• Five@slrpnk.netOPM
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    1 month ago

    I really like this quote, but it is not anywhere else online outside of this video:

    After chiding activists who warned years ago of the Republican Party’s descent into outright fascism, mainstream Democrats have now fully embraced the accusation. It’s become difficult to find a single Democrat campaign appeal that doesn’t lean hard on the warning that the Trump wing of the GOP – which is now the only viable wing of the GOP – represents an existential threat to democracy, the United States itself. Fight it, then propose something to meet the nature of the movement.

    It can’t be the case that both the Supreme Court is an unaccountable neoconservative body intent on rendering the whole country unrecognizable and that there’s simply no way to do anything about it. It can’t be that climate change is the single most important issue facing the world, with our entire species at risk, and drilling licenses need to continue.

    It can’t be that innocent Palestinians have faced unbearable suffering and we care very deeply about their plight and absolutely nothing will stop the arming of the nation responsible. It can’t be both rhetorical urgency and policymaking impotence.

    What the mainstream Democrat seems incapabale of accepting is that, for an even remotely functioning conscience, there exists a point beyond which relative harm can no longer offset absolute evil. For a lot of people, genocide is that point. Suddenly, another very persuasive argument takes on a different meaning: ‘Vote the liberals though he harms you because the conservative will harm you more’ starts to sound a lot like ‘Vote for the liberal though he harms you because the conservative might harm me, too.’

    In reality, not a single Western politician or party, not a single government anywhere in the world, can be expected to change when constantly rewarded this way. The argument in favor of voting for the lesser evil is frequently made in good faith, by people who have plenty to lose should the greater evil win. But it also establishes the lowest of benchmarks: Want my vote? Be less monstrous than the monster.

    One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad