally preserved. i want to read stuff that ancient people thought sucked enormous balls

[slickbackdani]

My Thoughts on Never-Trumpers

For those wondering how our election got to be as fucked up as it is, all the blame lies squarely at the feet of the “never Trump” movement who claimed that their only goal was to get Trump out of office no matter what, and the only way to do that was to convince Democrats to nominate a corporate centrist candidate whose only strategy is to bend over backwards to appease the GOP.

So, here’s my question to all of you saying “anyone but Trump” and “vote blue no matter who:” where were these calls for unity when Bernie Sanders was the front runner? For a party supposedly on the left, these “never-Trumpers” have fought tooth and nail to prevent an actual leftist from winning the nomination.

Want some examples? Chuck Todd AND Chris Matthews explicitly compared Bernie Sanders to Adolf Hitler — Todd by calling Bernie’s supporters “brown shirts” and Matthews by comparing Bernie’s victory in Nevada to Hitler’s invasion of Poland. Two problems with this comparison: Bernie’s platform is one of pacifism, civil liberties, and equal rights for everyone; i.e. the exact opposite of Nazi Germany. Second, BERNIE IS A JEW WHO LOST FAMILY MEMBERS TO THE HOLOCAUST!

Chris Matthews also admitted that he doesn’t know what socialism is, but agreed with the Republican assertion that it’s evil far-left communism that will lead to public executions of the wealthy elite. Unfortunately, these people seem to be stuck in the 1950s, when pretty much everyone who didn’t blindly agree with capitalism or the conservative status quo was labeled a “communist” by default. In reality, not only are communism and socialism NOT THE SAME THING, but Bernie’s record shows he is a strong supporter of individual liberties and has always been firmly against authoritarianism of any kind.

Then we had the civility police getting on Bernie’s case for being “angry” and “divisive” and “exclusionary.” I went to a Bernie rally, and I sure as fuck didn’t feel excluded or divided. On the contrary, I listened to what he actually said and heard his message of bringing together people from all walks of life — regardless of ethnicity, skin color, gender identity, sexual orientation, economic class, or religion — and uniting to make the United States a safer and more prosperous place for everyone.

Sure he raises his voice when he speaks, but so what? He yells because he cares. He yells because he’s passionate about his politics. He yells because he wants people to hear his message.

People who get on Bernie’s case for being “angry” or “shouty” or whatever are committing the classic fallacy of prioritizing style over substance. Just because you don’t like the style that doesn’t mean you can reject the actual message out of hand— but even if we’re talking about style alone, Bernie’s still better. We Millennials just don’t go for the folksy good-ol-boy schtick the boomer media fawns all over; it’s boring to us. Someone who’s passionate and outspoken gets us excited and energized about politics. You were raised on cowboy movies. We were raised in superhero movies.

One of the stupidest examples of the media pearl-clutching over Bernie was their horror to discover that he actually dared to commend Fidel Castro for improving literacy rates in Cuba; one of the hosts of The View compared it to complimenting Hitler for being “a good orator.” Two problems with that comparison: one, Castro wasn’t even CLOSE to being the monster that Hitler was: two, again, calling Hitler a good orator is a comment on his STYLE, while Bernie’s remarks were based on the SUBSTANCE of Castro’s policies. Also, at no point did Bernie ever defend or justify the human rights abuses of Castro’s regime; all he did was point out the objective fact that they did one thing right. As one Internet commenter put it, “All authoritarianism is bad, obviously, but not all dictatorships are unadulterated evil.” Of course, that’s not getting into the countless dictatorships the US government has ACTUALLY supported over the last several decades, or the fact that one of Obama’s most lauded accomplishments was improving relations with Cuba. A guest caller actually brought up that latter point to the hosts of The View, and they responded by getting angry and telling the caller to shut up.

Some of Bernie’s critics didn’t even try to hide their pro-corporate bias. One MSNBC anchor said the fact that Bernie speaks to the lower economic classes automatically makes him a demagogue. THIS JUST IN: MSNBC DOESN’T CARE ABOUT POOR PEOPLE!

The husband of one of John Hickenlooper’s wrote an opinion piece calling Bernie “the Trump of the left,” his main evidence being Bernie’s promise to hold billionaires and corporations accountable for their greed and corruption, a promise which the author compared to Trump’s encouragement of hate crimes against immigrants and people of color. Just in case you needed a reminder that billionaires are spoiled children who cry “discrimination” whenever their pampered lifestyles are threatened even slightly.

Another MSNBC anchor actually took it a step further, saying the Bernie is WORSE than Trump, and that he would gladly vote to have Trump re-elected just to prevent Bernie from winning. I guess to a straight white man with millions of dollars in the bank, the threat of an authoritarian white supremacist regime pales in comparison to the absolute horror of giving poor people free health insurance and a living wage.

I’ve seen so many members of the so-called “woke” left on Twitter coming out against Bernie in the primary. He’s the one who’s responsible for bringing to the mainstream the policies they claim to support (like a Green New Deal and Medicare for All,) but when it came time to vote for him, they demonized him and shouted him down out of petty revenge for his failure to pledge his eternal fealty to Saint Hillary, and they instead fell in line behind a credibly accused sexual predator who’s too senile to form a coherent sentence and whose record shows him siding with the right wing on every major issue.

All of this is because of the “never-Trump” Republicans like David Frum, Max Boot, Bret Stephens, Bill Kristol, and Meghan McCain. Democrats were so desperate to believe that Trump’s presidency wasn’t normal that we took these staunch conservatives at their word when they claimed to be on our side. They managed to infiltrate our party and drag it further to the right by claiming to be part of some grand “resistance movement,” when in reality, they all want the same things Trump wants. They’re just more polite about asking for it.