Finally, a chance to see what Hitler would have done with modern technology! (and a smaller brain, and even smaller hands)
How can a chunk of the US population look at this and firmly believe this isnt fascist
They don’t know the definition of fascism. There was a post on Reddit about a dude deciding to look up fascism and being shocked to find Donald Trump exemplified the definition. The conclusion he came to is that the Democrats have sneakily changed the definition of fascism to make Trump look bad, not that Trump, is in fact, fascist. There’s no fighting that or educating it in the time allotted.
Easy. They agree.
- They want it regardless of what its called or labeled.
- They’ve been lied to about what fascism is for decades by right wing propaganda. They’ve called Democrats both Socialist, Fascist, Marxist, and Communist in the same sentence.
- The government and influencers have tried to rebrand things like antifa as “anti-first amendment” instead of anti-fascism. Further muddying the waters with even more ridiculousness that makes it harder to educate through.
And if anyone tries to look at content in “leftist” spaces, primarily they notice the calls for everyone in the Western world to be murdered… which seems to reinforce the narrative that leftists are bloodthirsty and gunning for the end of the (in this case United States of American) government. Which, since you use Lemmy, you know is at least partially valid (as in, some do not for sure, but very many people very much do). Which makes them afraid and more likely to be reassured by thoughts of order, since the system (mostly, for now) works in their favor.
Put another way, whereas the left eats its own, the right bands together, to achieve a common goal, usually as protection against a common foe.
Our common goal: enable people to live good healthy lives
Their common goal: somehow be nazis, and also simps for israel
Pretend this is a Giancarlo meme format
Right… (but remember they don’t know that!), hence “centrists” (aka right-wingers, even if they think they are “left”-leaning) do not feel welcomed here.
And most of the people within this space seem okay with that.
I’m just saying what it is, not how it should be. They do not feel welcomed, we don’t want to change that, hence the situation remains as it is now, and will not change.
And they will vote Republican. With Facebook, X, and Reddit feeding their social media connections. And nothing will change.
You may choose to feel superior and schadenfreude if you wish, but for me I choose to feel sadness, and reluctant acceptance that there is nothing I can do to change any of it.
Oh, I don’t feel schadenfreude, but I know I’d rather help someone crack a smile in dark times than feed into it, there’s enough misery vampires around as it is
True dat
I also see how we all are mistaken, in some way or another. Including “them” - “them” is also “us”, in so many ways. Possibly not the ones that count, but then again I’ve been wrong so many times before that I no longer hold onto my ideals as tightly as I once did.
And as for judgement… yes they are wrong, but we are hypocrites as well, e.g. for both wishing that the Fediverse would grow, while simultaneously (1) not welcoming anyone into it (even / especially those of us already here), and (2) also not putting forth the requisite efforts to generate the very content that we would wish to see for ourselves. Our mods work to the point of exhaustion (a great example being lemm.ee), and our content creators too.
We cannot have and be literally all things, especially all at once.
So, what are you actually saying? We should start having the same discussions as on Reddit in order to make people feel more welcome? The whole point with an alternative platform is to have a safe space for those that do not agree with the opinions that is of a majority there, and might even feel threatened by those platforms; not mirror them so that we can “grow”.
Growth is a good metric for algorithm-driven platforms where ad revenue is the primary goal, not for a safe harbor for those that seek refuge from harassment and attacks.
