this post was submitted on 10 May 2024
779 points (96.8% liked)

Political Memes

5579 readers
2123 users here now

Welcome to politcal memes!

These are our rules:

Be civilJokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.

No misinformationDon’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.

Posts should be memesRandom pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.

No bots, spam or self-promotionFollow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] niktemadur@lemmy.world 58 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (6 children)

Those train tracks are the non-voting, bOtH pArTiEs ArE tHe SaMe LoL aMiRiTe idiots.

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 13 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

the tracks are capitalism.

weve been on this track for a long time, through republicans and democrats in power.

[–] PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee 13 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Amen, if the fascists don't kill me for being a Palestinian, it'll be the white leftists giving me a fatal aneurysm lecturing at me about how letting the fascists win again will totally help my cause that I just want to feel assured that my government isn't looking for ways to officially enlist the Klan as a morality police.

[–] PugJesus@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago

I just want to feel assured that my government isn’t looking for ways to officially enlist the Klan as a morality police.

Wow, what a shitlib you are. /s

[–] rambling_lunatic@sh.itjust.works 11 points 7 months ago

The train tracks are the influence of the bourgeoisie and their allies as they perform hatred judo.

[–] HelloHotel@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

was voting and presidency meant to feel like a Pachinko machine? (or Peggle) where you launch the balls, and you are separated by acrylic and have no control past the first bounce.

[–] dojan@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I don't quite get why you're being downvoted because that's honestly how I feel, and I don't even live in the U.S. I feel like it applies pretty well to Sweden as well. At least there are options here that are like a 60% match with my personal viewpoints, but there's no such thing as a perfect fit.

[–] HelloHotel@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago

It may be that I (accedentially or not) compared the quality of indirect democracy's quality of outcome to gambling. Or im secretly making a larger more radical stance, somthing, somthing, revisionist social democricy has failed here, somthing, somthing.

[–] retrospectology@lemmy.world 0 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

What's important to note is that people have been doing it according to your politics for decades, and it has produced the situation we're in right now.

It kind of seems like the lesser of two evils and pied piper strategies are actually closer to being the tracks in this metaphor, not the people who refuse to vote for Fascist Lite.

[–] pjwestin@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Yeah, this is what always bothers me about the vote shaming crowd. Yes, we need to reelect Biden because Trump is a literal fascist who will end American democracy, but we need to have a hard look at how we got into this position, starting with Democrats embrace of neo-liberalism in the 90s and ending with the fact that the party is running a candidate that 67% of their own voters didn't want on the ticket. And no, Biden and Trump are not the same, but George W. and Obama were pretty damn similar, as well as Clinton, Regan, and the first Bush. If the Democrats don't start offering and actual progressive alternative to the right, we're just going to keep doing this until a more competent fascist finally wins.

[–] theonyltruemupf@feddit.de 1 points 7 months ago

Actual progressive alternatives to the right don't have a majority in the US, sadly.

[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago

we need to have a hard look at how we got into this position,

I will scream this unpopular message until I turn blue. Get involved in your local community politics.

We all only seem to care about electoralism every four years when we're presented with a disgusting choice that disheartens us all and makes people cynical and feel unable to affect change. Meanwhile, there might be uncontested elections running in your county RIGHT NOW that will decide how much and what kind of support will be given to your district, how your schools will be run, how your taxes will be used. Even just pushing back against local political candidates you don't agree with sends a powerful message, that we demand actual representation, not WWE theater like the fascists want to make it.

Our federal government is the peak of a pyramid. We're all clawing and scrambling to make the peak all polished and shiny according to our own values, meanwhile the giant foundation is just crumbling every day, threatening to bring the whole thing down.

[–] monk@lemmy.unboiled.info -4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Your iDiOtIc CaSe is no substitution for a valid counteaargument. Neither of your parties represent the interest of the people. Get a third one.

[–] yetAnotherUser@feddit.de 19 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Americans have two ethical choices in the upcoming election:

  • Change the system before election day and vote 3rd party
  • Vote for Biden

That's it. Voting 3rd party without changing the system prior is not an ethical choice, for it enables fascism.

[–] monk@lemmy.unboiled.info -2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

And it's gonna be this way until it deteriorates into absolute dysfunction, isn't it? Because so far it's been 0 times they went "good grief, crisis averted, the right sports team won the election, and now is the time we fix the system". It's always a crisis after a crisis after a crisis.

[–] OneWomanCreamTeam@sh.itjust.works 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Not voting doesn't get us any closer to fixing the voting system, dipshit. You can vote and advocate for voting reform.

[–] monk@lemmy.unboiled.info -1 points 7 months ago

No, I cannot.

[–] Bobmighty@lemmy.world 34 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (7 children)

That train needs to be more rickety and the tracks terminate over a cliff. Fascists always destroy themselves. They literally cannot help it, it's built into fascism itself. Sadly, they always aim to hurt and kill as many as possible along the way. Bunch of short sighted mental invalids.

[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 9 points 7 months ago

My concern is not for their long-term chances of success, it's for all the people they will drag down that cliff with them.

As we've seen very clearly and with great documentation, fascism can literally burn the world down and kill countless millions of people and reshape all of human history, setting back all our progress and plans by decades or centuries.

If it wasn't for selfish authoritarians, we would be colonizing the solar system and fixing our planet's climate.

[–] iiGxC@slrpnk.net -1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Eh, maybe. Just cause it hasn't worked long term yet doesn't mean it won't. Don't copy their "the enemy is simultaneously weak and stupid, and strong and crafty" rhetoric

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org 29 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I have so many things to say. But it can be said as something as simple as ↙️↙️↙️

[–] Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com 24 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Tankies: "Both sides are the same!"

Anyone with sense: "There's a reason all the arrows are pointed in the same direction."

[–] HelloHotel@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Edit: grammar

So... Iron Font...

I don't know where I stand on this, my introduction to this topic was from an anti-revisionist, anti-fashist Marxist Lennonist. Showing how bad the German National People's Party failed, where one side would compromise or stall and the other would be openly fascist and they would (conspiracy or not), give up or not reclaim ground given to fashism. The german ML party and Iron Font call each other terrorists and have bad blood. So I either failed to understand something my teacher said or he was against the Communist Party of Germany or he was not being candid with me.

[–] Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The grammar of this comment is so atrocious that I literally can't figure out what you're trying to say, and the spelling doesn't help.

The communist party that the Ironfront opposed were what we today would call Tankies. They belonged to the same faction that betrayed the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War and allied with Hitler to invade Poland. I don't know if that addresses your concern, but I give it even odds.

[–] rambling_lunatic@sh.itjust.works 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

On the other hand, the SPD was more than happy to use the Freikorps to put down communist uprisings during the time of Rosa Luxemburg, who was very much not a tankie.

I am fairly certain that this was a big factor in the bad blood between the two groups, which predated the KPD's turn towards Stalinism and adopting the concept of "social fascism" under muscovite pressure.

[–] Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 7 months ago (2 children)

You're talking about events that happened a decade prior to the founding of the organization.

[–] rockSlayer@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

You say that like personality conflicts aren't a core tenet of leftist organizations.

No, I say that like the above comment is irrelevant, because it is. I'm not talking about the SPD; I made a statement about the values of the Ironfront. When the Ironfront started, the KPD was a Stalinist organization, and were rightfully opposed.

[–] rambling_lunatic@sh.itjust.works -1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The Iron Front was founded a decade later, sure, but it was founded by the same SPD, which was still run mostly by the same people.

[–] Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I'm not even sure what you're trying to argue. Are you trying to say that means the Ironfront is bad? If so, the facts you presented don't appear to support your thesis.

[–] rambling_lunatic@sh.itjust.works -1 points 7 months ago

No, that's not really what I'm trying to argue. I'm saying that the BS wasn't as one-sided as it seems. The KPD were Stalinists in the 30s, but they also had a few legitimate reasons to hate the SPD and the Iron Front.

[–] Twitches@lemm.ee 23 points 7 months ago

Best use of this meme

[–] Sgt_choke_n_stroke@lemmy.world 16 points 7 months ago

When the old people plant seeds and water them for shade they don't see society rises

When the old chop down the trees and complain about the good old days of the shade fascism rises

[–] DadVolante@sh.itjust.works 9 points 7 months ago (5 children)

It's been here since around September 11th, 2001

[–] phoneymouse@lemmy.world 16 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Did you know, in 1953, the US and UK governments overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran and installed a monarch after they voted to nationalize their oil industry to wrest control of it from BP?

Seems pretty fascist to me.

[–] atomicorange@lemmy.world 7 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Is your definition of fascism essentially anti-democracy? Or military aggression/ colonialism? Honestly asking, because I’m not seeing what I’d consider hallmarks of fascism in your description.

[–] Jax@sh.itjust.works 5 points 7 months ago

That would be because they don't understand what fascism is. The unfortunate result of internet colloquialism.

[–] phoneymouse@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Look up the definition of fascism. There are a few. Here is one:

Broadly, a tendency toward or support of a strongly authoritarian or dictatorial control of government or other organizations; -- often used pejoratively in this sense.

What do you call it when the American government supports and imposes strongly authoritarian or dictatorial control of government even if in another country. Is that not fascism?

We did this in Guatemala too at the behest of the United Fruit Company. The CIA director Allen Dulles and his Secretary of State brother, John Dulles, were on United Fruit Company’s payroll for 38 years. In 1954, the CIA overthrew the democratically elected government of Guatemala after they passed reforms to end exploitative labor practices by United Fruit Company that it saw as a threat to its profits.

Another definition of fascism involves the repressive use of government by business to ensure control of the market.

A political regime, having totalitarian aspirations, ideologically based on a relationship between business and the centralized government, business-and-government control of the market place, repression of criticism or opposition, a leader cult and exalting the state and/or religion above individual rights.

[–] atomicorange@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago

I’m certainly not arguing that the US’s behavior in this case is good, I’m just not seeing the connection to fascism.

Authoritarianism is about a government’s relationship to its own citizens, not its posture towards foreign governments. An authoritarian country can be completely isolationist, like North Korea, or warlike and expansionist like nazi Germany.

For fascism a hallmark is government capture of business within the country. It can take the form of cooperation like the US’s relationship with BP, but ultimately this kind of cooperation is about fulfilling the totalitarian regime’s goals, not the businesses.

Primary to fascism is NATIONALISM, like your second quote states. Arguably the US is well down the road to fascism, we have a cult of personality building around Trump, focused on making the US “great again”, demonizing and othering his opposition within the country. If he were to seize power I’d argue we’re there. I just don’t think our colonialist mindset towards other countries is a symptom or indication of fascism. It’s just yet another way we’re a garbage country.

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›