So...as I said yeaterday, I checked out a lot of Dero Goi's solo work since he went all nuts and fundie christian. And it did give me some insight into the right wing mindset. And it was triggering. I mean, in some ways, I actually have religious trauma syndrome from Christianity. And being exposed to that worldview again....is kinda bringing back flashbacks.
Why do I bring this up? Because here's the thing. I kinda can get into these peoples' heads and understand them. When I dissect this right wing art, I mean, to the uninitiated, it just sounds crazy, but Im familiar with their underlying worldview, and I'm kind of connecting some dots and making some disturbing connections that relate to our current political environment.
Honestly, Ill say it. The situation we are in is worse than I thought. We might be witnessing the destruction of the modern left and backsliding into right wing extremism as a society. I know Dero is german, but these attitudes are INSANELY common in the US. And if these works are indicative of how a lot of people think, we are in trouble.
I think COVID broke everyone's brains. The lockdowns and all of the guidance the left has engaged in has led to a right wing resurgeance. Just as the 2008 recession drove us left, the 2020 COVID thing is driving us back to the right.
People dont trust experts. They dont trust science. THey dont trust vaccines, and masks, and medical guidance. THey think it's literally 1984, as Dero has made perfectly clear. And this stuff is leaning into a lot of religious extremism too. ANd let me tell you something about these extremists. They have a MASSIVE persecution complex. Like if you look into dero's recent videos, one is called Saturday and is about him being in front of a judge being judged and he's basically like, think what you want of me while pushing bible verses. Like, these guys, are radicals. Like, the thing about christianity. It was literally forged in the face of intense persecution. The romans used to feed these people to lions. The bible has a lot of really encouraging books and verses that suggest you should be willing to die for the faith. They wont take up arms against you per se, but they will joyfully, gleefully, accept whatever persecution you throw at them.
And the left...in the past decade, has gone itself in this weird illiberal direction. We keep trying to police what these people can say and believe. We do it to stop their ideology from sprading,, but because these guys have this persecution complex, they dont care, they literally are that extreme. You can't just trying to regulate what they say by cracking down on fake news. You cant tell them they;re bigots for opposing LGBT+. They will double, triple, and quadruple down.
And the left, since the 2016 election, has been shifting toward trying to control what people say and think. For these guys, that's LITERALLY 1984. Once again, hence the video. Like from our perspective we're trying to stop dangerous extremist ideologies but for them, we're the thought police trying to control what they think, and they will fight you like they're resisting tyranny in response. And because everything for the right is culture war, a war between worldviews, they will happily endure whatever they throw at you.
And in this modern age, it seems like the left's war on misinformation and "hate" is just leading to the right winning. Like Ive known this for a while, I pointed out trevor's axiom as early as back in 2016 and how the left are really unpopular and hit the wrong notes. But yeah. heres the thing. I listen to people on the right once in a while. I try to listen to what they think. We ask them if they're regretting trump, they'll say, "why do we regret trump? he's doing what we voted for". They LIKE this guy. They LIKE him cutting government. They like his war on "woke" and "DEI". THey LIKE him deporting immigrants. They LIKE him allowing COVID skepticism and denialism.
And that's the thing. Keep in mind the biggest third party challenge this past election cycle. It as RFK. The COVID denial guy, the anti vaccine guy, the "we live in a society that makes everyone sick and stuff being natural is better" guy. People LIKE him. And going back to dero's videos...I was getting some of that in his 1984 video. How big brother government is making people get sick by taking the vaccine and how we need to go back to nature...which...also includes....the bible? Yeah. But yeah, you see how this covid skepticism movement is starting to merge with the biblical crazies? Like, it is. We're seeing a realignment, but it's a realignment from HELL. On the one side are the experts who know what they're doing and try to control what people think and say, and on the other are all the stupid people acting like they're persecuted for the former group trying to crack down on their delusions.
What's the answer to this? Well, I don't have a full answer. Ultimately, we DO need to fight them in a culture war manner similar to them. I dont think we should concede to them, to meet them half way. Thats the worst thing we can do. I dont wanna be them, no one on the left does. We need an alternative vision.
But what we have to do, we have to drop the wokeness, for one. Those guys wanna persecute anyone who expresses any form of "hatred or bigotry" and that involves homophobia and transphobia that exists within christianity. And again, if we die on this hill, the right will die on theirs, because persecution complex. And they will win. Because they are more popular than we are. Trying to force cultural supremacy vs censorship isn't gonna work. The same applies with combatting anti vax nonsense. We cannot win the culture war by brute force. We have to win the hearts and minds of people.
I've known this for a while. Because again, I used to be a right winger. Hell, it's why the new atheist movement was always for freedom of speech and thought. The last thing we wanted to do was to trigger these guys stupid persecution complexes. Because they thrive on fighting imaginary enemies. If we give them a REASON to think they're being persecuted, which wokeness and various wars on misinformation do, we're gonna lose! And we ARE losing! WE ARE LOSING THE CULTURE WAR! It''s not that our ideas are bad. It's that our strategy sucks. We need to regroup and retool. We need to invent a new left, or go back to an old one. Maybe a combination of the two. We need to respect their rights and liberties, the last thing we should do is to make them feel persecuted as it just makes them even stronger. And we need to fight on our own terms.
It's as I always said it, whoever comes off as authoritarian loses these wars. During the obama years, the religious right were starting to look full on crazy and their worldview was starting to collapse. But because the left keeps fumbling the ball, now WE look crazy and unhinged. I keep saying it, ditch the wokeness, embrace libertarianism. We're in a chinese finger trap. The more you fight it, the worse it gets. You kinda gotta relax it a bit, not panic, and then it will come off.
And as someone who wishes nothing more than for the right's worldview to enter the dustbin of history, we DO need to fight them. But we need to fight them on our terms, and make our arguments for our own views. We gotta convince the public that THEYRE the crazy authoritarians and that they're the ones out of touch. We do that by letting them come off as crazy. So let them lead the assault on the culture war and mess it up. We just need to sit back and say we want everyone to be able to do what they want and what persecution are you talking about and you;re the crazy ones who wanna force your views on everyone. THAT'S how we win.
The left IS the right side of history, make no mistake. But in a democracy, we need to reach people somewhat on their terms. We need to isolate the these people and make them come off as the fringe extremists they are. But to do that, we need the public on our side. And our current strategy is backfiring majorly.
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