this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2024
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So often, the language of the imperialist class reads like straight out of an abuser's handbook:
"You don't know how good you have it."
"If you don't like it, you can leave."
"If you left, they'd gut you, unlike here."
"Do you have any idea how much worse it could get if you don't do what I say?"
"They don't care about you like I do."
"You're so childish when you complain."
"Siding with me is the mature thing to do."
"If you're not with me, then you're helping my enemies."
"You're scaring everyone by opposing me, stop being so dramatic."
"I am the best you will find. You really think you can do better? You're delusional."
Note: Although I am paraphrasing, none of this is outside the spirit of things I've seen written/said by imperialists/capitalists/etc. and those who defend them.
Indeed. Arguing with China with my uncle who is only like 5 years older than me I can recognize some of these immediately. "You don't know how good it is here compared to there." "Well, you were talking to some Chinese people, not everyone actually living there", "Do you like sweatshops? Is this what I'm hearing"?
All I got was him getting mad when I countered each one; "They've mostly eliminated homelessness and have a much larger population than we do" "Plenty of people who have visited China who both live there and don't and vloggers who visit and talk freely" "Do you like prison slavery?"
Like, the cognitive dissonance is so fucking real when they internalize all those stereotypical abuser tropes masked in their rhetoric and you point out that America does the same, but worse and globally or that no, they don't have supermassive gulags the size of cities. They just get angry. Even when you put it soft, or put it blunt. I'm seeing the same thing in a lot of people I talk to. They've been perfectly trained to get angry whenever enemies of the state are painted in a light that contradicts.
In order to deconstruct that, you just have to do so fucking much work and throw like 30 citations at them and 8 times out of 10 they'll just shrug.
They get angry because they've made their fantasies part of their identity. So by poking holes in their nonsense, you're "attacking them."
Yeah I got jumped last night because I said, factually, that if you vote for Kamala then you're supporting genocide (and basically every GOP policy). Kicked dogs holler! Literally every abuser trope was there lol, my favourite was "no you're supporting the US empire by doing nothing!1!" yeah man, supporting the genocidal democratic party is definitely somehow better than not supporting them