I prefer to label myself a liberal rather than a libertarian but (with the caveat that there’s some threshold number of dumb fucking tankies that just have to be blocked to make the platform enjoyable) this is my experience as well. I miss *the people* I followed on Twitter, but that’s it.
I’m basically an FDR Dem. Somebody on here called me a tankie. Maybe it was you.
If I were inclined to call you a “tankie,” I’d have said nothing & blocked you.
I’m never going to be unsurprised about how far right this country has gone. To the point we’re expected to entertain the validity of fascist ideology on X and that some equate New Deal policies with Stalinism. I’m just glad I can post this here w/out 50 far right bots calling me a libtard groomer.
Look, I have big qualms with many of FDR’s policies but it damn sure wasn’t “Stalinism” & I wouldn’t put you anywhere near the class of political/economic flat earthers that tankies occupy.
His policies kept extreme wealth inequality in check and prevented outsized private power from dismantling democracy, as we just witnessed. Not a fan of internment camps or redlining. Those were symptoms of American racism rather than a result of economic ideology. Keynes > Friedman.
1. The fundamental problem today is that the President holds FAR too much power—FDR was *instrumental* in that establishing & entrenching that trend. 2. I don’t care about wealth inequality. 3. There’s compelling evidence that he prolonged the Great Depression—I do care about that. 4. He nearly >
You should care about wealth inequality when it is extreme, and it’s at record levels. The top 5% owns 67% of the wealth. The bottom 50% owns only 3% of the wealth. History illustrates time & again the poltical instability & concentrated power this creates. Outsized private power leads to fascism.
I’ve read the theory that the New Deal prolonged the GD. It’s a theory, not fact. The ND fostered a recovery that benefitted Main Street. The Friedman solution in 2008 benefited Wall Street and siphoned more wealth to the top that wasn’t recovered by far too many families. I’ll take the ND method.
The NKVD infiltration wasn’t a result of New Deal policy. If you want to fault FDR for not seeing a relatively brand new threat, that’s fine. It doesn’t mean Keynesian economics leads to espionage. 🤷♂️
Where did I say that NKVD infiltration was a result of economic policy? (I didn’t.) & *spying* was not an new phenomena in the 1930s. It was millennia old by then & the NKVD wasn’t doing much of anything new.
Wages didn’t recover until *after* WWII. Why are we using unique metrics for the end of the Great Depression that we don’t use for any other economic downturn?
Your entire thesis here is a just-so story. Fascism is a direct consequence of *government* power. & waving your arms at wealth inequality misses the bigger picture—wealth has been created at *every* level of American society. There’s just been exponentially more at the top than the bottom.
There is always power inherent in government. There is a difference between that power being held by the people vs being held by a very few with immense concentrated wealth. You ignore stagnant wages with the creation of new wealth over the last 40 years. There was no trickledown.
That new wealth concentrated at the very top while infrastructure deteriorated and public services were privatized (like higher education) with big fat profit layers that ended up costing individuals more than what they saved on tax reductions. Again, no trickledown to offset new expenses.
You can’t 1. tell me that you believe in Keynesian economics & 2. that stagnant wages, etc are not detrimental to the multiplier effect. If you’re a Keynesian & you follow the theory to its logical conclusion, that growth should have been *much higher* had FDR not hampered recovery from the GD.
Ugh no, all you have to do is recognize that wealth is correlated with political power for wealth inequality to be a political problem around the amassing of illiberal influence People who don’t think wealth inequality is a problem should think more about board games
Fill in the blank: “Correlation is ___ causation.”
>micromanaged the war economy to failure multiple times. I don’t think it would or could have cost us the war (Germany & Japan’s economics were far bigger basket cases) but it certainly would have cost even more lives. 5. His administration was thoroughly penetrated by NKVD. He knew & didn’t care. >
>This put us at grave disadvantages when dealing with Stalin & set the stage for early setbacks in the Cold War. 6. Japanese Internment. Etc, etc, etc. OTOH, he was very adept as a politician. I think so many of his policies were wrong yet he convinced people otherwise—that’s leadership. He also >
>clearly saw WWII coming & aligned us with the right side. Regardless, I think that you’re probably someone who cares about people & facts & are therefore someone I can have an argument with. Unlike a tankie.
See: I wasn’t an asshole or a jerk to people. I didn’t whine about not getting as much engagement as I thought I should. & the only one who had anything shitty to say was a dumb fucking tankie (& those cretins are always best ignored anyway).
IMO these tankies are more funny (albeit obviously mentally ill) than scary or infuriating
They’re definitely not scary. They are extremely stupid &, at this point in my life, are a complete waste of my time & attention, though. But if they entertain you, all the more power to you!
This place got so much better when I went on a tankie blocking spree last year.