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Them: "I just think that anyone who can work, should, but that we as a society can afford to give people the help they need"
Me: "So you would summarize your core political belief as 'from each according to their ability, to each according to their need?'"
Them: "Yes? That's it! Absolutely!"
Me: "That's a Marx quote. That's literally the core principle of communism. You should start identifying as a communist."
Them: "What? No, communism is bad and doesn't work"
Honestly I should have just ended the friendship there. That moment convinced me that they were ideologically aligned with me, but unwilling or unable to look past the propaganda. I figured if I put in the work I'd help them make a fine comrade out of themself.
Didn't happen at all. They had a kid and both they and their partner got promoted to management around the same time, and with that change in material condition they're flying down the alpha male propaganda pipeline. It's fucking frictionless.
Any time I point this out, or any other friend does, they just double down and try to debatebro their way out of it. I have stopped engaging, and am just telling them to "stop acting shitty" when they start, and hoping I can still recover. But it's so fucking tiring.
White girl talm bout "I didn't deserve my melanin" if I didn't go to bat for Democrats like my people don't have a long, proud, nearly-dead history of being so radical crackers had to kill us.
"nobody can deny that Kamala ran an excellent campaign"
I didn't realize we needed permission
"What about civility?"
Said to me when I asked if they could name a single Kamala policy. I wish I was making this up, I thought he was shitposting irl, but he's like 60 so he was sincere. I forget that most libs are just mad they have to pretend to care about politics when Trump is around. All they want is brunch, civility, and the status quo which is in their interest.
Said to me when I asked if they could name a single [president/candidate] policy.
Something both blue MAGA and red MAGA have in common
Oh I had some downright hilariously deranged interactions with libs in the last month or so
The weirdest one was this boomer couple that reminded me of the parents in Get Out. The husband claimed that the genocide will end within Kamala's first day in office and when I pointed out how that contradicts everything she's said on the subject his response was just to deflect to Trump but in a way I'll never forget, the tone he used in particular I wish I could share with all of you. He replied to me "She has to be flawless but he gets to be lawless" and it was the funniest and most deranged thing I've ever heard from a lib, it wasn't just what he said but the way he said it slowly with a pause in the middle as if he was being super serious that was the funniest fucking thing to me
Not exactly funny but it did almost make me laugh out loud, we were talking about a bunch of different problems with society (all caused by capitalism) and I lightly put forth some 'socialistic' solutions, and they replied wistfully that those things would be nice but were impossible because of "human nature".
It was the way they were totally serious, with their completely reflexive dismissal, I was like... how can you be so cliche?? I was just startled to find out that real people, in the real world, really are primed to spit out the most basic anticommunist platitudes as an instant reaction to even a whiff of socialism.
Weird bush/cheney apologia. It didnt even make sense, like they had never been exposed to the idea that your class interests will dictate even the tiniest speck of your behavior.
Refusing to answer a question "can an object's history explain its current properties" because it was "too theoretical", saying nothing to the example that I gave right after.
"Russians only know human wave tactics and it has failed them in Ukraine."
They were doing "trump is a nazi vote Biden" thing. I pointed out how libs enabled Hitler and he said "I don't think taking advantage of a senile moron is collaborating but you do you" -100000000000 self awareness