this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2023
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Honestly, I think this is being a bit generous to the right. Maybe the right thirty years ago was as you describe, but not anymore. Major right-wing institutions have done little to nothing to push back these people supposedly "adopting a right-wing persona", because they realized these people are an amazing way to push the social narrative to the right and amass more power.
I think respectable right-wing politics are dead (or at the very least, on life-support) in a post-Trump era. The Republican Party was initially pretty hostile to Trump and his style of politics, until they realized they could exploit it to garner more power.
I highly recommend watching Innuendo Studio's video on YouTube, The Alt-Right Playbook: You Go High, We Go Low. The whole series is worth a watch, but this video in particular shows how good faith attempts to reach across the political spectrum are easily exploited by fascists.
I've watched those, they are excellent.
Well, I am trying to be generous. We must.
I totally get and appreciate that, I just want to caution that that generosity can and will be exploited by alt-right fuckheads. A community that wants to be tolerant must be intolerant of intolerance.
You and I disagree deeply about some very important things (not mentioned in this conversation), but if I flip the bozo bit, we'll never understand our differences. Sometimes people don't have to agree, merely understanding one another is enough for everyone to get what they need and work together in mutual benefit.
I think there's a difference between real-life interactions and online communities.
Anecdotally, I've seen a couple full blown, queerphobic, "I would beat the gay out of my children" type bigots grow into loving and accepting allies of the LGBTQ+ community through exposure, conversation, and mutual understanding. I'm not in any way denying the power of those things, and while marginalized people of all types shouldn't be expected to be constant teachers (as it's really quite emotionally and mentally taxing), having open conversations is probably the best way achieve a more loving and accepting society in general. It's a lot harder to hate someone/something when you're directly confronted with someone from that group being thoroughly reasonable and maybe even enjoyable to talk with, contrary to what you might believe.
However, in online communities, things work differently. Anonymity, asynchronous communication, the public nature of conversations, with immediate reactions and commentary from an incomprehensible number of people. These are all massive barriers to attaining that mutual understanding you describe.
At the end of the day, if I have a queerphobic or racist or sexist or otherwise bigoted person in my life, say a coworker, I don't have a choice but to interact regularly with them so I will at least try to steer them towards a kinder perspective. Sometimes you might have to give up on a particular person, but most times we both learn some stuff and both come out of it slightly better.
On the other hand, if I enter an online space and it's bigoted, I (and I'd wager a large number of not-bigoted people) will just leave. And then you end up with /r/Canada.
All I am trying to say in all this is, don't say right wing when you mean fascist. Hate isn't political. When hate is used to influence politics, that's fascism and terrorism. They try to make us afraid to use the word but that's what it is. Demonizing marginalized people for power is fascism.
I suppose I am using a remarkably uncynical sense of "political" here. I think that when a person expresses hatred, uses bad faith arguments, misrepresents facts, etc., they are not "doing politics" but rather trying to corrupt politics to use our collective power to harm the common good. I don't tolerate the intolerant; I see them as outside of all meaningful political expression. But from everyone else, I think we can afford to assume good faith and aught to try.
A key characteristic of fascism is that it attacks left-wing politics, but that doesn't make fascism right-wing politics! Fascism is really the exploitation of voters with authoritarian personalities by a small number of charismatic personalities who know some basic human psychology.
Fascist voters are scared. They are not really looking for political expression, they are looking to have their psychological needs met. They want to feel powerful. They don't really have anything in mind to do with that power, because their whole deal is they are afraid of a future they don't understand and feel like they can't control.
I think when we blame things on "right wing politics" it needlessly poisons our own perspective, scorns innocent bystanders, and fails to be critical of the actual problems. Bigots and fascists are hateful, and I think we should call them what they are. Yes, most of them are right-wingers, but most right-wingers are not bigots and fascists. They're Liberals and swing voters.
And I would once again like to distinguish between intolerant people acting bad faith with bad intentions from people with whom we disagree with politically.
Is there a difference when the people we disagree with politically actively associate with these intolerant bad-faith actors whenever it's politically expedient for them?
Hate and violence are not acceptable. There are hard lines. Many if not most right wingers are able to stay on the right side.