Carsten Agger
Just like the tendency to blame the "white working class" for Trump's victory. In actuality, the white working class was under-represented among the Trump voters.
Why did these centrists supposedly all defending "reason" go down that rabbit hole? Maybe it is and was too painful to recognize that business as usual and dynastic entitlement (and "lean in" feminism) is not what the US needs right now. What it needed at the time was Bernie Sanders.
Charlie Stross
@godzero @agger @pluralistic That's transphobic. (Also wrong. What Thatcher was, was a creature of conservative elite privilege. Her gender took a back seat to her wealth and snobbery.)
gz
@cstross @agger @pluralistic
Thatcher was a female impersonator.
Charlie Stross
@agger @naomiaklein@bird.makeup @pluralistic Sunak is no more a victory for anti-racism than Thatcher was a victory for feminism.
Carsten Agger
Relevant for the idea of "lean in" feminism and allowing women and minorities in board rooms, I'm currently based in the UK (normally, Denmark) and the government here is a case in point: Is Rishi Sunak as PM a victory for anti-racism and inclusivity?
No, that's not a victory for anything. Sunak may be non-white, but what matters is that he's *posh*. Inclusivity would, in the UK, mean letting people in who are not upper class. More precisely, who are not *rich:*.
Inhabitant of Carcosa :emacs:
@agger @naomiaklein @pluralistic
I think a big part of how centrist delusions promote conspiratorial thinking is that hard centrist refuse to admit that there is anything wrong in our society, except for the set of problems specifically caused by their oppenents being in power. So the economy is always good, Obamacare solved the healthcare crisis, the environmental crisis will be solved by green capitalism, etc. To everyone else, both the left and the right, these things are so obviously false that both the phenomena themselves, and the centrists' bizarre statements demand explanation. Leftists generally reach the conclusions that are both correct and unacceptable, while rightists, lacking theory, come up with explanations that are emotionally compelling but absolutely batshit.
Carsten Agger
I make this observation because while reading the book I was kind of waiting for this point to be made ... of some Democrats' tremendous own goal attacking Trump for being the traitor and Russian spy he's not instead of as the right-wing populist he actually is. Like ... I wonder what the connection between that kind of "centrist" insanity/orhodoxy (think TINA, War on Drugs etc.) and COVID-style conspiracies is, at the end of the day.
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