Fascists want us to comply in advance. Democrats, the opposition party, complied in advance. It is well understood that fascists move one step at a time so that they can execute their plans without serious opposition from the people.

So it does matter what Schumer does, because the fascists wanted to move unopposed and he, as minority leader, let them get away with it. My point is that Schumer’s fake concern that the fascists will have more leeway with a shutdown is bunk. The fascists goal was to get congressional approval and they got it for free.

Nothing to do with this comment thread it’s just something that annoys me.

This isn’t about leftist moral purity. Chuck Schumer sided with the fascists on the only recourse we had to meaningfully resist them for the next six months. He betrayed us for billionaires. He add the ability to get results. Instead, he threw away the country for nothing. Billionaires are not our friends. They would happily see us off to the death camps if they could make more money that way. Which is what they are doing right now. We need to have a greater sense of self-preservation than working with someone who is effectively a Republican.

What’s the more likely scenario

His donors told him to not shut down the government to save their stock value. He doesn’t agree with Republicans. Billionaires have a class interest to increase the value of the shares they own. All the politicians who serve billionaires instead of working class voters are going to vote the same way. Because no matter which billionaires politicians serve the billionaires share the same interest. It’s the simplest explanation.

Voters are not dumb

It’s not an intelligence test. Voters aren’t paying attention because they don’t have time because they live pay check to pay check. Mike Johnson, the House majority leader, still blamed Democrats for almost shutting the government down even though he was the one who put the House on recess to put pressure on the Senate.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/14/aoc-chuck-schumer-gop-funding-bill

But House Speaker Mike Johnson sent his members home to their districts after Republicans advanced the spending bill on Tuesday, effectively forcing Senate Democrats to accept the measure as passed or risk a shutdown. In a statement on Friday, Johnson applauded his caucus for sticking together and accused Democrats of nearly triggering a shutdown “simply because they seem to hate President Trump more than they love America”.

This is messaging. That’s the sort of thing that’s gets on Fox or CNN aired totally uncritically and if that’s all a person hears between now and the midterms that’s going to be a deciding factor in how they vote. edit: typos

The normalisation of words like ‘stupid’ does have real life consequences to people with learning disabilities.

Targeted meanness doesn’t normalize the specific words used so that is not a relevant concern. Again, no one but the targeted fascists were offended by the usage of weird. Usages of the word weird haven’t exploded against queer people. By being mean to intolerant people we are defending the people those intolerant people want to kill. By refusing to be mean we would be abandoning the targeted out-groups. It is trivial to differentiate between using a word as a rhetorical tool in specific situations and dismissing its use in general discourse. It is in fact insulting to marginalized groups to insinuate they would not understand this.

‘Weird’ is not an equivalent word because it doesn’t define a group of people in the same way. Walz’s usage of the word ‘weird’ wasn’t to insult transphobes.

It definitely insulted them. Trump and Vance did not know how to handle being called weird. Weird is most certainly equivalent to words like dumb and stupid in terms of meanness.

compared to the empty argument of saying that a transphobe person is of ‘low intelligence’, especially when that’s often not even the source of their transphobia.

The use case of insulting a fascists intelligence would be different than calling them weird. Any given word is not going to be effective in every hypothetical scenario. Weird was the correct choice in Tim Walz’s case during the election. Calling fascists stupid can be the correct choice in others.

Substantive arguments are always better than non substantive ‘mean’ arguments as you call them.

The fact this is wrong is self-evident. We could of course not fit this discussion effectively into character limited messages or sound bites in a debate. The way we even get people to read these arguments is to first win these rhetorical battles. And even then not everyone is going to have time read these kind of discussions. If we rely on these kind of long form arguments to the exclusion of all other forms of communication and rhetoric then we will lose to the fascists.

A bystander needs an actual reason to be convinced, not a few mean words.

This is exactly what any given bystander needs in the fast paced social media discourse we have today. A person having someone tell them a fascist is wrong in a few short words that have a negative connotation because they are mean is how people are socialized. We don’t have to like it, but we do have to acknowledge and act on reality if we want to continue to live in reality.

You claim a lot about antifascist strategy but your claims are not supported by historical evidence.

My argument’s claims are in fact based on historical evidence. Two of the examples in my argument were from real twitter discourse. Here’s the Vaush video, but it contains abelist language, so only watch it if learning how to defeat fascism is worth violating personal sensibilities. The other example being Tim Walz, which refers to the last election cycle that just happened.

The strongest antifascist factions have always been those that seek unity within oppressed groups.

Nothing about using rhetoric to defend people is divisive. The same way violence in self-defense is not divisive. Throwing minority groups under the bus for the sake of moral purity is peak divisiveness.

Tailism just leads to division.

I’m not arguing for your argument’s straw man so this isn’t an issue.

XD Thanks for the share!

The fascists will do what they want either way. They only use laws when it is convenient for them to do so.

What the fascists wanted was to be legitimized by bipartisan support of their bill. They wanted the Democrats to consent in advance. To take the next small step willingly.

Chuck Schumer has handed the country over to the fascists in exchange for nothing because he serves the same billionaires.

There wasn’t a sudden realization from Schumer that flipped his opposition on Wednesday to his support on Thursday. That was his obvious cover to try to hide the billionaires he serves. Don’t fall for it.

Whoever controls the messaging can blame the other party for the shutdown. Democrats don’t bother to even have a narrative let alone control one. They fight in a strictly performative way. So no matter what happens Republicans can always blame Democrats and without an alternative view point pushed people who aren’t politically engaged are more likely to believe Republicans.

The ten Democrat Senators who voted for the CR do not care about winning. They care about raising their donors’ stock portfolios.

Eight what?

Meanness is part of society and so is this false notion of general intellect, which we cannot measure. Falsely championing disabled people and pretending targeted meanness isn’t effective when we all saw how calling specific fascists weird was effective isn’t an honest argument. Neither is hiding behind theory used as a straw man.

If Tim Walz had delivered a compelling argument about how fascism is self-destructive it wouldn’t have resonated with people the way weird did. People saw clips of JD Vance, they heard about the couch fucking, and weird resonated with them. Know who usually gets called weird and by who? Queer people by fascists. Did calling specific fascists weird bother queer people? No, because we’re weird and proud of it. Unlike the fascists who cling to a false sense of normalcy for the sake of their ego, queer people want to be themselves.

The reason this works is because it was targeted. Weird isn’t any more normalized against queer people than it was before Tim Walz used it. Calling specific fascists dumb isn’t going to normalize ableism even by using slurs. Which again using slurs may not even be the must useful rhetoric in any given scenario. But if a person finds themselves in a scenario where they can use slurs, even those that normally target queer people generally, to defend queer people effectively I would appreciate it if they did. The same way I would appreciate someone using violence to defend me effectively in a self-defense scenario.

Fascists aren’t going around telling us to be more mean. They would love for leftists to keep being nice no matter what and to cling to this obsession with moral purity because it renders us ineffective. Using a rhetorically effective word, phrase, or mannerism against a specific target isn’t any more reactionary than saying queer people should organize and arm themselves.

If leftists can’t get passed this obsession with moral purity it’s going to get us all killed. We aren’t going to be able to communicate effectively to our peers and other people in general in person or online. The fascists will mop the floor with us in their messaging. They’re willing to be mean to get what they want. Choosing an always share, rhetorically pacifist strategy is the same as choosing to be complicit in our own destruction.

The way leftists cling to moral purity is the same way that fascists cling to normalcy. It’s about leftists’ egos. Leftists don’t like the idea of being morally wrong. It’s why leftists couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Kamala Harris despite it being the useful strategy. And it’s why leftists can’t bring themselves to use slurs or abelist language or be mean against specific fascists who want to kill neurodivergent and queer people.

Killing people is wrong, but in some circumstances it is necessary. Being mean and using inappropriate language is wrong, but sometimes it is necessary. If everyone on one side of war is a pacifist, everyone they want to defend dies. If everyone on one side of a culture war is a rhetorical pacifist, everyone they want to defend dies. Refusing to say certain words in certain contexts isn’t protecting the neurdivergent or queer communities. It’s protecting leftists’ egos that depend on always being able to see a pair of clean hands.

If leftists actually care about marginalized groups then leftists should be willing to use the most effective strategies to defeat the fascists who want to kill those groups. Otherwise leftists should be honest with those marginalized groups and say they are only willing to give them token support because that’s what makes those leftists feel good about themselves. If leftists value their moral purity more than peoples lives then leftists should tell those communities that. That way those communities can find real allies who are willing to put people before their egos.

It’s targeted meanness. It’s a rhetorical tactic. It’s not for general use in conversations. It’s like calling fascists weird, making fun of a terf woman for looking ugly, or calling a transphobe a dumbass for demanding we respect his new pronouns because he put on a dress and makeup.

I’ll use tankies as an example. Tankies are evil demons because they want to use trans people for political purposes and kill us all for not being ideologically pure. If a tanky says they’re on the left call them a dumbass. And if anyone asks what a tanky is tell them that tankies are red fascists aka authoritarian communists.

To be clear, as a trans woman, I don’t want someone who uses ableism as a cudgel online defending me online or in real life. It’s not useful. It does nothing to forward the interests of neurodivergent people and it does nothing to push back on the people who want me dead. All it does is silence rhetorically effective critique of intolerant fascists and makes the person screaming ableism feel morally pure.

Again, it’s targeted. This does not mean we should being using ableist language for no reason or because we feel like it in casual conversation. It’s fine to call out meanness or ableism when it is being used in a way that serves no useful purpose.

Also, the goal isn’t really to use slurs but in theory they could be used. Whatever is useful in the particular social environment. The goal is to be mean to a specific target. This is about leveraging the way social media accumulates engagement and internet culture against intolerant people who we should not tolerate.

Refusing to use targeted meanness in a social war is like refusing to use guns in a physical war. It’s a great way to lose the war.

It is American Libertarian propaganda. The y-axis is clearly coded in a way that is biased in favor of Libertarians that is not useful to explaining political positions. The y-axis should be labeled as a measurement of centralization. edit: misclicks and clarification