NEW YORK (AP) — A union representing New York City firefighters is raising concerns about possible disciplinary action against its members after state Attorney General Letitia James was booed and a pro-Donald Trump chant broke out during a fire department ceremony last week.
The Democrat, whose office won a $355 million penalty against the Republican former president for lying about his wealth last month, faced a chorus of jeers as she addressed a department promotions ceremony Thursday in Brooklyn.
Insinuating that an individual’s turn to trumpism/fascism is due to lead or stupidity completely disregards the decades of regulatory capture, dismantling of social safety nets, financial strain, alienation, and liberal capitalism that ultimately promotes fascism.
If you don’t abandon this mode of thinking quickly, you’re going to find yourself more and more confused as more people start turning fascist. The only explanation via your current framework is “well, I guess these millions of people must just be… dumb”. This is the danger of liberal thinking - it doesn’t address the cause of fascism or how to kill it. If your framework were correct, we’d see volumes of work that show how lower IQ directly correlates with fascistic tendencies: obviously we know that idea is not only ableist but also incorrect.
The marxist critique actually takes into account the economic systems and structures that lead to fascism.
We do see that. Education level is a good predictor of voting intention the higher the education level the greater the chance you are going to vote liberal. This isn’t just a thing in the United States this is the thing across the world.
The right prey on fear of the different fear of something that you don’t understand and there’s a lot more you don’t understand if you’re not well educated.
No, we don’t see “that”. You won’t be able to find me any science that shows a direct correlation between intelligence and fascistic tendencies. I think you are blurring the line between intelligence and education. Think back to the german liberal universities that, once the nazis started infiltrating, folded faster than superman doing laundry.
Strengthening education as a means to minimize fascism is not at all incompatible with the marxist viewpoint. It meshes extremely well, in fact.
It’s really hard to not think of people who consistently vote against their own best interests as not dumb. Democrats aren’t the pro-Union, pro-blue-collar champions they used to be, but they’re a damned sight better than the “trickle-down” Republicans. And Democrats have long foreseen the demise of the coal industry and other low-wage industries in the US, and while they haven’t consistently found good solutions to the issues, they’ve done more than ignore the problem and pretend it doesn’t exist.
The Republican party have been lying rat-fucks since Reagan who dissemble and displaced the blame for blue-collar woes, which lets them come up with “solutions” that only line the pockets of special interests. And, again: yes, the Democratic party has had it’s share of weasels, failures, and terrible messaging, but comparing the two parties is like saying chocolate and shit are both brown and are therefore equivalent. And you do have to be a special kind of stupid to not see that.
That said, your point about making that the message (“Trumpers are stoopid”) is on point; it does not help the left. But god damn it, it’s true and it’s also OK to recognize that.
Edit: correcting autocorrect