Republicans are nazis. Nazis are a cancer on society. In civilization, life is based on cooperating, and in the jungle, life is based on you doing whatever you can physically pull off. Nazis bring the law of the jungle into civilization, with no regard for the things they destroy. They boldly gamble that the people they plan to murder will continue trying to cooperate with them, and leverage it at every turn to grab more and more power.
The Democrats’ playbook assumes cooperation from everyone. As it turns out, so much so that, as an organization, they literally cannot conceive of an opponent who, at the end of the day, won’t cooperate. That blind spot is where nazis strike. They’re the one opponent where you put your ordinary playbook away, and play dirty until there’s no more nazis, either because they’re dead, jailed, scattered, or they chose cut the crap for good. Then you go back to cooperating with those who will cooperate back.
“But then we’re no better than them” is the rallying cry of the Democrats. And–this is super important–when you aren’t dealing with nazis specifically, that’s absolutely how you should think. It’s how any decent person thinks, because a world where people don’t is a world that fucking sucks. So people do. It becomes the law of the land: sacred, normal, assumed.
Which makes it unchanging. And if you’re a nazi, that is, someone who is short-sighted enough to think that grabbing power by literally any means necessary is a good idea, and dedicate yourself to doing it with no regard for the fact that you’re ruining everything, then you can attack. Your chances of success spring from the flexibility of your own soullessness, and your opponents’ refusal to acknowledge that you’re actually that horrible.
Add in first past the post and you have two giant funnels labeled “Democrat” and “Republican” into which all political efforts ultimately fall. Biggest pile wins. People understandably don’t know about those metaphorical funnels, so they do what would be smart in another system–vote third party. But under first past the post, a third party is just a hole in the side of your funnel feeding into the other one. It just adds to the other pile. It’s the false dichotomy that was actually a true dichotomy.
So really there are two things that could have worked. One, progressive takeover of the Democratic party, and deal with the nazis properly instead of being that which they can leverage. Two, get nazis to think through their end game, and realize that they themselves do not want what they’re fighting for. When they say “yes we do!”, that’s just a refusal to think it through the rest of the way:
Ok, you want power. What does that get you? “Dead enemies”. Ok, what does that get you? “Victory!” Ok, what does that get you? “Security and strength.” Ok, what does that get you? “Peace”. Ok, what does that get you? “… I guess then I could relax and just enjoy my life?” Ok, what does that get you? “Then I would be ok inside”. Only a friend and a sage can guide someone through this, because it requires cooperation and introspection. It’ll just trigger an attack if an opponent does it to them.
You can see how unlikely those both are, but they would both work like fuckin bangers if they got off the ground. But those are the two ways you fundamentally change that dynamic. Play dirtier than the people who play dirty and win so you can restore cooperation, or get them to realize that playing dirty isn’t actually what they want anyway.
Republicans are nazis. Nazis are a cancer on society. In civilization, life is based on cooperating, and in the jungle, life is based on you doing whatever you can physically pull off. Nazis bring the law of the jungle into civilization, with no regard for the things they destroy. They boldly gamble that the people they plan to murder will continue trying to cooperate with them, and leverage it at every turn to grab more and more power.
The Democrats’ playbook assumes cooperation from everyone. As it turns out, so much so that, as an organization, they literally cannot conceive of an opponent who, at the end of the day, won’t cooperate. That blind spot is where nazis strike. They’re the one opponent where you put your ordinary playbook away, and play dirty until there’s no more nazis, either because they’re dead, jailed, scattered, or they chose cut the crap for good. Then you go back to cooperating with those who will cooperate back.
“But then we’re no better than them” is the rallying cry of the Democrats. And–this is super important–when you aren’t dealing with nazis specifically, that’s absolutely how you should think. It’s how any decent person thinks, because a world where people don’t is a world that fucking sucks. So people do. It becomes the law of the land: sacred, normal, assumed.
Which makes it unchanging. And if you’re a nazi, that is, someone who is short-sighted enough to think that grabbing power by literally any means necessary is a good idea, and dedicate yourself to doing it with no regard for the fact that you’re ruining everything, then you can attack. Your chances of success spring from the flexibility of your own soullessness, and your opponents’ refusal to acknowledge that you’re actually that horrible.
Add in first past the post and you have two giant funnels labeled “Democrat” and “Republican” into which all political efforts ultimately fall. Biggest pile wins. People understandably don’t know about those metaphorical funnels, so they do what would be smart in another system–vote third party. But under first past the post, a third party is just a hole in the side of your funnel feeding into the other one. It just adds to the other pile. It’s the false dichotomy that was actually a true dichotomy.
So really there are two things that could have worked. One, progressive takeover of the Democratic party, and deal with the nazis properly instead of being that which they can leverage. Two, get nazis to think through their end game, and realize that they themselves do not want what they’re fighting for. When they say “yes we do!”, that’s just a refusal to think it through the rest of the way:
Ok, you want power. What does that get you? “Dead enemies”. Ok, what does that get you? “Victory!” Ok, what does that get you? “Security and strength.” Ok, what does that get you? “Peace”. Ok, what does that get you? “… I guess then I could relax and just enjoy my life?” Ok, what does that get you? “Then I would be ok inside”. Only a friend and a sage can guide someone through this, because it requires cooperation and introspection. It’ll just trigger an attack if an opponent does it to them.
You can see how unlikely those both are, but they would both work like fuckin bangers if they got off the ground. But those are the two ways you fundamentally change that dynamic. Play dirtier than the people who play dirty and win so you can restore cooperation, or get them to realize that playing dirty isn’t actually what they want anyway.