https://www.resetera.com/threads/weve-reached-peak-nazi-jonathan-pie.92121/
Threads like this is what makes me question my sanity sometimes. I mean I know they are fringe but damn it's like no one even disagrees.
It's pretty revealing and I think behavior like this is also pretty common.
Jonathan Pie (I know it's just a character) does a good job of keeping the left in check. He's not Right Wing but also he's not willing to just let the Left do whatever they like without pushback.
For anyone who wants their "side" to be successful it's important to have these checks and balances that stop things from going too far or getting out of control.
For some people though anything less than the complete and utter destruction of their opponents is unacceptable.
This kind of approach almost always leads to total defeat because as time goes on the number of people willing to support more and more extreme views and actions will decrease.
How people reacted to Hillary Clinton is a good indicator.
For a sane and normal person the perspective is that if a candidate wants my vote they have to earn my vote.
Then you've got the party "fans" who will always vote for whoever is "R" or whoever is "D" on the ballot depending on their preference.
THEN you've got the more deranged types who insist that anything other than a vote for their specific candidate is an overt act of evil.
What you hope for is people who can say "if Hillary is the best we have to offer then we need to be better overall".
What you don't want it people who respond to that with "if you don't vote for her you are just as bad as Neo-Nazis".
It's the old "guys who just want me to talk about Science and Atheism and don't like my Feminist content are worse than rape threats".
Ultimately it's a losing strategy.
The response to "Jonathan Pie" ought to be "you know what maybe we should protect free speech and maybe everyone who disagrees with me isn't a Nazi". Instead they just want to double down.
So where are we at now? If you want the Left to do better you really need to shut up because any opposition to the most extreme elements gets you thrown into the pot with the Nazis.
How can they not see that this will lose them so much support?
I think we would agree that Trump and Brexit were big shocks. Almost like nobody was aware of what the public were REALLY thinking.
I can guarantee you that there are many people who were silent the whole time and who went out and voted Trump because they had just had enough.
What if none of that has changed? What if it's gotten worse?
What would it take for folks like those on ResetEra to realize maybe their way does more harm that good?
Lose the minority votes? Maybe the Republicans take one of the big blue states?
The states that swung the last election were all states that had been blue for decades.
Blaming it on Russians or Nazis seems like a good way to not figure out exactly why things happened the way they did.
That then becomes the platform for even bigger shocks in 2020.
These people are everything wrong with the Left and they are arguably fueling the Right.