this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2026
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Why are liberals so smug? (hexbear.net)
submitted 2 weeks ago by sexywheat@hexbear.net to c/askchapo@hexbear.net
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Whenever I try to talk politics (or ESPECIALLY world events) with Liberals, as soon as they determine that I am a leftist, they just get so fucking smug and have this sense of self-superiority about them. Exactly zero interest in having a good faith discussion. They are so incredibly dismissive and condescending.

Of course, no matter how much evidence that you provide, or how well you frame your arguments, you just get eye rolls and dismissed out of hand.

I am reminded of the Bernie campaigns when the liberal media pundits would behave with nothing more than sneering contempt at young people who just wanted fucking health care.

We know that they're like this BUT WHY? Why are they all such smug shit stains? I stg it's like their defining trait.

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[–] QuietCupcake@hexbear.net 29 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I think a lot of things we don't necessarily recognize as such actually come down to a kind of darwinian selection process. Power structures will always tend to reward those who help reproduce and reinforce that power structure. And since we live in such a firmly capitalist neoliberal power structure, anticommunism is not only the default, but any acts or even attitudes that perpetuate it tend to get rewarded. It will always be the path of least resistance when you don't, y'know, resist the prevailing power structure. And if you're sufficiently pro-capitalist you will be closer to the top of the stacked deck when it comes time for some luck of the draw. It's why the slimiest, the most self-serving, the most cruel individuals tend to float to the top and become CEOs because those traits are what best serve that system, the corporation. But it happens just as much in our "every day lives." We live in an environment that socially selects for being a smug liberal shitstain and so we're surrounded by smug liberal shitstains.

[–] Dort_Owl@hexbear.net 13 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Unfortunately the environment that capitalist society selects for is incompatible for long term survival of the actual physical environment of Earth

[–] QuietCupcake@hexbear.net 8 points 1 week ago

Absolutely! There are selective forces working on the broader systems themselves. Neoliberal capitalism isnt just the structure that imposes a selection process on individual humans, it is itself also subject to the material circumstances of the entire world which puts selective pressures on economic systems. From geopolitical forces (China's model being obviously more "fit" to survive and even pass on its "genes" in the form of being a model that other nations can emulate) to, like you said, running up against the literal limits of a finite planet when capitalism demands infinite growth to sustain itself. As everyone here of course knows, these are some of the many examples of the contradictions inherent within capitalism, but I think using a Darwinian lens along with the Marxist one often works pretty well to frame how a lot of these things work.