Conservatives lie in their very word choices.
“Somebody pointed out I was wrong about something” = propaganda
“Conservatives lost” = it wasn’t fair
Stuff like that. Take the opportunity to talk about things in ways that leave the reader understanding more clearly when you see lying word choices like the ones in this screencap.
Im bombed by leftist propaganda
They are correct, but not how they think. A big part of conservatism, even among the less fanatical, is to bury your head in the sand. I can see how peeking out for some air will seem like a flood of propaganda. Like that “final experiment” that just went down to dunk on flat earth, but for even the most mundane thing about how society works.
That’s not really true. Going to specific places for specific things is very different to putting one’s head in the sand. If you make such assumptions about your opposing tribes you’ll continue to increase social division, and that’s the core of this mess.
Edit: Calm the fuck down. This is not where the war you want will be fought, and if it happens, you won’t be depended on to make a difference until the attrition gets really, really dire.
Edit edit: Ooooooooh. I’m in Reddit. A’doi!
The issue isn’t fucking “social division”.
It’s that one of the established American political parties went bat shit crazy and abandoned every principle they ever had in the naked pursuit of bigotry and power.
Any time you spread “both sides” bullshit, *you’re aiding a hard-right propaganda machine *
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Wouldn’t you believe it, everything insults them, everyone is against them.
Then why is conservatism still the most frequent mental disorder!?
John Stuart Mill has this to say:
“I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it. Suppose any party, in addition to whatever share it may possess of the ability of the community, has nearly the whole of its stupidity, that party must, by the law of its constitution, be the stupidest party… It may be said that if stupidity has a tendency to Conservatism, sciolism, or half-knowledge, has a tendency to Liberalism.
I have grown appreciation to respect some conservative ideas. As I grow older, I see why some look for stability. There is plenty of good debate when it comes fiscal responsibility and gradual reformism, but this doesn’t mean I would reject lgbt rights or support gutting welfare. But yes, generally stupid people seem to gravitate in the direction of conservatism or right.
PS. As a left leaning person, I also agree with Mill’s point about liberals but that is a different topic for another time.
Edit: autoco-wreck
I read some of their garbage. They are in total denial as usual. They think it’s all bots, apparently can’t comprehend that so many people would be revolted by nazis.
Of course. They can’t accept that they’re the weirdos.
PSA: IF THE TROLLS DO MIGRATE HERE, DO NOT FEED THEM. BLOCK AND REPORT IF THEY ARE NOT INTERESTED IN HAVING A PRODUCTIVE, CIVIL CONVERSATION.
I’m not interested in having a civil conversation with fascists either
Unless they come out the gate swinging, please be careful. I don’t know about you, but I want to get as many people as possible on board with combating the far right.
Attacking somebody who is legitimately trying to learn will only entrench them deeper in their prior beliefs. It might take a few sentences to find out if they are being genuine, but if you can change their perspective, it is worth it.
You basically can’t teach conservatives. If they were capable of learning and changing they wouldn’t be conservatives in the first place. Consider that the majority of self avowed conservatives in the US literally believe the world is less than 10,000 years old created as is and jeebus is coming back real soon now. Literally 30% of the US population believes this!
White supremacy and the flat earth are actually gaining ground in this group.
People do wake up from cults. It takes a lot of work on themselves to reach that point, however, and the most transformative moments (i.e. any epiphanies about their behavior or beliefs) will likely happen when they’re alone, outside of the public sphere.
That is to say, you’re unlikely to personally witness somebody break out of a cult. Yet, it still happens.
Does that make it worth helping them “see the light”? I can’t say. What I can say is that there are people who’ve been there, and there are resources available to help those in cult recovery. (Make no mistake, this is absolutely a cult.)
The best hope we’ve got right now is that as more things turn to shit, more people will begin to question things. Instead of reflexively downvoting or attacking someone who admits to having once voted for Trump, we’ve got to listen to what they say happened afterward. I want to hear people share their stories of disenchantment. I want those stories to be spread far and wide, to people who might be questioning Trumpism but who’re surrounded by his supporters and scared to make a move. They’re the people who need to know that it’s okay to change their minds. They’re going to need to know that they’ll be accepted by someone if they “deflect,” and we need to be prepared to welcome them to sanity.
We shouldn’t respond with comments like, “iT’s aBouT tiMe” or “Where have you BEEN the last 8 years?” (Both are paraphrased from comments I read elsewhere on here this morning.) I know it’s tempting to give out some sort of I told you so, but it’s not constructive and can push an ex-cult member away. We want people to turn a new leaf, and that means supporting those who admit to having been wrong.
(I know this took a turn from the original comment. I don’t intend this personally for you, OP. But after seeing how people react so aggressively to everything lately, I felt something like this needed to be said to Lemmy.)
Honestly, I kind of hope they do.
Every time they experience the slightest indication that their views aren’t normal or reasonable, they lose a little bit of confidence and a little bit of power.
Think about the “weird” moment last summer. Walz had Republicans sputtering and whining about how they totally aren’t weird at all. The best Trump could come up with was “no u!” I think, if Harris had maintained that energy, she’d have been inaugurated this week. And speaking of this week, Trump is all offended and in a tizzy because an Episcopal priest read him the words of Jesus on Tuesday.
The slightest speedbump or disfavor spins them out.
Now. What community on the internet is more disfavorable toward conservatives than Lemmy? It’s nothing but speedbumps for them over here. They’d last approximately an hour and a half, and they’d see a more united resistance than they’ve ever imagined from corporate-owned media. Some of them might even realize that the mainstream socials are actually preferential toward them, and maybe reevaluate some opinions. For a moment, they’d see how weird they are.
Filter bubbles aren’t inherently bad. But when they’re holding together an odious group in a terrible shared delusion, they need to be popped. Lemmy might pop their bubble, at least a little bit.
Let them come. I pity their bar tabs.
The moderation practices on that subreddit have created an environment where dissenting opinions are swiftly and permanently banned. This approach has fostered an echo chamber where only one perspective is allowed to thrive, reinforcing a cycle of confirmation bias and groupthink. As a result, most conservative posts lack depth and often resemble oversimplified memes rather than meaningful discourse.
Even when an opposing viewpoint manages to slip through, it’s often dismissed as artificial or the work of bots. This mindset reveals how deeply entrenched their worldview has become—so much so that they struggle to believe that differing opinions could be genuine. It’s a surreal and unfortunate dynamic that stifles any chance of productive discussion.
People are so fucking stupid. Liberals complain that Reddit is too conservative now. Conservatives complain that it’s too liberal. Well which is it?
Like someone said below, it’s the mods that are the problem.
Try to say something about Israeli genocide on Reddit and you will quickly find out it is also admins who are the problem.
