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It's funny, if you go on most political subs on Reddit, a solid 3rd or more of posts are people asking "why do our opponents dumb and not agreeing with us when we are so smart and good?" (hexbear.net)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by Sons_of_Ferrix@hexbear.net to c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net

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And 90% of the replies are people going "cuz they are dumb and bad!" and maybe like three guys heavily downvoted at the bottom trying to provide an actual explanation.

Not saying we NEVER get posts like that here. But the whole practice of making posts like these weekly/daily/hourly just screams insecurity to me. I feel like us HexBear commies are all pretty aware of why our opponents don't agree with us and don't need daily session of us all collectively reminding each other.

Edit: typo

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[-] ReadFanon@hexbear.net 32 points 7 months ago

They are uneducated
They don't even understand their own interests
They are just plain bad or morally reprehensible
They are all aspiring dictators
They are mentally "defective"
It's a cult/they are brainwashed
Something ageist - either they are either a bunch of old people who are out of touch and/or senile or they are a bunch of whiny college students who haven't worked a real day in their lives

(Not intending to make a particular comment about anything but these are the boilerplate replies that I see right across the spectrum.)

Extra points if you wrap it all up in allegorical stories that are part of the popular zeitgeist; 1984, The Hunger Games, Harry Potter, Warhammer 40k, Avatar: The Last Airbender etc.

[-] Sons_of_Ferrix@hexbear.net 18 points 7 months ago

Tbf we kind of have our own versions of a lot of these, there's some truth to them too. But we at least try and put some materialist analysis in there, there's a reason a lot of people are uneducated, aspiring dictators, just plain bad.

[-] ReadFanon@hexbear.net 16 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Yeah, I'd say that it's true that we use a lot of these.

I think the qualitative difference is that there's grounds for a lot of what we accuse the other sides of, whereas this doesn't necessarily apply in the other direction (or they'll find the most unhinged PatSoc Hinkler and claim that this person is representative of all communists in order to argue the above.)

Another part of it is how much we use these terms in a strict sense. For example, I'd say that diehard Trump supporters are legitimately close to being cultists whereas I'd say that the vote blue no matter who crowd is "cult-like" in how they basically argue that the DNC cannot fail you, it can only be failed by you. But I'm not going to say that I legitimately believe that it's an actual cult. Same goes for liberal indoctrination; I might use the term "brainwashed" but I'm not actually arguing that they're legitimately brainwashed, it's just a hyperbolic way of referring to the level of indoctrination they have and it's useful as shorthand.