i don’t usually comment on this stuff on ‘wild lemmy’ to this depth,

What is this in reference to?

Okay, so in my minds eye, my comment was really for any scientist/stakeholder with an ongoing specific interest in an ongoing green project or something of that nature.

This context was important, thanks. This definitely work on neocons, because they actually care about this country. Unlike fascists, for whom the nation is just a means of implementing their racism. The issue at the end of the day, is that Trump and his cronies he wants to put in the White House are grifters. They know it’s a scam, so there’s nothing to manipulate on the nationalist side for the actual individuals in power. Trump’s a fascist, he probably does believe in some kind of racial superiority for white people. But he has no loyalty to other white people or any people, only himself.

I agree, its murky at best.

I would say what the people in the MAGA movement classify as MAGA is murky. A lot of Trump’s cabinet picks think they are MAGA, but a lot of MAGA people seem to disagree. Trump is one of elites. He inherited wealth from his dad. If his supporters can spot problems with his cabinet picks why can’t they spot those same problems with him? It’s like the cabinet picks don’t match up with the Trump that lives in their head. Because they definitely match up with the Trump who lives in real life.

I’m definitely uncomfortable classing MAGA as a cult in the traditional sense. Maybe its a movement. My key point here is the strong and continued correlation between Trump voters and Bernie, and AOC voters. This is key in my understanding. It means theres a broad rejection of the status quo.

There’s definitely a desire for populism that rejects the status quo from the electorate. As far as MAGA being a cult, if it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, and shoots lasers from a minigun, then it’s a duck with a laser minigun. MAGA has grown to include attributes beyond a cult. It’s a full christo-fascist movement, but it also still contains the elements of a cult within it. Thus it can still be classified as a cult.

Lastly, appeals to nationalism aren’t MAGAs or fascists, or Conservatives, or what-evers exclusive domain. If your proud of where your from, even if its in the most roundabout ways, then you have some nationalism. Don’t let a words bad reputation hold you back from making the place you love somewhere you can be even more proud of, Liberals, leftists, whatevers can be nationalistic to. Use that USA flag of yours in your own ways, theres no need to cede that shit to authoritarians.

That’s the distinction between patriotism and nationalism. Patriotism being a healthy love of one’s country that can include the belief the country has something worthwhile to offer its citizens and the world. Nationalism being an unhealthy and destructive belief in the country’s superiority that excludes a peaceful or cooperative coexistence with the rest of humanity. We can definitely have and many of us do have a sense of patriotism for our country. There’s no sense in letting fascists claim everything good in the world for themselves.

Speak to nationalism

You’re welcome to try it, but there are some reasons why a copy-cat strategy will run into issues. The MAGA movement do want shiny new toys, not solar panels specifically, but they don’t want the wrong people, ie minorities, to get them. They think they elected a guy who is going to fight for them, get them what they want, and exclude the people they hate.

It’s not just nationalism, but christian nationalism. Religion and conspiracies are being used as a wedge issues against climate science and science in general. They don’t trust experts and they don’t trust the science. Solar panels aren’t just an unnecessary technology, it’s the wrong technology. The wrong virtue signal that they weren’t taught as part of their religion or Qanon drops. These people would rather get a gas generator for their house than solar panels.

Stroke the ego’s

MAGA is a cult. As long as any group or person is seen as part of MAGA then they’re in. This, at the moment, appears to be kind of arbitrary. As we saw dissatisfaction with many of Trump’s cabinet picks from MAGA and a lot of support for Luigi Mangione also from MAGA. Unless we identify exactly what is considered in and out to the MAGA crowd, appealing to ego will not be sufficient. Even Trump doesn’t seem to have a good sense of this, he seems to figure it out from trying and then reviewing the coverage later. Being seen as anti-elite is important apparently based on MAGA’s response to the CEO killing.

Extract enough to make it worth your time.

What are you extracting? People have infiltrated white supremacist and neo-nazi groups before. They usually dox the people and release information about the group to the public and/or law enforcement. What are you getting from random people at a bar? It’s definitely worth connecting with local people and a way to do that is to be social, at places like bars. But what’s step two when you have specifically targeted MAGA people?

Use your leverage and <ins>make the demands they don’t want to refuse</ins>.

What leverage? I have conservative friends. When I argue about politics with them, my positions have no greater weight than anyone else’s. edit: typo

Exactly. Pick up a bucket. We need to spread true information.

Yes, a major goal of our discussions in general is to help people reading the discussion. Ideally that would be pro-democracy conclusions. It’s reasonable to assume we won’t change bad faith actors minds in the short term. Studies have shown people reject new information that contradicts their beliefs. That’s why we are in an information race. The initial opinion people form between now and the election is the opinion they are going to have on election day. But I do think anything is possible in the long term. We just need to get there with our democracy.

Accelerationism can only ensure the US gets to fascism faster. Getting to fascism faster doesn’t destabilize the resulting christo-fascist regime. A fascist government will not just make it harder to make the US and the world a better place. Once the fascists take power they will actively work to make sure it is a worst place. A christo-fascist United States will actively harm everyone living in its sphere of influence and do nothing to put a check on other authoritarian dictatorships’ spheres of influence.

Republicans winning elections sets us back decades. In this current election, our democracy is at stake. Neoliberalism has been pushing us in this direction for decades. We need a socialist political revolution to fix this. We need to keep our democracy long enough to perform a political revolution to change things for the better.

Lemmy is inundated with accelerationist rhetoric. When I was still on Reddit, I saw plenty of conservatives. The most striking thing I’ve noticed from arguing with people on both Reddit and Lemmy is the similarity between accelerationist rhetoric and conservative rhetoric. Both accelerationists and conservatives assert the US has never been a democracy and that the US system cannot be fixed. Both of these assertions are contradicted by US history. This is not to say that these are the same group of people. What these false assertions highlight is that neither group values democracy.

These next months leading to the election are essential, as that as when people are going to start checking in to the current election cycle. Progressives cannot afford to be silent leading up to the election. Democracy, even one as flawed as ours with its undermining of majority rule, is our most effective vehicle for progressive change that we have.

People who do not value our democracy are going to troll, sea lion, and generally act in bad faith. The common internet adage, don’t feed the trolls, is not going to help us. People will act in bad faith in a vacuum. They know they need to spread their message the farthest and the fastest to see their ideology realized in this election. Progressives need to spread our message further and faster than them if our political revolution is to succeed. Progressives do not need to interact with every internet troll they encounter. But progressives must find ways to be vocal which sometimes involves engaging with bad faith actors.