One of my fav examples of how much libs despise actual democracy is how they denigrate any popular movements as populism. What they really believe in is rule by elites, and they find the idea of unwashed masses having any kind of say in how a society is run absolutely horrifying.
This one comes up in my circles all the time and drives me up a wall. They seem to not be able to comprehend that populism is a rhetorical tool that’s not necessarily tied to any specific ideology while Marxism is an economic analysis of class under capitalism. This leads them to reduce “anything that is good for the common person” to populism while blissfully and smugly missing the point of any actual analysis. I also think this is what leads some of them to spout the “horseshoe theory” nonsense; they think a fascist using populist rhetoric and a communist using populist rhetoric must be equivalent because they’re both populist, QED.
Yeah, I think that goes hand in hand with stuff like “people are stupid.”
It makes me think of that Men in Black movie quote, which to me these days is western individualist drivel, but I recall at least one time online in the past of seeing somebody quote it like was meaningful and insightful. The one that goes like this:
A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it.
It implies that people are “stupid” as a collective, which is what the kind of libs you’re talking about seem to believe. The train of thought seems to go something like: “I live in a democracy.” -> “It sucks.” -> “Why does it suck? Because people are stupid.” -> “Therefore, democracy is bad.” -> And then you start getting into stuff like libertarian nonsense, rule by elite, etc.
One of my fav examples of how much libs despise actual democracy is how they denigrate any popular movements as populism. What they really believe in is rule by elites, and they find the idea of unwashed masses having any kind of say in how a society is run absolutely horrifying.
This one comes up in my circles all the time and drives me up a wall. They seem to not be able to comprehend that populism is a rhetorical tool that’s not necessarily tied to any specific ideology while Marxism is an economic analysis of class under capitalism. This leads them to reduce “anything that is good for the common person” to populism while blissfully and smugly missing the point of any actual analysis. I also think this is what leads some of them to spout the “horseshoe theory” nonsense; they think a fascist using populist rhetoric and a communist using populist rhetoric must be equivalent because they’re both populist, QED.
yup
Yeah, I think that goes hand in hand with stuff like “people are stupid.”
It makes me think of that Men in Black movie quote, which to me these days is western individualist drivel, but I recall at least one time online in the past of seeing somebody quote it like was meaningful and insightful. The one that goes like this:
It implies that people are “stupid” as a collective, which is what the kind of libs you’re talking about seem to believe. The train of thought seems to go something like: “I live in a democracy.” -> “It sucks.” -> “Why does it suck? Because people are stupid.” -> “Therefore, democracy is bad.” -> And then you start getting into stuff like libertarian nonsense, rule by elite, etc.
This kind of stuff really exposes how liberals are just closeted fascists.