- cross-posted to:
- politicalmemes@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- politicalmemes@lemmy.world
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I’ve been on dating apps the last few years and while I always swipe left for Conservative, I also say fuck no to anyone Apolitical.
In these times anyone who supports or is ambivalent to the madness in our country is a shit person that I want nothing to do with.
Take a stand, pick a side or fuck right off.
I can maybe cut a little slack for someone who’s like “I don’t really understand politics or know history, so I don’t feel confident having a strong opinion” if they were curious and honest. We all start ignorant and not everyone had the good fortune to get a quality education.
But the aggressively ignorant and apathetic can fuck right off.
In your 20s sure. At my age there’s no excuse other than willfull ignorance and I’m not engaging with that. (I’m also not looking to date, thankfully)
Unless you had an absolutely shit background or a learning disability, not understanding history or politics is a choice they made.
I’m not holding it against them that their brains might not have been developed or focused enough at that age to take in the information, but if you realize you are missing something critical later in life and don’t make moves to rectify it, that’s also a choice
I agree and the only folks I give a pass to are immigrants, otherwise if US born there’s absolutely no excuse to choose being uneducated or choosing to sit out politics.
You could also be a genuinely non-intelligent adult who’s naturally vulnerable to the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Or you could be from a local / regional culture in which you’re essentially mistreated for entertaining progressive thoughts, or from shifting away from herd-thinking. Rural areas come to mind with all that.
Its not hard to fall for propaganda, its not easy to find information about politics that you can ensure is not misleading, doesnt miss context, doesnt contain false information
“I don’t really understand politics or know history, so I don’t feel confident having a strong opinion”
That was my stance when I was ~16 when Trump was first coming into the political scene… When I got more curious, I got shut down for even asking “what has he said that was racist?” like it was a crime to even ask.
I was sooooo close to becoming a right winger, because the right wingers would JUMP at the chance to explain why they hated the people they hated. I disagreed with a lot but I bought enough lies to feel like the conservatives were overall the ones to vote for.
That era of my life was so embarrassing in retrospect. I was a teenager, but still. I still have a Trump hat my friend bought me in my closet.
This is what the left refuses to understand: when you spit upon everyone who is even slightly less left than you, the recipients end up being driven rightward.
Example: Hexbear.net.Edit: actually, that’s a bad example since they aren’t truly “left”, just cosplaying as such while acting similar to MAGA, differing mainly in the words chosen yet similar in thinking processes, i.e. an echo chamber by a different name is still an echo chamber.Can you explain why communism isn’t truly left, and how dialectical materialism is similar to MAGA thought? Both of those concepts are highly confusing.
Also, the idea that political struggle from the left drives people rightward doesn’t seem to bear out in reality. I always see this concept coming from conservatives, but I have always seen it as an excuse for people to blame their own right-wing views on others.
tankies are more liken to conservatives then like to admit.
How are communists more liken to fascists?
Echo chambers that deny facts in favor of their preferred view of reality? (e.g. that Ukraine is the aggressor rather than Russia) Check.
Tribal politicking, where facts chiefly matter depending on who is speaking them? Check.
Refusal to update one’s viewpoint after seeing incontrovertible evidence that would otherwise demand it, if someone’s goal was truth? Check.
Making use of every logical fallacy to sow FUD in their opponents? Check.
A better strategy might be to stop thinking of humans as “opponents” and rather than “beat them”, aid their thinking to enlighten and uplift them by knowledge, essentially turning an opponent into a true ally, as opposed to merely a worn down victim of bullying practices.
Moral purity beatings will continue until morale improves.
All of what you said applies to you, though, which is why the only example you gave was the strawman idea that Ukraine is the aggressor, rather than NATO. No matter how many facts I have given you, irrefutable evidence, you generally dismissed it as “propaganda” while sowing FUD everywhere. Seriously, there are only a handful of people as obsessed with communists on this collection of websites that I’ve seen, and I only really recognize you because you kept mentioning me long after we had had a conversation.
Evokes this comic https://thenib.com/fault-right/
I mean, that argument seems a little… hyperbolic.
It is possible for people to disagree and not be dicks about it.
Sure, but “you were mean to me so now I’m joining maga” is pretty silly.
Some people are like that, I guess, but if someone rudely explains how racism is deeply entrenched in the US that doesn’t mean they’re wrong. Rejecting their message because they were mean is childish.
im guessing if you are not aware of trump and his history going back decades you would think he is “great”, alot of people seem to ignorant his past racist, business dealings.
I didn’t even know he was a celebrity before he got into politics tbh. I just knew he was brazen and 16 year old me found that appealing at the time.
Trump sure proved one thing, that USians don’t vote based on looks. Because a couple looks at how that saggy sack of rusty shit handles himself, should’ve been enough for anybody.
This here is the most to-the-point impression of Trump I’ve seen so far.
It took me a whole year to educate myself on all the current issues of today which led me to a decision to finally vote. Nevertheless, I don’t look back.
it started when russia was getting thier hooks into social media around 2016, i became more aware of it.
I understand if someone doesn’t understand the federal budget and stuff like that.
Buy that’s no excuse for not having a strong opinion about rape, pedophilia and genocide.
most people arnt that honest, alot of them that are ignorant about it and they dont think it affects them if they ignore it(so they think it will get them into arguments, so they ignore it as much as possible). the “apoliticals” are conservatives though, i suspect the even ignorant ones lean conservatives it comes time to vote, because they are less informed.
there was this clip of some kind of like dating show/bar event thing? Basically two people speed/blind date on stage and the audience waves green/red flags based on the conversation. Neat concept…
Anyways, man and woman go up and one of the first questions she asks is “who did you vote for?” and dude just shrinks. Does this whole “politics aren’t that important to me” and then “I didn’t vote”. And in the crowd all of the women are raising red flags. Because yea… they know what that signals.
In a later round another womans asks the same thing, and guy is like “that’s a personal thing” and “I don’t feel comfortable talking about it”… red flags going up.
This dipshits KNOW their poltical views are toxic to women. And instead of owning it, they’re trying to pretend to be “apolitical” because no woman will fuck them.
EDIT: I found the clip/vid.
Also, just realized, it’s the same guy. So first lady he’s like “I didn’t vote” and then later is like “okay I voted, but I don’t wanna say”… everyone knows bro… and that you’re still tryna hide/lie about it to get laid is pathetic.
Take a stand, pick a side or fuck right off.
I dunno, everyone says this of the issues about which they care but other ones are too large etc.
For example, do you feel the same way about say, sweatshop clothes? In that we should take a stand,pick a stand or fuck off?
Personally, I feel the 12 year olds making the most of the clothes I see when I walk down the street is much more important than most national issues in my country AND is something where individual action really matters but, it’s also an issue that requires actual sacrifice and work. Much easier to be angry at people online over politics…
I think there’s a difference between “I affirmatively do not care” and “there’s no purely way to be ethical, and that horror has fallen under my personal bar for attention right now”
It’s also significant if you go out of your way to say you’re not making a decision on the issue. That, in and of itself, is often a very significant decision to make.
If you’re not taking sides, you’re siding with whoever is the oppressor.
I used to think I could be neutral. Then someone told me that neutral can easily be manipulated. I settled after a year of educating myself. It’s impossible to be completely unbiased. People who say they don’t care, actually care too much, they whine and grumble about everything and wonder why it gets bad–they don’t do anything about the issues that affect them. It takes a really big leap to get out of the undecided ‘pit’.
I think it’s pretty clear that if you “have no opinion” in sweatshops, you’ve chosen the far right. Every normal person is against them.
Every normal person is against them.
Against them but also wearing their products, which is even worse. What’s the point of being “against” something then? It’s like saying you’re “against” trump but sitting out the elections.
You know that “but yet, you participate in society. curious.” Meme?
You uhh, don’t think you can participate in society using fewer sweatshop endorsed clothes? Like thrift stores don’t exist or?
Have you heard this term “fast fashion” being used more in recent years? That’s all about that
You don’t know that you’re allowed to sit out immoral trends, like fast fashion? Or is being trendy more important than what’s right?
conservatives should just stick to conservative apps, then again theres probably less conservative woman on those niche apps, as even these woman might find the conservative men too intolerable.
My side is that I don’t pick one. Hope it made you seethe.
You do realize most people can’t really afford to care about politics right? When you’ve got people to care for, a job to work, a house to maintain, hobbies to participate in to keep a sane mind, how much time do you really have to spend on politics? Because whatever amount that is, it’s not enough. All sides spend a huge amount on propaganda and to see through all that takes more effort than normal people can spare.
Besides, there are far more important things you could focus on other than politics. That might depend on where you live and how old you are, but most people out there just don’t see the effect of politics beyond the occasional headline and higher taxes/inflation. Why not then spend the time you would spend on politics doing something that has an actual impact?
Hard disagree. Keeping up with politics takes very little of my time, and I’m a “normal person.” It doesn’t take deep research to figure out how a platform could help or harm the things you care about. I don’t know a single person of a vulnerable community affected by political decisions that has no political opinions. The only people that don’t care about politics are those unaffected by its consequences, and thus consent to the status quo.
I work full time and I’m paying my way through a degree after returning to school as a full time student (18 credit hours). I maintain several friendships, a relationship, a home, pets, and hobbies, and yet I find the time to understand the political climate, because sticking my head in the sand isn’t gonna help me when ICE comes for my friend, or the government takes away my right to medical care. If you don’t feel the effects of politics beyond the occasional headline, you live a privileged or ignorant life. If you choose to be apolitical, you are choosing the status quo.
The problem with that like I said is your opinions and beliefs become really shallow and you pretty much just swallow whatever you feel like believing. To actually make sense of politics takes a whole lot of time, though most people, even on lemmy, actually know really little of it. However everyone on this platform is super confident in their opinion, though they don’t seem to able to debate it at all.
This was the big issue with direct democracies. You can help the problem a bit with representative democracies or republics, but you still have people taking a few minutes or sometimes hours every couple years to vote for the one that sounds better to your ears. This is how you get someone like Trump as president. People can’t really be trusted with any decisions about something they know nothing about.
One person changes nothing anyway. What would my vote change in a 80% conservative region? I’d rather spend that time on things I enjoy.
*Bit of a different situation in the US, but the US isn’t the entire world.
Your landlord cares about politics… that’s why he votes people in who make sure renters have less rights.
Your boss cares about politics… that’s why he votes people in who make sure you can’t form a union, and keep the minimum wage low
You may not care about politics, but the people who have a direct impact on your life definitely do. And the longer you leave it to them, the less rights you’ll have.
This is the stance of someone in for a long road of loneliness. Enjoy.
In some sense, kinda big of him to admit that he’s been privileged and unaffected so far? I feel like many like Dave think they are victims of anti-white anti-straight anti-male agenda or some bs.
he’s not aware that he’s admitting anything. he’s complaining that it’s finally happened
Yeah, this guy is basically saying “Hold on, isn’t this bad stuff supposed to be happening to someone else? It’s never supposed to happen to me, see?”
It’s amazing how often republican arguments end up coming back to the old chestnut of “He’s not hurting the people he needs to be”
Admitting there’s a problem is the first step in finding a solution and getting your shit together. Maybe there’s hope for him, unlike many with similar views.
“I don’t do politics.”
Well baby, politics is going to do you, regardless.
–Nina Turner
It’s worth pointing out that the democratic party came together to ensure this woman was defeated in her primaries.
So the politics did indeed do her.
2 women, even though the first one was not a first choice for most people. they know women is a losing strategy, almost 100% of the time a s president.
Do you want to say they never let women win justifying that with the fact that women had never won?
I mean, not everyone wants to discuss politics all the time, and that should be an acceptable position to have.
Just because you don’t espouse your beliefs at every conceivable moment doesn’t mean you don’t have beliefs or don’t participate in the political process.
I live in a red state, and I’d definitely say something similar if a magat tried to strike up a conversation about politics. Most of the time I just don’t have the mental energy to get into a discussion about it.
It should be noted that the comic is very purposefully using a woman of color for a reason. To say you are not political to someone whose entire existence is ruled by politics is to lay bare that you are privileged enough to be apolitical.
BS
You’re assuming we have any actual power, whether POC or not.
You’re assuming we have any actual power,
I did not specify much in my comment. Can you share who the “we” is in your sentence here?
I’d guess ‘general populace’ and while I agree to some extent, I don’t think people have no power at all, especially privileged ones
I think it’s ‘men’, but I want that user to admit they jumped to conclusions about what my comment meant.
Fair enough
Crazy concept but you can concern yourself with things that you don’t currently have the power to immediately change.
Did you actually read what they wrote, or were you just looking for an excuse to jump down somebody’s throat?
Oh my god, I just realized that you weren’t replying to me, my apologies. While I want to blame the cramped style of the instance I use, I clearly didn’t look close enough myself to see you had replied to the other user.
I’ll go ahead and edit my mistake, sorry again!
Edit: I followed the wrong thread.
I guess we’ll have to wait and find out.
Yep.
Totally agree. And especially when I know it’s just going to upset me and won’t change anyone’s mind. It’s a waste of my energy and happiness to constantly and pointlessly engage. Responding with silence often works pretty well, at least in person.
I mean, not everyone wants to discuss politics all the time, and that should be an acceptable position to have.
This is probably true. I mean, if I started going off about how the workers are entitled to what they produce and fucking Joanne doesn’t do shit, so why does she get a fat salary while we don’t even get paid for thanksgiving, I’d be fired. Wouldn’t even move the needle.
I live in a red state, and I’d definitely say something similar if a magat tried to strike up a conversation about politics. Most of the time I just don’t have the mental energy to get into a discussion about it.
But sometimes the smaller conversations can change people. It takes a lot, and it can be infuriating when they just don’t get it, or relapse after another bender on fox news, but interactions with people they see as in-group change minds.
I had a coworker way back that was a big homophobe, and over the months we worked together I got him from “we should just kill the gays” to “i guess they’re not hurting anyone i just think it’s gross”. I understand that there’s not always energy in the budget for that, though.
It’s common sense that it’s terrible for your mental well-being to obsess over things your have little-to-no-control over.
Politics makes that a bit messier because there’s the idea that we all need to pull together if we want change to happen. But ultimately you’re only 0.0000006% of the vote, and online political discussion is usually just in a echo chambers where no one’s mind is being changed. On the other hand you have a huge amount of control over what you expose yourself to online. If you’re choosing to doom scroll though content that makes you depressed and miserable, I feel like that’s a terrible trade off for how little (if any) difference it’s going to make.
not everyone wants to discuss politics all the time
Like, if you have a serious mental disorder maybe?? I’ve never met a single person who didn’t like politics. I’ve met octopuses who don’t like politics, though. Octopuses don’t work together to make decisions, they don’t have a society. They’re about as smart as humans, but their apoliticism makes them weak. Being the most political animal is literally the main thing that separates humans from other animals. Not even ants are as political as humans.
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Oh, that’s what this was getting at. For me, “I don’t do politics” is cause I live in the south and really don’t want to hear the other person’s opinion.
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I think everyone does politics. However, many people just don’t have an opinion on something because they don’t know enough and don’t have the mental capacity to
- Keep up with everything and
- Research enough about a topic to have an educated opinion.
Life is hard enough for many people as it is.
Everyone does do politics, and everyone is affected by them, even if they don’t realize they’re being negatively or positively affected. My mind goes to bicycle infrastructure when I think about this. Everyone can cycle, and it has physical benifits for your health, which people of any class can appreciate. Additionally, even if you don’t want to ride a bike or use public transit, you’ll appreciate the roads being clearer, and populated with only those that want to drive. The funding for these things is political, and everyone benifits from them, even those too dumb to realize it.
My mind goes to bicycle infrastructure when I think about this. Everyone can cycle, and it has physical benifits for your health, which people of any class can appreciate
Yes, but that is in my immediate community. I don’t give a shit about a bike lane in seattle. I don’t give a shit about a highway in australia. And the topics are so irrelevant to my daily life that it’s just not worth thinking about it.
At the same time it can be effective to say “hey this is working out over there”. That’s why I as an American care about Dutch traffic design. And from there bike lanes in Seattle are a way to say “hey, it’s not something that only works in the Netherlands and Denmark, it also works in a hilly American city”.
I totally get why most wouldn’t care about bike lanes across the world, but I figured I’d point out why I care about such things.
I don’t think those who “don’t do politics” are privileged. Many simply easily feel depressed hearing of bad news and literally tune out of the constant news cycle. But as others have pointed out, regardless of the reason for not doing politics, politics eventually do them. Plato once said that not being engaged in politics is letting inferiors rule over them. And oh boy, the world is experiencing first hand being ruled over by manbabies.
Edit: it was Plato not Socrates who made the statement
Some people also just get scared at arguing even if its friendly, because it reminds them of their parents and brings up trauma.
I didn’t do politics when I was a younger man. It wasn’t depressing or anything. It just didn’t exist in my world. I didn’t watch TV, listen to the radio. I did the things which I enjoyed and politics was a million miles from that. That did change within a few years though once I caught on.
And that is why I didn’t vote at the time. I didn’t feel “qualified” to vote because I had no idea about any of it. And that is what worries me the most in present time. People who vote without any idea what they’re voting for, or worse, people who are voting on a very narrow topic and nothing else. “Stop the boats” comes to mind.
bush era is many of still in k-12 became aware of politics, if bush hadnt gone to war all over, i think people would still be voting for the same milquetoast candidates without much outrage.
It is rooted in a form of privilege though to be able to just tune it out because it’s depressing
In my experience, privilege is rarely a factor. In fact, the most privileged people seem to be the most involved in politics because that maintains the status quo in their favor.
People who aren’t interested in politics usually say they’re too occupied with struggling to exist to read about different tax structures, the pros and cons of different immigration policies, or deciphering a local politician’s rhetoric. When faced with an immediate problem, such as a hungry child, and a more distant problem, like an unfavorable tax plan, most people will choose to prioritize the more immediate problem.
Yes, politics is the reason why they struggle. But can you really blame someone for placing a priority on day-to-day existence?
Going to work to feed your hungry kids is political.
Yeah people here seem to mistaking apolitical with not wanting to discuss politics. Someone who is apolitical doesn’t hold a stance on whether raping a baby should be legal or illegal. Someone who doesn’t want to discuss what age ranges should or shouldn’t be legally allowed is different.
Should slavery be illegal?
Apolitical - doesn’t have a stance
Doesn’t want to discuss - has stance, doesn’t want to talk about it
Well said, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head in between the lines. This has been my take as well, and personal experience.
I can and I absolutely will.
Exactly.
Either that or worked to the bone and left with no energy to organise.
If more people that were privileged and weren’t affected by things just shut the fuck up about them we’d be a lot better off. Like there’s no reason most of us should give a shit about gay marriage or what transgender people are doing. We’re not getting gay married or transitioning, we should mind our own business and leave commenting to the experts for whatever legislation is necessary. Instead we have all these conservative mfers throwing tantrums about all these issues and we all have to get involved to counter them just so people can go about their lives the way they want.
It could also be “If I told you my actual politics, you’d realise what a vile person I am and leave”.
This is my experience. Also their talking points are easily dismantled with simple questions. So they wont even talk about outside of their echo chambers.
Man the same post on reddit is wild, people wanting to implement auto bans for people who are apolitical like somehow that will help.
Oh i don’t really do reddit
I’m privileged enough to use Lemmy so why should i care ?
Is valid to distance yourself from politics when it gets too depressing IMO.
That’s the utility of revolutionary optimism. You have to truly believe a better world is possible in order to actively work towards that, and this can become an anchor to ground yourself when news looks bleak.
That. And we also live in a time when literally anything can be made political. Don’t like a movie…political. Don’t like American cheese…political. Believe trump is a rapist, convicted felon and pedophile….political. It’s just nonstop.
2 of the 3 of those examples are opinion, while one is a fact with supporting evidence.
Many Russians are apolitical, too. Not because politics doesn’t affect them. It’s because saying the wrong thing will affect them even more.
You mean like how in the UK a tweet will land you in jail?
You mean like how in the UK
a tweetattempting to incite violence and murder will land you in jail?Ftfy
So glad all the time and effort everybody has been putting in to end the genocide in Gaza has finally paid off… and Trump was convicted, so glad he didn’t get a second term… and those Epstein files. Glad all those pedo’s are in jail or dead now.
Sometimes you just gotta take a break from it all. The average citizen doesn’t have much power in small numbers. If some movement is gonna get big enough to actually effect change, you won’t miss it.
Yes and no. Take breaks when you want, of course. But sometimes you are there at the start of something, if you try.
