this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2025
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Absolutely right. I remember because I lived in those times, the amplification of news and hype to further political/economic agendas has just been steadily turning the crank up on the perceived importance of team politics.
I am VERY far from a centrist, but the left is equally guilty of falling into this atomized perspective, watching algorithmically fed segments and stories amplifying the worst voices on the right, cranking up the rhetoric and hate and making issues that once would have fizzled out flare up into larger fights. We can't put this toothpaste back in, but we can mitigate the problem from getting even worse.
There are a lot of very well-paid people who have studied how to do this and if we, as individuals, think we can outsmart teams of people who do this to eat and live, we're more vulnerable than we even know.
Doubt everything you read, particularly if it makes you scared or angry.
Read more of what the other side is reading so you understand better what their picture of the world looks like. Even if it's a stupid, poorly educated picture, you HAVE to understand it so you can turn people.
Try to turn people. Even if it means just fact-checking idiots online and in RL. Learn enough about one topic that you feel confident fighting for it. Stop expecting immediate gratification, you only expect it because of the "X OWNS AND SLAMS Y" clips.
Stop spending your energy online arguing with other leftists. Spend that energy actually going into right-wing facebook pages, twitter groups and so on. Speak up when you're out at lunch with people and someone says a dumb or ignorant take. Bring back social consequence for being a shitlord.
Stop spending money. Stop pouring money into vices like weed and alcohol, or at least cut way back so you get healthier and stronger mentally. Stop having to have the latest games and gadgets. Stop ordering fast food, doordash and other luxuries. Starve the liches and oligarchs.
Get a fucking gun. Even if you're against guns, you should probably have one right now.
Fact-checking deadass doesn't work anymore, unfortunately. A lot of these people are anti-science and anti-equality.
And if not that, then they just care so much about being a "good Christian" that they are willing to look the other way and ignore evidence.
Broadly, as a society and culture? Absolutely. Debate is dead, facts are relative, and walls are built-in to the human condition.
But as individuals, it's a different game. And this is where a lot of people are going to curl their lips in disgust at the idea but it's also a part of learning to be more social, learning to be better at engagement and getting people to listen to you, so it's objectively a good exercise whether you succeed or not, but people are all just people, and even if their ideology is revolting against the idea, they fundamentally want to connect and be accepted, and if you can make people like you enough that they listen to you, they WILL want to earn your acceptance, even if they don't cognitively agree with you.
I've done this a lot. I've changed people's beliefs on vaccines, on abortion, and a host of other "walled off" topics that we can't change on a large scale. This is where I am deliberately trying to antagonize users on Lemmy; the idea that we need to socialize outside of our comfort zone and return to face-to-face socializing and conversation. We CAN turn this around if more of us would get off the internet and do what I've done for years now, which is listen to people so you can then learn how to be heard in return... every person is different, with a different set of emotional locks and keys, and if you can be smarter you can learn where these keys are.
So far nobody has presented me a better idea. We've been trying to butt heads, scold, and scream and shame for decades and we've lost almost all our ground.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you aren't a member of one of the demographics that the fascists are trying to oppress. Debating abortion rights as a woman of reproductive age is literally arguing for my right to live in the event that I accidentally get pregnant because a pregnancy would quite literally kill me. Arguing for LGBTQ+ rights is arguing for the rights of my sibling to exist or for my best friend to marry her soon-to-be wife. I have the privilege of being white, but for BIPOC, arguing for racial equality and justice is literally trying to convince bigots that they are actually humans with equal rights.
These discussions become significantly more taxing and distressing when you're going in rhetorical circles with someone who is telling you to your face that they think you are less worthy of rights and that your life doesn't matter to them.
Please, correct me if I'm wrong here, but this is something I see a lot from leftist cis-men and white leftists is the failure to recognize the toll these conversations take on those who are the direct targets of that bigotry.
I really try not to talk about myself or the identities of others I engage with because that turns any conversation about plans, approaches and movement into identity debates and oppression olympics and I don't need to wear the things I've faced on my sleeve, but I will say that I've been pretty far from privileged and have good reason for this fight. That shouldn't be the point of this. If you don't want to engage with others, that's fine. I am not holding a gun to every person and saying that no matter who what your background is you need to go out to a trailer park and find someone with truck nuts and drag them out and debate them. Just don't do that, you don't need to speak for everyone else about it either, simply don't do the thing that's too hard for you, and that's valid.
There are plenty of opportunities for each of us to push back on something that matters to us, it doesn't have to be direct and confrontational like I do, but more likely than not, there will be some opportunity in your life to speak up somehow so don't ignore those opportunities. If you think you can't, you need to focus on yourself and getting healthier, and again, that's fine, stay out of it but also again, there are plenty of marginalized and afraid people who have experienced trauma who are out there getting fucking tear gassed and tased and I have walked beside them and they are stronger than me. I'm not saying that's the standard to live up to, but that people, including yourself, are stronger than we think.