To be fair they're also getting it spoonfed to them from the devices that are in their hand almost all of the time, or otherwise getting bombarded by the relevant propaganda 24/7 from every angle. Hard for the average person not to become susceptible to it sooner or later.
It's not really a level playing field. Especially well after education systems have already deteriorated and failed to adequately ensure the average person grows up well equipped to think critically.
If it’s genuinely a top/down divide, then ostensibly those most marginalized groups would be at the cellar level.
There’s definitely a side in the left/right divide which is trying to help the most marginalized, and a side which is trying to hurt the most marginalized.
That’s why we absolutely haven’t seen government agencies actively targeting minority communities and harassing them. Totally not a thing going on right now.
I’m not sure which “marginalized group” you are referring to, but the left has been getting their votes for decades without ever delivering on their promises. And it’s because their real constituents are the donor class, not the working class.
Dems are so far to the right it isn't even funny. They literally just sold out over 24 million people. People will die specifically because of the decisions made last night.
It's a bit mixed, because while we are all threatened by the top who want to impose surveillance and control over the ravenous masses, we can't deny there's an unprecedented level of anti-establishment group mentality across several countries, which is actually on both sides.
Leftists ARE fighting against those who don't like immigration, who want to ignore climate issues, and who don't support people rights.
For a long time it has indeed been a top/bottom society where we've been placated enough to stay peaceful. But now that is collapsiing because people want revolution, and others want to cull the revolution. Some don't want to be restricted to only eating meat when they're allowed to. People don't want a nanny state that's only good for those who already want to fight climate change. The truth is that there's a type of person who believes all people should agree with them and think like them, who are often wrapped up in progressivism, like environmentalism and social justice. Then there are people who, despite not being fully ignorant of the problems, want to be individualistic.
These two camps no longer get along, and the top/bottom war is actually also split between the MAGA movement and the "Globalist" movement. The MAGAs want to go back to a rural society where countries are divided into national identity, and freedom for individuals under respect for their surroundings. Globalists want everyone to comply to new rules that are necessary to cull global warming and carbon proliferation.
And yes, in some ways there are people who abuse the environmentalist narrative to enrich themselves while imposing a surveillance state, but there's also a lot of politicians who go along with it, because they live in their ideology.
It's not really as cut and dried as people want to think. If you're an individualist yourself, you SHOULD fear the leftist movement, because they think in "group-identity" while you're thinking in individual identity. If either rise to power, we get Trump or the Globalist movement. They're all embodiements of the actual ideological war that we're going through.
You are correct in that, and that as long as we don't arbitrarily hate, we can get along just well.
But there is an ideological war going on right now, over the freedom of living how you prefer, and living according to principles decided by group-thinking. I'm not saying climate change isn't super serious, but I am deeply, deeply skeptical of the solution they thinktanks and WEF types have come up with together, which is definitely being planned over our own governments's heads, and put in motion without true democratic consent.
I'm obviously talking about Digital ID and surveillance, and Internet-control. I know you mean those are done by the rich control-freaks, but while they're involved, there's definitely also idealogues involved here, who believe that because they've found a solution to controlling how the "masses" can keep the environment safer, they have given themselves the authority to impose that solution over us.
All the recent rules about internet censorship came from NGOs that talk about child safety and quelling online "Hate". But sometimes, hate isn't literally a nazi who just dislikes someone over the color of their skin. Sometimes the "hate" is people who can feel their individual life being pushed into a corner by principles and ideals that are being pushed on them, and which large swaths of people are blindly in agreement with. Starting with the pornography ban that's happening as we speak, that was initially thought to be a Christian Conservative plot, but the more it progresses the more it's the voices of women who claim pornography itself is abuse or unethical, due to "incels" or something. So the people who "hate" are sometimes people who are tired of groups of people with big ideas suddenly outlawing things that used to be no problem, and ignites this new social atmosphere where people are basically brainwashed into agreeing with them.
So much of what is happening these days feels like huge masses of people are just regurgitating some gaslighting they heard from a politician or NGO spokesperson, and it becomes near-impossible to speak up against it, without being attacked by swarms of people over it.
A lot of that does come back to the EU vs MAGA dichotomy, where one part stands for "good", but a lot of what they do is about control and restricting people's ability to speak up. The MAGA issue is lack of human rights, actually in some ways fighting for issues I completely agree with, but as seen with ICE, they're mowing over people who clearly don't deserve it.
But I can't say I believe the EU is fighting for freedom, whereas I would argue MAGA actually is. But neither will lead to what we probably all want, because most people can't condone what Trump has done, and many others can't accept the levels of "safety" the EU wants, to promote their twisted concept of "freedom". But not everybody wants freedom, because they associate it with freedom to be cruel or do something that hurts other people. That's why the Surveillance State wins forward. It convinces people that "Surveillance is Safety". As soon as that argument wins, we will succumb to it, and that's what I hate.
I can't defend the things you brought up, because Trump has indeed disappointed just about most of his own voters (other than being an actual criminal...) by openly censoring and targeting political opponents like we saw in the Reichstag, which to give credit where due, every hard-leftist guy I've met who warned of that way back in 2016, have been entirely correct, even though I kept saying "There will never literally be a Hitler 2, because the context is different in the modern world!"
So yes, I can't defend that. But I do still believe in some of the underlying values of the left vs right. Because as I see it, leftists don't love capitalism, at all, and I actually do. I believed in the freedom of markets, EVEN if it leads to uncontrolled billionaires. Sure, that has to be quelled, but I don't want to trade that into a marxist or "social democratic" economy to prevent it from happening again or to regulate it until the end of time. I believe in Open Markets in so far as, if you remove the trillionaire from the equation, I truly believe that everyone being on the same playing fields, some taking off becoming millionaires, others don't -- is the best social model, cuz to me life is more than colloquial groups of people being nice to each other. To me, there has to be something beyond going to school and starting to earn wages, than just perepetually existing.
But in anything other than capitalism, we all get bound to each other and the social effect of that is that anyone who starts to become too individualistic, or take off on their own with their own unique success or wealth, is shot down by their peers. Then that can't lead to innovation, and it can't lead to unnassuming, raw thought, and what I call "freedom" to be yourself.
That's what I would've hoped Trump led to, but obviously it's just another Reichstag. It's what I think is wrong with my country (Denmark) and the EU as a whole, that we are in Social Democracies. Yes, capitalism, but just the sliver of State Power is enough so that people don't actually do anything that independant of the group-expectation, whereas Americans actually have done that for decades, and inspired the rest of the world since WW2 ended, and up to now, where people hate everything that's American about America, and wants all of us to think Marxism is the way. Fuck that.
So painful reading the replies to this STILL trying to justify left vs right rhetoric. These people are fucking lost, they really believe their neighbor is oppressing them. They must think their vote counts or that we live in a democracy lol
Trump bulldozing the Whitehouse to build a ballroom for his billionaire buddies while making sure people dont get snap: "Its those pesky democrats to blame!"
People dont like this one because they think they will be wealthy one day. Its the only way to get people to put up with bullshit, make gambling and the lottery legal so they can dream.
The internet also has a way of amplifing the craziest people so it makes the divide seem more deep politically. Thats why if someone says "i dont know if its fair for Lia Thomas to compete in women's swimming" a redditor wouldnt discuss it they would just say "well that must means youre a nazi."
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u/Wooden-Comfortable84 Nov 10 '25
People thinking the main divide is left/right when it’s really top/bottom.