this post was submitted on 29 Nov 2023
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If there's one thing the right are good at it's indoctrination. They co-opt spaces and then use them to infect people with their mindset.
And damn is it ever effective. Someone close to me is normally a leftist – she proudly supports her union (and unions in general), is strongly in favor of LGBT+ rights and environmental protection, mistrusts most political parties as they're too much in bed with big business etc.
However, she also hangs out on 9GAG, which apparently has been pretty much taken over by the right. This has greatly affected her views on immigrants since she's exposed to unchallenged right-wing drivel every day. It was "fun" when she told me how refugee facilities are hotbeds of violent crime and then it turned out that the unspecified statistics she was basing this on were mostly about violence against refugees.
(Not that those camps perfectly safe by themselves but not in the way right wingers make it sound like refugees and immigrants (who are conflated) are all violent anarchists who are above the law.)
Recently she just had to share this "joke" with me. The whole thing consisted of two police officers with Turkish names finding a generic German name exotic. That was it; I couldn't find any punchline in there, just a "the immigrants are replacing us" message. I'm just writing for the day when I hear the word "Überfremdung" ("overforeigning", a standard term of the far right) out of her mouth.
It goes on like that. Politically she's convinced that the Greens are completely unviable as a party and the worst part of the current government – the FDP (our liberal party for rich people) gets no mention despite being diametrically opposed to most of her core views. Ricarda Lang (a Green politician) being fat is much more important and will never get old.
I have no idea how to counter this but I'm afraid that she'll drift off into the hard right with time. She seems unwilling to accept that her main source of funnies is also chock full of right wing propaganda.
My old working class neighbourhood used to be relatively safe, now it isn't. A major demographic change occurred. It's not hard to see what happened.
This chronic inability by some on the left to acknowledge that mass immigration does at least some damage to the social fabric, is part of why the rightoids are winning. People on the ground can see it, and shouting to the contrary from ivory tower PMC liberals who consider themselves lefties is not going to change that.
In Canada we are undergoing a collapse of the healthcare system and a shortage of housing.
But if you say "maybe bringing more people into the country when we can't house or care for the people who are already here is a bad idea," suddenly you're a racist.
Immigration policy has real effects on the lives of current citizens, and it is not racist to acknowledge those effects.
That is part if the problem. The other part, at least is my country, is that the left is failing to present a believable alternative. Idealistic rhetoric from an ivory tower doesn't convince people their practical problems will be solved.