Remember kids, never open up about your weird internet politics
I made the mistake of balking at some particularly unhinged Ukraine/Russia rhetoric offline yesterday and got called a vatnik, a tankie, a Russia lover and I was even suspected of being pro-Israel and apparently a nazbol Aimee Therese follower or something
I'm not even invested in this shit, I just find the insane saber-rattling and warmongering unsettling
When someone tells you Putler's going to invade Estonia, Poland and Finland for Lebensraum next if he's not stopped in Ukraine, just nod your head solemnly
You got called a tankie IRL? That's so fucking funny, who were you even talking to? some Vaush horse enjoyer?
I would love to be called a tankie irl instead of having to debunk "Oh Israel is a ethnostate but they're a lot of ethnostates in the world and they don't get any flack" over and over again.
I always argue when I get the chance. I've had family members who I thought were regular libs call for dobas/gaza to be ethnically cleansed, no way I'm letting that shit fly unchallenged.
I had a friend yesterday say Ukraine has to win... I just said "but they aren't and they won't, the occupied area is going to be annexed". Then went on about how the major powers are just treating the country as a pawn. They shut up pretty quick.
It's funny because my friend group basically does that when I go off on political stuff because A) my sheer force of will, B) I have a degree in history (associates, but still) and C) they're mostly laid-back nerds
The one time there was push back, it was the member of the friend group we expelled because he yelled slurs at his newborn son while we were playing a game
At this point it's widely acknowledged that ukraine cannot win back the territory militarily. So build everything on that undeniable standpoint and you can't really be accused of anything. The onus is them to convince you you should gaf about the territorial integrity of a country halfway around the world that didn't exist before 1990. NYT reported that US intelligence does not believe russia wants to invade other countries (this was phrased as "it has always held this to be true", a hilarious admission).
If they really push the issue I might bring up that east & west ukraine have very different attitudes toward Bandera so what's the loss, let the banderites have the west where they can all circlejerk about their fascist hero in peace.
I'm not gonna jump straight to stanning DPRK with people (though I definitely will plant the seed about the insane propaganda being fake and the insanity of the US bombing campaign and shit) but honestly its rare that I get someone who is committed enough to their political stances to push back when presented with someone who clearly has thought more about it and is more familiar wit hthe situation. So I just go for it, more or less.
Yeah I'm a russia lover. I love Russia so fucking much. I want them to have nothing but amusement parks, sweet treats, and good times. My little babies.
A little while ago my friend and I were talking and he was despairing of the left's chances generally because of us politics horserace stuff. I pointed out that China is doing pretty great and he hit me with "authoritarianism."
But we've both been to China so I just asked him if it seemed authoritarian when he was there and he said no.
I'm surrounded by oinking hogs so a part of my weird internet politics actually vibes with them really easily, problem there is that any time culture war bullshit comes up I get basically the same treatment you're describing but in a hog-talk style.
i think you should develop your political beliefs so that they stand up to some minor questioning from someone who has not done any research on the issue at all. like, have a quick, intelligible response to reasonable questions like "but isn't invading a sovereign nation a bad thing to do?"
I rolled a nat 20 to dodge some libshit during a party last night. I forget exactly what it was but it was related to Israel and I managed to side-step and keep things some kind of on-topic.
Fake. Z post IRL. People can smell your half-baked unconfident position and it’s contradictions. You will only win them over with full throated anti-imperialism
IDK I bring up some stuff that's pretty outside the mainstream on the regular, people are pretty receptive nowadays I'm finding (Philly). Our analysis conforms with reality for most people, weird. This can of course always happen, you found someone whose programming at that point was just going to totally shutdown on or reject some points.
Anecdotal but if it's any consolation I met a guy in a random video chat (minichat/ome dot TV/chatruletka network) who was in Ukraine, with his wife and cat. They were in a rolling power outage and bored, he was pretty articulate but his wife had way better English. They were actually on the level and agreed that they were just getting fucked by NATO too, and the war should have ended years ago rather than what's been going on. I didn't even bring it up.
I just go quiet when anyone start yapping Lib or Chud shit and just say "uh hun, yeah" and don't give them anything till they get bored and go back to talking about other shit.
Yeah, I usually have to open up with "fuck Putin, but..." because the US and Nato have really done more damage to Ukraine than Russia was ever intending to do.
I've been open about my politics for 14 years now and it only got me accosted once. I'm surrounded by mostly reactionary Christian fundamentalists or apolitical Latinos so no one really knows what to make of me. Most people just think I'm joking.
That's not true. Unless the person is also very online I don't think they say this shit. Most people I talk don't really disagree with ukraine being a burgerland proxy war or its long effort of building up nazi holocaust criminals and their organizations.