Nothing is insane about our ideas, it's the fact that the conservatives do not want to take the time to unpack provocative phrases, immediately misunderstand them, and then strawman us.

It puts us on the back foot as we stumble to make sense of ourselves, instead of structuring our arguments in a way which children could understand.

Once they start with the presupposition that we've lost it, it's too late.

Evidence: "defund the police" the right immediately started replying with "if we defund them, then there will be no police, what the left is advocating for is anarchy"

Evidence: "trans women are women" the right immediately started replying with "yeah but they arent 'real women'"

Evidence: "black lives matter" the right immediately started replying with "all lives matter" and were trying to accuse blacks of being racist to other ethnicities for not including them, which lead to "blue lives matter".

The left isn't your favourite sports team. We need to accept that there are faults within our collective and try to fix them.

[–] zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Nothing is insane about our ideas, it's the fact that the conservatives do not want to take the time to unpack provocative phrases, immediately misunderstand them, and then strawman us.

I don't think the solution to that is "don't use provocative phrases", though. The left should provoke. Sure there are better and worse ways to do that, but giving up on provocation is giving up the battle, I think.

Evidence: "defund the police" the right immediately started replying with "if we defund them, then there will be no police, what the left is advocating for is anarchy"

Like I said, we tried to really around "reform", and if didn't work. Defunding the police frees up that funding to put it into police alternatives.

Evidence: "trans women are women" the right immediately started replying with "yeah but they arent 'real women'"

But...they're wrong. Like, obviously wrong. How could you make the statement "trans women are women" more obvious? That's as straightforward as it gets.

Evidence: "black lives matter" the right immediately started replying with "all lives matter" and were trying to accuse blacks of being racist to other ethnicities for not including them, which lead to "blue lives matter".

I really don't think this convinces anybody who isn't already racist. We have so much video evidence of police killing unarmed black men. You just have to be willfully ignorant at this point.

[–] Zozano@lemy.lol 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Why should we provoke though? What does it get us?

Defund means to cancel funds, not reduce. The outcome of eliminating funding is anarchy, which is a non-starter for the right.

"Trans women are women" yeah, I know, but they don't. They wont hear that and accept the claim by itself. It boils down to courtesy, which isn't implied. The right HATE being dictated to, so to simply tell them what to say is going to piss them off and drive them further away.

"Black lives matter" - unfortunately a lot of people who aren't conservative did not actually understand. My parents both vote for the progressive parties here in Australia, but because of the shit they've seen on Facebook, they parroted the phrase "All Lives Matter". That's how easy that phrase was to misunderstand.

[–] zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 1 points 9 months ago

Why should we provoke though? What does it get us?

It gets people talking about the issues.

It boils down to courtesy, which isn't implied.

It isn't about courtesy. It's about recognizing that trans women are women.

I also think that trying to convince the right is a waste of time. The majority already agrees with us. Instead of arguing with extremists, we should be organizing.