Political Memes

It's a distinctly American view. Other countries do look at making deals where the benefit is mutual.

Our foreign policy, specifically over the last 40 years, has been vulgarly in service to the Epstein Class and their business interests, and we saw this backed up in Jeff's own emails. It was a feature of both our wars and the manner in which we wielded soft power. The only real difference here is tactics and presentation, and if Donald were willing to make nice speeches like his predecessors, people would care significantly less, I think.

That said, there is some legit hypocrisy here. In his first term, Donald did distinguish himself in disentangling the US from several foreign wars and his reticence to start others. (Most notably Syria and Afghanistan.) He also campaigned on doing so again, even beginning office by establishing a ceasefire in Gaza.

But then he needed people to stop asking questions about his likely pedophilia.

100% agree on the social media posts though. No one gives a shit about the supposed hypocrisy, on the left or the right. Hell, they didn't call the last guy Genocide Joe for no reason.

Yes, and to be clear, I'm not saying that I actually hold that view. I'm just saying that that's the view they have - and there's nothing hypocritical about it. It's flawed in plenty of other ways, but hypocrisy isn't one of them.

Remember, right-wingers use words differently. They use "unfair" the same way my toddler uses it. In this case "unfair" means "I don't like that and I use a word that makes it sound like that's not just my opinion".

Fairness and mutual benefit are a specific trait of a left-wing world-view. If you accept that everyone should have the same, fair chances and that working together brings mutual benefit, that already puts you squarely into a left-wing position.

The main right-wing world view on the other hand is self-centred. "I am the person who is most important to me. If I don't benefit, I'm out."

This goes through all parts of left/right views and politics. On the left, people are ok with social monetary transfers, even if it might harm their bottom line, because they think it's fair that poor people can afford to live. On the right, people are envious of people receiving benefits. On the left, people are against billionaires, because they take money from poor people to enrich themselves. On the right, people worship billionaires because they want to be like them. On the left people are for asylum, because they think it's only fair to provide people with a safe place to live. On the right people are against asylum, because they think asylum seekers will take money from them.

Because of that, "fair" and "unfair" mean different things on the left and the right. A left-winger who has a high salary might say "It's unfair, that I earn so much and the person who makes my food doesn't. Let's raise minimum wages." A right-winger might say "It's unfair to raise minimum wages, because the guy who makes my food could have just gone to university like me, and increasing the minimum wage means my burgers won't be as cheap as they are now."

Left-wingers see fairness as an universal standard, that has to be applied to everyone even to their own detriment. Right-wingers see fairness as a way for them to increase the share they are getting.

That's a really great point. I agree that the fair versus unfair distinction does imply a universally shared rubric. However... I'm not sure if the fairness of it was actually ever asserted by the government one way or another - from what I've heard, they've only ever asserted the good or badness of it. So I still suspect that the post may be missing the real hole in the opponent's armor and instead attacking a strawman.

My problem with this is that I think a lot of the changeable minds that are on the fence will recognize how it isn't really hypocritical, and so this misses the point and just makes it look like a stupid complaint. Because indeed, there isn't hypocrisy going on here. The mentality is wrong for other reasons, but not because of hypocrisy. So when it comes to changeable minds, I feel like it's better to put forward solid reasoning rather than merely sophistic reasoning - as the second kind is usually only useful for preaching to a choir who is willing to overlook logical flaws.

I guess I should also say I totally understand that you might convert some people with a hypocrisy argument. But... Although it may be idealistic of me, I'd much rather make converts out of people through actually true lines of reasoning rather than ones that are merely compelling.

It is more than that. The ones that control society want them to be that way, so they go along to get along. That's the big factor.