A clue in the Valais paper on November 18, 2023, was: “Swiss political party – racist, xenophobic, homophobic, anti-feminist, anti-ecological, anti-poor, nationalist.” The answer: UDC (the French abbreviation for the Swiss People’s Party).
A clue in the Valais paper on November 18, 2023, was: “Swiss political party – racist, xenophobic, homophobic, anti-feminist, anti-ecological, anti-poor, nationalist.” The answer: UDC (the French abbreviation for the Swiss People’s Party).
Hmm. Do you know that party in question has been doing that, or are you just assuming that they do based on association with those right-wing figures you know of who do?
Because the latter is… pretty bad.
They (SVP/UDC) are worse… Here one of their posters (Translation: “Create Security”)
Here another one (Translation: “Would you let leftist and good people destroy Switzerland? - Better Vote SVP”):
As you can see they like to shoot very sharp but can’t take it when they are critized.
No I get they’re racist fucks, but do they express disapproval when others go to court over defamation like this? Because the line above was not “the SVP are racist” but “they can’t take a joke.”
Racist fucks do not need a devil’s advocate
You say something perfectly reasonable, but I don’t think it’s what you mean. Or if you do, this is not the context. I’m not playing devil’s advocate, I’m saying we should be careful about the off-hand accusations we make. We absolutely ought to be being honest when accusing people of doing wrong stuff - including the far right. Getting it wrong, especially with a casual disregard for the truth, does not help. You don’t combat fascism by just throwing more accusations around with the justification, “weeelll they’re bad people anyway, what does it matter if we accused them of something they didn’t do?”
Making incorrect, baseless accusations damages the credibility of all similar accusations. So no, I’m not going to “advocate” for the SVP and ask “what if they’re actually a bunch of stand-up guys,” but I am going to challenge what look like unlikely accusations. And judging by the couple of replies so far, this absolutely was intellectually vacuous mudslinging. The OP should do better.
Listen, I understand what you’re saying. I can even sympathize with your position a bit.
A few things, first, the right wing extremists do not care about facts, accuracy, or verifiability. They hear what they agree with and hoot and holler. The people who understand the game know this, and may offer some kind of source knowing that their audience is going to do absolutely no due diligence in verifying their claims. (See: Prager U)
As a result, they can, and will, spew the most vile lies they think will be even remotely believable and this does not hurt their credibility with their audience. And, this is a real threat, more people are being radicalized every single day.
Again, the people that understand the game know that the more egregious the lie, the more time we have to spend explaining why it’s wrong. And the people they’re trying to reach likely aren’t going to listen. Because it’s not a logical response they’re looking for, it’s an emotional one.
What you’re doing is a form of devil’s advocacy. It’s not as constructive as I think you’re trying to be. Again, I get it. I’ve said the exact same things you’re saying. We left that world behind a long time ago. The time for rational, reasoned debate was before dollar store Mussolini was elected the first time. Honestly it was before Obama was dragged by the media for Dijon and a tan suit.
We don’t live in a world where what you’re arguing for matters anymore.
I do believe and agree that there are a bunch of people who are lost causes. But I don’t think that makes truth unimportant. There’s a bunch of people still who do care about whether people are lying, who do think less of the left for this and would think better of it if the left, collectively, were more honest. I’m not American so I don’t know how many Trump voters this applies to (people would have you believe “none”, of course) but there are also swathes of people who think “both sides are just a bunch of lying bastards.” Well, we can try to tell them that, no, both sides are not the same. But also we can not be a bunch of lying bastards.
Fundamentally, I don’t think anti-fascism wins by throwing away the principle of truthfulness. Aren’t we supposed to be better that?