this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2026
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Bad is bad. Just because you weren't personally affected by the bad doesn't make it less bad, just exposes how little solidarity with the oppressed you actually have.
There's always degrees to it. I dunno why so many online forget about this
Because there are people who don't have a shortsighted, reactionary mentality.
The degrees of how bad is entirely contextual. And part of the context of seeing the lesser evil as "better" involves limiting the scope to a false dichotomy.
Being stabbed is better than being shot, but regardless of which option you're still fucking being injured.
Not being able to see degrees to things seems more like a handicap than anything good tbh.
Nice bad faith interpretation. Nothing about what I said implies that I can't recognize that degrees exist. In fact, I explicitly recognized that degrees exist and the contextual nature of them.
Your inability to have contextual understanding of the wider picture and not limit yourself to the immediate, reactionary perspective is the handicap here.
One step forward for every two steps back is "technically" better than no steps forward and three steps back. Yet, if you understand the full picture, you realize that both are still resulting in backwards progress; so, another choice needs to be made if one's goal is to go forward.
If all you ever do is react to the "greater evil" by giving power to the "lesser evil", you simply allow evil to hold it over you as a threat to coerce your obedience and consolidate power while dangling performative concessions to keep the people distracted by the illusion of progress.
It doesn't give much power to anyone to think "this time sucks, I wish we still had the better times"
I just can't with the shortsightedness.
In a vacuum, no, not that one single instance, but I am not simply talking about the singular instance but the mentality and logic behind it while also criticizing the logic of that mentality.
I had already made my point about those that miss the "better times" in a previous comment. Then you made a comment about a lack of seeing degrees, and then I continued from that point.
Learn to follow a conversation.
You are upset about people being wishful for better times, it is just your explanation for the upset doesn't make much sense to me. I think it's easier to continue this convo in just the other thread, I'll continue replying just in that
Nice accusations about what I am "upset" at, too bad they are completely wrong. Sorry you cannot grasp the argument. I have explained it to the best I can. If you still cannot understand it then you are beyond my help.
Continue in the other thread if you wish but judging from how this conversation has gone I do believe I'm just gonna check out of it. It is clearly going nowhere.
I agree that I can't follow your logic or argument, it just seems nonsensical. If there's a sense, it is beyond me or maybe you just see some sense in it that I don't. Not sure further explaining will help, so I get it.
It does not expose anything of the sort. You are just applying strawmen in your purity test.
no, saying “i miss obama” is the same as those republicans who whinge that they voted for trump three times but NOW trump is bad because it effects them.
they remember Obama fondly because that time was good FOR THEM. and not because obama was a good president. it’s gross because it’s selfish and akin to saying “i wish it was like the 20’s - 50’s, times were better then…” you automatically know the type of person who said that and why
I wouldn't trust you at all making any judgements about history or anything else, because you are so scared about not passing your own purity test, that you think making any kind of concession about a grading scale of the difference of various historical characters makes your peers denounce your own political purity.
Remember noone said anything about supporting anybody, but they definitely said something about Obama is not the same as Trump.
I remember Obama fondly because Obama's actions were less bad. People who say "I wish it was the 20s-50s" are wishing for a time when things were worse on matters that they find less-compelling.
Would you like to outline any of Obama's policies which were worse than the current shitshow in the fascist merry-go-round?
"Things were bad in the past, therefore, things can never get worse" is fucking childish and asinine and something that should've been educated out of folk in the 1st-2nd grade.
i remember the cop who beats people fondly because cops now a days just shoot people.
…
“People who say ‘I wish it was the 20’s-50’s ‘ are wishing for a time when things were worse on matters that they find less-compelling”
that was my exact point. it speaks to the character of a person who determines that the bad things that happen are not their problem, and shows a lack of empathy, and signals where its ok to stop trying to push things to being better. that is why its gross.
it was never about who was worse
Unironically, yes; for the same reason I would be nostalgic for the Weimar Republic whilst living under the fucking Nazi regime.
That you find those two to be morally equivalent is a 'you' problem.
"Wow, I miss the days when we were fighting a less-fucked system."
"Oh, so you'd want to stop fighting if only you could have that system back?"
???????
i would have both cops … removed instead of pointing for the days where it was only the minorities who were getting shot. the point is to acknowledge that both cops were pices of fucking shit and both needed to be stopped
Yes, but shit man, the argument of nostalgia isn't "Back in the days of Obama, life was a utopia that did not need to be improved upon or fought! 😊", it's "God, remember when I still had two bad legs and still had both arms, but now I'm a quadruple amputee? This sucks, I fucking miss the less-bad days."
cool, it’s self focused, and member berries a white washed version of events, just don’t be surprised when others don’t have that same fuzzy feeling over that period of time
Obama's administration is still fondly remembered by a supermajority of African-Americans. Maybe don't try to whitewash the lived experiences of oppressed demographics in favor of an abstract online political circlejerk.
What 'fuzzy feeling' over a period of time are we expecting, by the way? People judge their circumstances relative to the circumstances they've experienced; who among us has been alive for a better president than Obama? Perhaps some sexagenarians, if they prefer forgiving the brutal Vietnam War in light of LBJ's domestic accomplishments. You can say the limbo bar is in hell, and you wouldn't be wrong, but I re-emphasize the quadruple amputee comparison - people are not wrong to fondly remember when things were LESS fucked.
You're arguing with one of the most pathetically neoliberal goons on this site.
They have no solidarity with the oppressed and just want to stroke their ego with their self-centered, centrist bullshit.
It is quite funny how political commissars reveal their own projections so easily.
Bad is bad. Less bad is less bad.
Having family members concerned about the level of uncertainty involved in their immigration proceedings was bad, as no one, but especially not people who've been in the country and established lives, should be treated as illegal for their region of residence. Having family members fucking deported for it because of changes in Federal immigration enforcement policy is fucking worse.
Inflicting more suffering on the oppressed so you can feel 'pure' isn't solidarity, it's solipsism.
Miss me with your uneducated, centrist bullshit.
We get it, you weren't affected personally, so you don't give a shit about the lives of those that were already being affected. We get it. You have no solidarity.
And FYI, we aren't the ones inflicting the suffering so nice try shifting that blame.
Typical of the low level of reading comprehension you've displayed, in my experience.
"We didn't INFLICT the suffering, we just were useful idiots for the Nazis that did! You can't blame us for THAT!"
Yeah, that tracks with your myopic privileged suburbia style takes.
Sorry that those of us dealing with oppression have to live in the real fucking world, I know it's so much more comfy to engage in online circlejerks.
That's a very weird way of saying we are the only ones actually trying to organize against the very systems and institutions that aren't enabling and empowering the fascists.
Continuing bending over for the lesser evil while the rest of us actually try to fight the evil.
Okay, what form of organizing against systems and institutions requires you to play fucking 1984 doublethink games with regards to improvement of deterioration of conditions?
"Bending over for the lesser evil is when you acknowledge that the lesser evil is lesser"
I'm sorry reality, even as acknowledged by the lens of your own analysis here, is so offensive to you?
Continuing with your bad faith bullshit I see. Can't really expect anything else from a neolib who can't tell the difference between "1984 doublethink" and understanding that lesser evil is still fucking evil and thus not an acceptable compromise and will never affect progress towards the goal of liberating the working class from oppression by continuing to abdicate your political will in support of it.
Plenty of people have explained anarchist perspective and praxis to you across this site and it's clear you just can't comprehend it. I'm not gonna take on that challenge when others, who're far better at explaining things than I, couldn't even do it.
Luckily, it would seem you think that the greater evil is an acceptable compromise. How fantastic. I'm sure the oppressed thank you all the time for your far-sighted, privileged stand in favor of your own mental masturbation over their wellbeing.
"People aren't wrong to miss less-horrific times."
"How DARE you abdicate your political will in support of the lesser evil!"
...
I understand anarchist perspectives just fine, in general. But this isn't even a question like "Is harm reduction mandatory?" wherein I might actually get into a brawl with some anarchists over it; this is literally just "Are people wrong for missing less oppressive times?"
You've both asserted that the times were not less oppressive, and called it a lesser evil. I'm sorry that that isn't unsubtle enough for you to trigger your own sense of cognitive dissonance, but I understand you have a lot of practice ignoring that particular annoyance in your head.