this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
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Only the open ones. But the rest are okay with them being there. So they're not hardly better. Which is worse. Horrible bigoted people or enabling them to be worse. When Republicans stop accusing Democrats of being child abusing adrenochrome vampires. (an actual thing among their brainwashed base) And start actively calling out the bigots racists and the racially disparate policies in place. (Another thing they can't do because that would be CRT) then we can talk about some of them perhaps being good people. But until they reach that very low bar none of them are. At least not worth making a distinction to separate them out.
The left wing has their fair share of conspiracy theories, and you don't have to go any further than RFK Jr. to see it in action in today's politics. I don't hold RFK's views on lies about vaccination data against Democrats, nor do I hold weird QAnon views against Republicans.
The average Republican doesn't believe in QAnon nonsense or think they should be associated with the GOP. The average Democrat doesn't believe in anti-vax nonsense or think they should be associated with the Democratic party. Don't base your opinion on the majority by the views of the vocal minority. Republicans rejecting Trump's reelection bid should show you that the voter base isn't in lockstep with their elected officials.
Our elected officials like to sling mud, and I refuse to be part of it. I think both parties suck in a lot of ways, and I agree with both parties on a number of issues.
The accusation wasn't that because they have conspiracy theories that this is a problem. It's about the content of the conspiracy theories in particular. Adrenochrome is not a thing. Vampires are not a thing etc etc etc. Even on your own source. Many of the conspiracies that it talks about the left believing in are often underpinned by actual events and experiences. Whether or not they are true. They are generally not as coked up whacked out reality detached fantasies as the extremely brainwashed Republicans. Regardless the subject of that article are all center right anyhow.
And here's the thing if the Republicans don't believe in those conspiracies they should have the courage of their convictions to call out the people pushing them and to push back on their friends that believe in it. They don't. And this is the problem. Even for all the so-called left-wing conspiracies they are extremely fringe and are regularly cold out by many in the center right liberal establishment.
And if you think RFK is representative of the center right liberal politics of America in any way shape or form. I'm sorry you're being dishonest or quite out of touch.
Well yeah, the QAnon people are crazy, I don't think anyone that matters disputes that. I'm confident that most "followers" do it as a sort of meme, like the majority of flat earthers (we even got a flat earth poster for our office and tried to convince others to join).
Why should anyone seriously address it? It's a meme that got out of control, and fighting it just makes you seem out of touch.
And no, I'm not saying RFK is representative of the Democratic Party (I guess we'll see how the votes come out), just that he's a very public figure getting a fairly large amount of media attention while pushing ideas that could be considered a conspiracy theory. Pushing the narrative that the polio vaccine causes polio today is just ridiculous, yet a relatively large chunk of people on both sides of the aisle buy it (I have at least one anti-vax neighbor, and I'm pretty sure there are many more in my very conservative area). It doesn't mean the Democratic Party opposes vaccines, but the Democratic Party also hasn't gone on a campaign to oust him. The Democratic Party not bothering with RFK Jr. is similar to the GOP not bothering with QAnon, it's just not worth their time and would distract from other things the party is trying to achieve.
My point is that just because a party has weird fringe groups working under their brand and they don't actively oust them doesn't mean they agree or support them, it's most likely not worth their time and is a massive distraction from other goals. So I'm not surprised major political parties don't go on a crusade to oust every weird fringe group from their fold. The problem isn't with the Republican Party or the Democratic Party, but that we have a two party system at all. If there were multiple major parties, each party would need to be more careful if its image so it doesn't lose its base, but when there are only two options, it doesn't matter as much.
So if you hate stupid fringe groups like QAnon or anti-vaxxers, you should campaign for election reform to end FPTP and promote third parties. I'm registered to a third party to hopefully boost their numbers (but I rarely actually vote for them), and even my little party has weird fringe groups. If we get more parties with actual seats in Congress, I think we'll see a bit more pushback against these fringe groups, who will then need to form a small, obscure party and we'll get a better idea of their actual numbers.