• NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, it’s kind of scary how close they are too succeeding. When one half of the electoral process gives up on democracy, and starts trying to take power by Amy means, it’s hard to fight back against that.

        • TrismegistusMx@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          It’s only hard to fight against it because our champions are wolves in sheep’s clothing. The Democrats don’t want to undermine their own power either, they just want you to think they do.

        • iltoroargento@lemmy.sdf.org
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          1 year ago

          The term sounds dumb off the tongue and, you guessed it, has no actual philosophical or historical weight aside from a callback to the name for Roman emperors.

          Sadly, those who are interested in regression don’t access a lot of critical thinking skills, so they’ll glom onto this surface level reference and see it as deep and meaningful.

        • TrismegistusMx@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I doubt any of the cultures that were invaded by Roman expansion were given any choice in the matter. Conservatism always has different standards for the in group versus the out group.

          • TheDankHold@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            I mean given that there were Roman emperors that hailed from almost every territory in the empire I don’t think your understanding of Romans is very accurate.

            After 212AD if you were a free man and lived in the empire then you were a Roman citizen. There was also a surprising degree of religious freedom in the empire as well.

            Using modern political group labels for antiquity is silly.

              • TheDankHold@kbin.social
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                1 year ago

                My point is that they were also the in group. It’s very much a flawed perspective, referring to the whole empire as conservative makes it clear.

                • TrismegistusMx@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  They were in the in-group as long as they paid taxes and followed the laws of the people in control of their lives. As long as they never disobeyed or rebelled. I urge you to look up consent before you hurt somebody.

                  • TheDankHold@kbin.social
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                    1 year ago

                    Ok so no government has ever governed through consent in that respect so I’m not sure why that’s an important issue to bring up. No one consents to be ruled by a government, you’re just born into it in most cases and in others the one you initially didn’t consent to got replaced by yet another that wasn’t consented to.

                    You really are glossing over the fact that referring to a 2000 year empire as blanket conservative is ignorant and ahistorical. They were multicultural and, with glaring exceptions, tolerated alternative religions far more than most geopolitical entities through history. It’s a vast history with varying governments, both with progressive ideas for the time and regressive backslides.

                    Watering it down to boilerplate 21st century political terminology shows a lack of intellectual rigor in understanding this issue so I don’t think this conversation needs to continue. I wish you well.

      • TheDankHold@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Roman Empire was multicultural with emperors from Spain, North Africa, the Balkan’s, Syria, and others. The modern Roman obsession is all about the optics that fascists have wrapped it up in, not actual history. They were even surprisingly religiously tolerant.

        They’re not actually trying to go back to that, they only want the worst traits of the empire.

        • TrismegistusMx@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Every Empire has a period of expansion and prosperity, modern-day Republicans are trying to bring back the policies that destroyed Rome, without understanding that conservatism is always the corruption that leads to fascism.

    • Neato@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Men who are terrified of the loss in power. They can’t stand the idea that they could ever be held accountable.

      • hh93@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I believe that’s also a reason for the rise of racism we see today

        People subconsciously know that their wealth (even if it’s not much it’s still better than that of people born in most parts of Africa or Asia) is mostly built on exploiting those people historically

        Then either you have to give up some of that power and wealth if you accept that they are just as human as you or just have to draw a line and look down on them

    • Schwim Dandy@reddthat.com
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      1 year ago

      It seems just the American religious right are doing that. There just seems to be many more of them than I first imagined.

      • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I think they’re just really loud. Most people aren’t like that. But since the republican party can’t seem to win elections fairly anymore, they’ve decided to throw the rules out and go for fascism.

        • Schwim Dandy@reddthat.com
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          1 year ago

          Didn’t we get to that point by the loud ones being able to vote their chosen into office though? That’s the part that surprises me, that there were enough of them to get the proper people in office to dismantle the country’s democratic process.

          • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            A lot of it was a coordinated effort to gerrymander. They lost the popular vote by almost 7 million votes in both of the last two elections. There’s also been a lot of foreign countries targeting misinformation and propaganda campaigns in the U.S., Russia, China, Vietnam, Iran.

            And we’ve been buying it unfortunately. They’ve been attempting to sow anger on the left and the right, and make it seem like everyone is more extreme than most people are, which has furthered the divide on both sides of the political spectrum.

            Unfortunately, there’s also roughly 20-25% of the population who just eats this crap up, and they’re the extremists now dominating national headlines.

            Sadly, the electoral college is the reason we are in this mess right now.