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Welcome to 2024, the Year We Stop Trump’s Rolling Insurrection
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this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2024
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politics
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Gimme a break. We said the same shit about Bush in 2004.
"Vote or die" was a huge campaign movement.
Can I ask how old you are? Because it was absolutely nothing like it is now in 2004. The vote or die thing wasn't literal, it was just an attempt at a making voting cool to get young people out to vote.
I'm 34. There absolutely were people talking about a fascist bush/Cheney regime in 2004. Sure things are different now, but they're still very much the same.
If you are 34: You were at most 10 years old when Bush won in Nov. 11, 1999, and at most 18 years old when he left office. You were a child. You didn't vote. You really don't know if things were "very much the same".
"You could never understand historical events if you weren't literally alive and a full grown voting adult to see them"
What a fucking shit take. Have you never commented on a single thing you weren't alive for? Stop being so reactionary, not every election is "the most important in our country's history". Again, gimme a break.
I was also an adult in 2004, and mr_robot is correct, "Vote or Die" was just an edgy get-out-the-vote campaign to make voting cool, not a "VOTE OR WE LITERALLY ARE GOING TO DIE" call to arms against Bush. You are free to comment on things you weren't alive or and adult for, but you have to be correct. You are just wrong here. Let it go.
The message is the same. Vote or you'll be subjected to an increasingly authoritarian government bent on making the country worse. Regardless of how edgy you think the campaign was, we're saying the same shit over and over. You just feel more strongly about it because you understand the context this time.
That wasn't the message, it's not the same. You aren't listening or thinking critically about what you're saying, or reading carefully what we're trying to tell you.
The "vote or die" was "edgy" in that 90s way the same way the "DARE" anti-drug campaign was "hip and cool" - a completely mainstream, sanitized "cool" patina applied to the ultimately bland non-partisan message, "hey young adults, vote!" There was no message that if you don't vote you'll be subject to an "increasingly authoritarian government."
This is why mr_robot immediately went after your age - you didn't live it, you didn't know what happened, you're just confidently making a bunch of assumptions that you wouldn't be making if you had been there. So just let it die.
Here's a Slate article showing the usage of the phrase "most important election in our lifetime" going back 200 years.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/11/most-important-election-of-our-lifetimes-history.html
The messaging is the same, regardless of what campaign, what year, how edgy, how pandering. It's. The. Same. Vote or Die, MAGA, Hope, it's all bullshit campaign strategies trying to get people to think of an election as more important than any other so we get out and vote. The DNC has been running the same strategies every 4 years for decades now, just wrapped up in different packaging.
I would like to note that they only example you've provided to equate the two is that p-diddy used s common figurative saying in an attempt to make voting cool.
One can certainly understand things, to an extent, that happened when they were young or before they were born. But if this is the meat of your argument, let alone appearing to be the entirety of it, this is not one of those times.
Lol no that's just what you jabronis latched onto because it was the easiest part to dispute
The messaging is the same. We've been saying every election is the most important election every 4 years going on decades now, in fact, here's a slate article documenting the use of the phrase "most important election in our countries history" going back 200 years in print media.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/11/most-important-election-of-our-lifetimes-history.html
I don't see it. Please reiterate where you referenced some facts other than this.
Oh you mean the article I just replied with that you completely ignored, just like my point about using similar messaging in every election. My main comment wasn't even about vote or die, just used it as an example lol
You claimed you already had provided something and we all just latched onto one thing. your link was provided after the fact. This should be pretty obvious.
And you know what? They were right, they were just off on the timing. Bush's administration (and frankly Clinton's before him, to a lesser degree) normalized a lot of more-flaunting that's only just coming to fruition.
A disdain for the truth. A mistrust of our electoral process. Utilizing consecutive emergencies to hold on to power (also known as the Julius Caesar doctrine). Projecting the appearance of strength at any cost. Never admitting to misconduct. Fighting against (and convincing your supporters to fight against) things that would've previously been bipartisan just because it could help the other party politically. Overlooking malfeasance because of party alliance (and overlooking positive qualities because of disloyalty). Showboating for cable news. All of those things led directly to Donald Trump in 2016, because they were torn down piece by piece in 1996-2004.
This false equivalency doesn't acknowledge that nations very rarely fall in one swift stroke; it's a slow but steady erosion of the fabric of decency. And maybe you're right this time, too; maybe Trump will surprise us all and not do the things he said he would do, like be a dictator on his first day in office or deport non-Christians or pardon convicted criminals who are loyal to him.
But what about the next guy? The one who sees the promises Trump is making and thinks, "this but unironically"? The guy who sees how far Trump has pushed the envelope and how much he's disregarded mores and is willing to push it down the field a little bit more? What about the guy in 2032 who thinks Trump's "first day dictatorship" didn't go far enough? What's to stop him?
It's not a slippery slope fallacy when we're actually slipping down the slope.
And we won't fix it next time if we won't fix it now. They'll just keep moving the Overton Window until they've normalized an outright empire.