The same picture
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149 comments
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Found the source:
Okay I read the source now and what I found funny is the part where people describe how "moderates" on dating apps are just conservatives. An observation I can regard as true in my experience, they are just self-aware enough to not be dismissed outright, but not self-aware enough to actually change a thing about themselves and become a better person.
Remembering how dating apps for conservative people tend to go down (only dudes, because what chick would engage with those guys...), I find it funny to see this echoed here again. There is, after all, no middle ground on most social issues anymore and we do good to see moderates as just another trick of conservative rebranding to obfuscate what they truly are.
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There is, after all, no middle ground on most social issues anymore
There never was, unless you consider supporting desegregation but not interracial marriage a middle ground I guess.
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Middle ground on social issues: "Separate but equal"
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Okay I read the source now and what I found funny is the part where people describe how "moderates" on dating apps are just conservatives. An observation I can regard as true in my experience, they are just self-aware enough to not be dismissed outright, but not self-aware enough to actually change a thing about themselves and become a better person.
This is DEEPLY VALIDATING thank you
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Some of them genuinely seem to be in some weird form of denial I can't understand. I lost a friend from his slide during covid who would fit this. Self identified moderate who only ever defended right wing views and the worst of the grifters.
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I experienced this recently with a coworker who talked himself in circles about how he cared about facts and logic and agreed with both parties on different issues. But...he spat out Republican grifter speech over and over (basic biology!) and talked about how he watched these "debate me" idiots online who showed how Democrats "barely ever back up their arguments with logic" while the Republicans apparently do (you probably know the ones, they're famous grifters but I don't remember their names), as if these guys wouldn't simply edit out everything but the most extreme people to use as evidence for their claims.
I have a line from a song I like to use when talking about these sorts of people: Spread the facts out like a fan on the floor, throw away the ones that make you feel bad.
Cognitive dissonance is a requirement for this kind of thinking.
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They are the same as early-2000s Republicans.
They are not the same as 2025 Republicans, who are literally thieving, murderous Mussolini-emulating fascists.
To be fair, still Republicans… just two decades apart.
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The early 2000s Republicans are the same people as 2025 Republicans.
Some of them changed their beliefs. They moved right - or were moved right by an incredibly effective decades-long propaganda campaign.
And some of them didn't change their beliefs at all - they're simply more emboldened to express beliefs that weren't acceptable twenty years ago.
Give it twenty more years and Democrats will be where Republicans are now.
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The current Democratic party is basically the Reagan Republicans with more emphasis on civil rights.
US politics have skewed further and further rightward for the last 50 years. On a global scale, Democrats are firmly center-right.
Bernie Sanders and AOC are barely left of center for the rest of the world, but in US politics they're "off the deep end."
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dick Cheney endorsed kamala
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Yeah, but 2000 Republicans blamed Russia for all their problems. And 2025 Democrats blame Russia for... Oh.
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They are not all the same. Notably absent are John McCain, and Mitt Romney. Even Mitch McConnell is kind of gone, with at least one foot out the door and much reduced influence. Meanwhile, thereva lot of newcomers that were brought in by the tee party and Trump, most notably Trump himself.
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I'll admit Trump is a lot clumsier about saying it out loud, but 2000s Republicans were absolutely on the same wave. Being virulently anti-anyone-dark-than-an-italitan, actively eroding free speech, and hating anyone who worked for a living has been standard conservative shit since at least the 1800s. If anything, the 2000s Republicans had more of a war-boner to boot. Trump did in fact bring the facism home a fair bit more openly, but let's not mistake a new hairdo for a new political movement.
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1800s?
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Their complacency makes me feel like they're just making people feel like they have a choice
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Most Democrats don't realize that capitalism relies on actual slavery... presently. They don't know that the products they consume revolve around supply chains that even include child slavery. They don't know the actual effects of US imperialism, regime change, and third-world exploitation. They don't know that an estimated 40% of US agricultural workers are undocumented immigrants — modern slaves, with no human rights. I'm not being hyperbolic at all, but I suggest everybody do their own research.
Democrats are propagandized to not want to come to terms with the fact that even first-world workers are slaves. They may not be "owned", but damn near — everybody is getting a raw deal under capitalism besides those that extract the vast majority of value, wealth, power, influence, and control.
Democrats are subjected to intense campaigns that include gaslighting, propaganda, and coercion, while critical facts and the actual reality is veiled to them.
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Even US military policy and the reserve currency is designed to exploit emerging markets. The reason the US can print so much money every year to fund all its programs is because other countries are required to trade in USD so will buy it even though its being inflated so much, and if they decide to trade in something like gold dinars they get overthrown.
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The entire US system is built on top of consumerism. Not saying we are better in NL or Europe, but the US really exploded the consumerism and abused the angelo saxton mindset. Well and the US has been corrupt for a while, probably since it was founded that doesn't help either.
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I think this also has to do with how "we" refuse to speak of left and right as actual sets of ideals as opposed to relative positions. As far as voters go they see themselves as centrist because they aren't far right fascists so they're to the "left" of them, but they don't agree with "the left" so they're to the "right" of them. Their actual beliefs though would make them conservatives and so right wingers...
As far as politicians, they just want to get elected and the Bidens of the world know they can't win as Republicans especially today.
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Right, most of these idiots don't have a clue what the Left actually is.
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Most of these idiots believe in what the left would have the chance to propose if they hadn't been brainwashed into believing that the left is communism is evil.
Social security? Accessible healthcare? Being able to live a comfortable life? Working hard leading to an appropriate reward?
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The wrong side of the road, that's what it is.
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That goes for all sides frankly
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People who call themselves centrist, are uneducated in regards to political terms. They don't know what they are talking about, but assume they do and they never go out of their way to educate themselves on these matters.
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Or they know exactly, but are straight up lying. Either way it means talking to those people is a waste of time.
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but they don’t
agree withknow anything about “the left” so they’re to the “right” of them.FTFY.
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That looks like an article in regards to a study. Is there further information? Would be really interesting to read the full thing
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Sorry I only found the meme. Sounds it should be googlable.
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Someone else in the comments provided this
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The problem is they have all been extremely successful at demonizing the alternatives. People are hesitant to even think about left ideas because they have been told their entire lives that they are evil.
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My main issue with the far left parties in The Netherlands is that they seem to have no understanding of how the tax system works. They would increase social benefits and tax income and houses more. I have seen plans that if they went ahead with it would be taxed even more, but I already get no financial benefit from the government and we make below the median income.
Of course there are more points that they are better at and this post isn't about NL, but still. I believe that there are a lot of people who don't get financial benefit from left parties winning or from right parties winning. Unless they get rich. And then the more conservative option feels closer to home so ofc people vote more for that. That's why you see so many conservative right governments in the west.
At least that's my theory and one of the reasons why I try to vote on competent progressive middle people. At least when possibile.
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The study doesn't match the headline.
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Seriously. The rhetorical shift:
Study of American men's self-reported political affiliation shows that "moderate" aligns pretty closely with "conservative."
Headline assigns "moderate" political affiliation to Joe Biden, to suggest that Joe Biden's policies align closely with "conservative."
Biden campaigned on being the most progressive president in U.S. history. Did he deliver? Not on all metrics, but whatever it is he did, he wasn't a secret conservative pretending to be moderate. The most you can accuse him of is being a moderate pretending to be progressive.
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Biden was a fundamentalist catholic who thought homosexuality was a sin and abortion was murder.
Everything he did that could be considered progressive he did as a compromise to his own values - that's what makes him a moderate.
That's exactly the type of person this article is talking about.
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Segregationist Biden is a moderate?
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"Men on dating apps who say they're moderate are conservative"
First, we knew that. Second, Biden is not on a dating app.
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See, moderate Democrats are just right wing. Republicans are closer to fascist. Your whole political spectrum has been wandering to the right for quite a while now. "Radical left" Democrats would be centrist anywhere else.
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That, and the democrats are at least competent when it comes to implementing neoliberalism...
I would prefer a government that is further left. I think it would be more moral and create better outcomes for the people, but until we have a chance for that I'll take competence...
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Ratchet theory: Republicans push things to the right, Democrats prevent movement to the left.
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This is what I've been saying about US politics for a long time. They've got two parties - the far right, and the batshit crazy right.
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Nha man the US has politic spectrum, it has only right or left, democrate or replublic. People are either for Trump or against Trump. /s
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In France we have a saying "Si t'es pas de gauche, t'es de droite" i.e "if you're not a leftist, then you're on the right wing" meaning that if you do not explicitly reject the paradigm supported by the right then you're implicitly accepting it and thus indirectly support right wing and conservatism.
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Seems a bit suspect and authoritarian..
Does it work in reverse? If not, why not?
My first thought was, that’s just GWB’s “if you are not with us you are against us”, with different words.
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I see what you mean and when I first heard that saying I thought so too. That's why I developed a bit after. In my opinion it does not mean "if you're not with us you're against us in an irreversible manner" at all (I don't fight against individuals, I fight against a toxic ideology). To me, it mostly aims to denounce the fact that centrists are actually right wing people who don't admit it. And, at least in France, the situation tends to confirm that : Macron was officially "neither on the left nor on the right" and it has become clearer and clearer that he is, in fact, completely on the right end of the political spectrum (if not worse for some of our ministers like Retailleau who clearly carries a far right ideology).
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I think the French saying is a response to rising Fascism. If Fascism is taking power in your society and you do not directly and explicitly oppose it, then you are at the very least going to be tacitly supporting it. By definition, centrism cannot fight Fascism, because it will always "both sides" the problem, which ultimately only benefits the Fascists. This is what we are seeing now in the US with the Democrats. The only realistic opposition to Fascism in this scenario is Leftism.
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Someone go get that guy complaining about 'bothsiders' on lw last week.
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The entire issue with “the middle ground” is that it’s based in relativistic politics which is a complete non-stater since their goal is specifically to not to commit enough to any action such that it actually succeeds. There’re no thoughts behind those eyes, just a weird and bad compromise because they don’t understand anything and are just barely good enough people to not go 100% into hating minorities.
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Yes! These people don't have strong enough opinions to change things, therefore they support the Status quo, which is conservative.
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What values are you talking about? You must have limited them to something like you shouldn't eat cockroaches.
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Leftists can pat themselves on the back for knowing this all they want... but the truth of the matter is that even leftists themselves have largely fallen for the propagandistic myth that liberalism is (somehow) "less" right-wing than it's fascist co-conspirators.
Just the introductory Wikipedia page on liberalism makes it perfectly clear that liberalism fetishises the very "ideals" that all but ensure the power and privilege of the already-wealthy at the expense of everyone and everything else (you know... the power and privilege that fascism exists to protect through the use of unbridled state violence) - yet I do not see leftists coming up with any bright ideas to fight liberalism in the same way that leftists oppose fascism.
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Liberals are fascist apologists.
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The do a LOT more than just apologise for fascists, I'm afraid.
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the truth of the matter is that even leftists themselves have largely fallen for the propagandistic myth that liberalism is (somehow) “less” right-wing than it’s fascist co-conspirators.
I believe the line is "fascism is imperialism returning to the core". But if you're living in the core, there's obviously a huge difference.
liberalism fetishises the very “ideals” that all but ensure the power and privilege of the already-wealthy at the expense of everyone and everything else
When aristocrats run your schools, you're going to get an academic view that's very friendly to their place in the world.
But that isn't strictly an issue of liberalism, it's the corrosive consequences of philanthropy. Powerful and privileged people fetishize themselves. The rest of us are left to rationalize what we see and hear from a privatized media.
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I believe the line is “fascism is imperialism returning to the core”.
I prefer mine - fascism is just colonialism coming home to roost.
But if you’re living in the core, there’s obviously a huge difference.
I don't really understand what you mean by this.
But that isn’t strictly an issue of liberalism, it’s the corrosive consequences of philanthropy.
I'd say that it is... so-called "philanthropy" is a perfectly liberal way of "humanising" the intended beneficiaries of liberal ideology - ie, capitalists. It's no different than the aristocracy "humanising" themselves by tossing alms to the peasantry.
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Uhh, which leftists have you been talking to? Are you sure they weren't psyops?
Since the majority of the population is liberal in the US. To effectively fight fascism is to work with liberals against fascism. We don't have to agree with liberals. Once we have some room to breathe we can then start picking fights with liberals again.
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To effectively fight fascism is to work with liberals against fascism.
You CAN'T fight fascism in alliance with the very people who literally invented fascist institutions (such as the police, for instance) to protect the status quo from the people at the bottom of our society.
The fascists ARE their allies.
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Well well well.
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Bothsiders are annoying. They're the same people who see the terrible crap Trump has done, and are like "but what about [tiny thing]! He's not all that bad"
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Trump is a far-right fascist authoritarian, not the typical Republican we are used to.
They are pointing out validly that the Democratic party moved to the right to where centrists and old-school conservatives once sat.
And you're allowed to disagree or see things differently.
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I don't think any both siders are around right now in America that aren't right wing.
In saying that, this post and your comment are examples of the left today being excessively socially authoritarian which labels anyone who doesn't completely conform the enemy.
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Both political parties in America represent capital instead of people.
I align with Libertarian Socialism, a left ideology. This is also a leftist/anarchist instance and community. We aren't Republicans in disguise.
One would have to have some serious bad faith or cognitive dissonance to be able to argue that both sides are the same as a person who firmly aligns with right-wing, capitalist ideology. Republicans thrive on promoting their differences in contrast to Democrats.
Left = Socialism, Right = Capitalism.
If you look at the Political Compass you will see that there are also authoritarians and libertarians (not the right-wing, capitalist ideology) on the Y axis.
Left authoritarians or left libertarians both are well educated on what the left represents. They are able to see the stark contrast between capitalistic parties and socialism.
Democrats are not left-wing or leftist — they most certainly aren't socialist. They only tease at being socialist.
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The problem is that we see that sort of argument all the time on the internet, which gives us a skewed view of Republicans. The right wing is loud, even leaving out the shills trying to stir the pot.
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Who the fuck cares? Biden isn't in office anymore. Judge by what he accomplished instead of pretending you all know him personally.
Right now we have a literal fascist in office. Something tells me that's a bigger issue. We can play the blame game all day, but unfortunately what's done is done and the time to take action is yesterday.
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But the problem is that this is the exact problem that led to the fascist taking office. The most historically unpopular president plagued by every possible crime and scandal, and the democrats run a Republican. That is why they keep losing. They keep people even remotely left of Republican, like Bernie and AOC, at arms length (at best) from the party, while propping up Joe Biden and Nancy pelosi (almost literally). And then they keep saying “this is the most progressive ticket in history!”
They’re selling out any possible goodwill hey had. Which was very little, if any. And then they turn around and point the finger at us. All while capitalizing on the fascists taking office and capitulating to their agenda, while the talking heads go on to and say “the problem is the party got ‘too woke’ and forgot about the everyday Americans!”
They have clearly failed at this since running a fake progressive in Obama, who also proved everything by running a legitimately progressive campaign in 08 and won by historic numbers. I’m not going to say it was the money behind the party that made them stop even pretending they give a shit…but it was (most likely). They are not a legitimate opposition party. And when the choices are between one of two, well that’s a massive fucking problem. And they’re not addressing it.
So, yes. There is a fascist in office. But if this foundational problem doesn’t get solved and the dems keep moving right (while the OW concept of “right” has shifted so far away from center), then the fascists will continue to radicalize, pulling the entire Democratic Party rightward with it.
That is a problem that needs to get solved before we can get a fascist out of power. Unless we’re talking…like, gonzo style.
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We just need an entirely new system.
The Democrats will never be truly progressive and they will always tease at being socialist. They don't even address major crises, like the housing crisis, the health care crisis, or the economy — they sit there and gaslight us while playing the blame game to excuse their inaction.
We need progress towards solutions, and they can't even address the issues. How can they work towards solutions if they can't come up with any?
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The Progressives and Democratic Socialists who once voted Democrat (or who voted Democrat anyway) probably care a lot that they are disenfranchised by Democrats.
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Judge by what he accomplished
Getting said literal fascist elected by doing fuck all to solve the problems he said he would, gave said fascist a pass by assigning a mealy mouthed investigator, and hanging out in the race long enough to help depress turnout?
We can play the blame game all day, but unfortunately what's done is done and the time to take action is yesterday.
We also need to understand why we got to this place, and saying "who the fuck cares" just emboldens the Dems in power to keep trying the same shit that doesn't work.
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The Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee called for using far-right candidates “as a cudgel to move the more established candidates further to the right.” Clinton’s camp insisted that Trump and other extremists should be “elevated” to “leaders of the pack” and media outlets should be told to “take them seriously.”
Hillary Clinton, the DNC, and mainstream media also played a pretty big role in Trump's rise to power back in 2016.
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We also need to understand why we got to this place, and saying "who the fuck cares" just emboldens the Dems in power to keep trying the same shit that doesn't work.
We already know how we got here, which is why it doesn't help anything to bitch and moan about how "both sides suck".
Quit your bitching and infighting and blaming everyone else, and focus on what we can do now.
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This kind of “same guy both sides” mentality is why you guys are fucked and why you fucked the rest of the world and gave us trump, he’s the same as Biden right so why not? You guys were like “we will never vote for Biden! Sick of old white guys. We need something different!”
“Here’s an educated black woman instead “
“… no. Not that”
The American left has splintered and nobody is good enough or left enough for anyone else, if you’re even slightly right or even left of someone you may as well be a genocidal Nazi. What’s an ally? No such thing to American leftists anymore, you either conform 100% or you’re a Nazi. Meanwhile the right united and smoked you guys. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, the American left has to reflect American culture, after all you’re American, so no wonder the American left lost their mind.
By the way, im shitting on American leftists only, we leftists around the world still have a brain and are shaking our heads at you guys
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Ah yes, the liberal mentality where leftists are somehow both completely irrelevant as a voting bloc that politicians need to court, and at the same time leftists are solely responsible for any and all votes not received by whatever incompetent candidate the liberals presented.
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Your comment only proves my point. This whole “liberal” being used in a derogatory way because you al think we should speak like Americans, and if you’re a liberal so what? I’m not an idiot who thinks a liberal is the same thing as maga, I have nuance. I am far more left than you but again proving my point, i disagree with you so therefore I must be maga right? You guys want no allies anymore, and then you cry that nobody takes your side. The American left has become extremists, and just as toxic as the right but in the opposite way
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American liberals fucked themselves and the rest of the world.
American capitalist democracy has been failing for more than a decade and liberals have done nothing but defend it from reform.
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The u.s needs young progressives, I never caught on to Bernie. How are people gonna complain about old white, wealthy men being i power while asking for Bernie?? Makes no sense. He’s got great ideas but can’t win and is too old. Hopefully AOC gets to be president before she becomes a corrupt career politician
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