WatDabney

At this point, the most determined and successful opponent of progressivism in the US is the Democrat party.

He doesn't actually want them gone. He wants them oppressed and desperate.

That's actually been the standard Republican strategy for as long as I can remember, because they're trying to serve two purposes at the same time. On the one hand they want to appeal to the racists in their party, but on the other hand, they want to ensure that American businesses enjoy uninterrupted access to cheap and desperate labor. And the two actually complement each other pretty well. They can and do foment hatred and promise mass deportations and all of that to appeal to the racists, but never quite manage to actually solve the supposed problem, or even really make any headway on it, which means that businesses can stil take advantage of cheap and desperate labor and there are still "illegals" for the racists to rail against.

After many years of effortless romance and/or sex (I had the good fortune in my younger days to look like sort of a cross between Rob Lowe and Andre Agassi), I finally just burnt out on it and deliberately chose to pursue bachelorhood. I've never regretted it. (For whatever that's worth).

That pretty much goes without saying.

"Privatization" the way the Republicans do it might as well have been tailor-made to appeal to Trump.

Imagine the sales pitch:

"Okay now Mr. President, see this program over here that's carried out by government employees? Just imagine that instead of having government employees do it, we contract with some private company to do it. The government would still be paying for it, but instead of all of that money going to a government agency, it goes to some private company that'd damned well better show their gratitude if they expect to keep that contract."

I can just see him, like Scrooge McDuck, with a dippy smile on his face and dollar signs in his eyes.

Of course she doesn't, but the ruling class needs to make an example of someone - they're not about to let us peasants get away with defying them.

Cynically, I'd say that that's actually something AI shares with traditional religion - it's only the followers who potentially invest faith in a set of myths and magical thinking - the leadership is just in it for the money and power, and just mouth the doctrine because that's what's necessary to keep the faithful in line and keep the money rolling in.

But really, I'd argue that what the author is ascribing to religion and then, pointedly, to AI is actually just a more fundamental human psychological dynamic that's notable in religion, but is also part of the driving force behind everything from ethnic identity to sports team fandom.

No surprise there.

Establishment Democrats would rather have power held by Republicans than by progressive Democrats.

I assumed that they were at least anarchism-adjacent - it's pretty much a prerequisite for the bulk of their focus.

I hadn't really looked into their political posting much though, and yeah - even with just a cursory glance, it's promising.

And I hadn't thought about that distinction between people who simply hold a position and people who "officially" wear the label in the context of anarchism (though I've noted it often with atheists), but yeah, there's undoubtedly some truth there.

Thanks for the heads-up.

i'd like a stronger anarchist/libertarian community on lemmy.

That's one thing that I've been both disappointed and surprised to not see.

The anarchist community on Reddit is fairly large, but not very anarchist. There's a very strong authoritarian bent to their claimed anarchism. I had hopes that the nature of this place would invite a community that was anarchist not only in name but in spirit, but I've seen surprisingly little sign of that, or even really of anarchism at all.

I guess it could be counted as a weakness as far as attracting new users go, but I think it's a strength overall.

It would be sort of nice if there was a stronger right-wing presence here, but at this point in our history, the right is overtly toxic. They've completely lost touch with honesty, empathy, integrity and simple human decency. Their entire identity at this point is built on hatred, bigotry and callous disregard for anyone other than themselves. They poison everything they touch, so the fact that they can't gain a foothold here is very much to our benefit.

If we survive this era of Trump/Putin/Netanyahu/Polievre/Le Pen/Modi/Meloni/Hanson/etc., then hopefully the right will reconnect with reality, integrity and simple decency enough that they can take part in a community without turning it into a cesspool of hatred and lies, but unless and until that happens, this place is absolutely better off without them.

That was my exact response - he's right in a very limited sense, and notably a sense that hinges on the sad fact that too many Americans are dumbasses who thought that Trump's signature over a check drawn on the US Treasury meant something, and therefore the absence of Biden's also did.