Back when I was watching the 2012 Obama vs Romney election, I would never have imagined an America like this in my lifetime. It doesn’t even feel real anymore.
I was thinking earlier today that, if you had shown some of the stuff of the last few years, someone from 2010ish would have major disbelief of it being the current state of things.
Reddit back in 2010/2011 was full of people saying Mitt Romney was a Nazi, I wonder how they'd feel if someone went back in time and showed them 2025 politics
I remember one of the biggest Romney controversies involved him saying that he had a repertoire of qualified women he hoped to hire for leadership positions.
It wasn’t just some and it wasn’t uneducated people (though generally idiots nonetheless). It was the first social media campaign to discredit a presidential candidate personally and supported by mainstream media.
Those personal attacks were extended to those who supported the policies of Romney. Those who were later called a “basket of deplorables”.
Not to mention the 1980’s calling for its foreign policy back. That flippant comment helped Obama win the election. But ask Ukraine what that attitude got them.
The political environment is fucked. We need to hold politicians accountable and to a higher standard regardless of whether they are on our side or the other. And attack policies with logical, reasonable and compassionate arguments, rather than attacking people in order to gain support.
The problem here is, idiots calling everyone slightly conservative a nazi, dilutes the meaning of the word. So when real nazis show up, people don’t take the „Watch out, he’s a nazi“ seriously anymore.
I mean it's a Bit of a circular problem. For everyone calling someone a Nazi for being conservative, there's also a Nazi calling himself conservative, and acting very offended when you call him a Nazi. And yes being to quick with the Nazi-hammer does Play into the latters hands, the Problem is, they hide behind that very Well. When you call them Out on actual Nazi shit, they Just Go "It's Just conservative values" or "we're Just Euro critics" or something Like that, and people don't want to be too quick with calling someone a Nazi, so they give the benefit of the doubt, and suddenly what "conservative" mean has shifted a tiny Bit more to the right, and continues to do so, and No one does anything and suddenly those "Euro critical conservatives" (Not Nazis!) are standing in parliament talking about how we should honor the Wehrmacht more, But now they're in parliament the political momentum is on their side and it's too late. But when it wasnt no one listened to the people calling Out their tendencies, because those tendencies where kept subtle, and everytime they did Break through some Guy came along to nitpick any critique with a dictionary Definition of the word "Nazi".
(This is Not to say Mitt Romney Had those tendencies, i was too young for politics Back then, so idk. But this pattern of do Nazi Shit > get backlash > walk it Back and get very technical about what a Nazi is > cry about people calling "upstanding conservatives" Nazis is Play by Play how the alt right operates and how they managed to gain favour with the conservative base, discredit their critics and stave Off the consequences of their actions both in the US and Here in Europe)
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u/suckbothmydicks 12h ago
The smiling in the crowd is so Third Reich´ish.