In the end I think this is the best many of us can do. Which is fucked because it means we are playing chicken with fascism. I live in Pennsylvania now, and am furious with the bait and switch John Fetterman pulled, so I 100% understand being wary of any politician claiming to be more radically left after previously being in bed with the fascists.
I do agree about his sort of shapeshifting, but in some cases (still to be determined with Platner) that comes from being a mailable young man looking for camaraderie and community and finding an oh so welcoming cult. I knew folks like this growing up. One case in particular I remember. A guy I had known in elementary school fell in with a friend group because of shared interests like hunting, fishing, off roading, classic rural US activities. Also roughly represented the group of guys that were going to finish high school and start working the family business or go to trade school. These were also many of the guys from families that had been hardline right wingers for a long time.
Anyway, this guy I had been closer to hung out with them all 4 years of high school, but on the day of graduation he came up to me and said “hey, I’m really sorry for how the people I hung out with treated you. I tried really hard to stop them when I could and never really participated” and while it might sound a bit hollow, in the moment I realized he was right. Over the span of 4 years, while our friendship might have kind of faded, he in fact never participated in the bullying that group did to basically anyone. He was already realizing the harm the cult he was born into was doing.
Platner has a more privileged background than a lot of those guys, so it actually tracks in my mind that he didn’t start to break all this down until he was an adult. Could definitely still be performative, but at the very least he is introducing anti-capitalist language to a bunch of guys that were hook line and sinker republicans. In the end I think helping blue collar folks deconstruct their capitalist mindsets will lead to deconstructing patriarchal mindsets, and then after those neofascist mindsets.
I read pretty much all your comments in this thread and I think we are opposite sides of the same coin. Yourself hoping to be proven wrong after not really being convinced, myself hoping to be proven right after being (perhaps overly) willing to give him a chance.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and listening to mine. Stay safe out there.
In the end I think this is the best many of us can do. Which is fucked because it means we are playing chicken with fascism. I live in Pennsylvania now, and am furious with the bait and switch John Fetterman pulled, so I 100% understand being wary of any politician claiming to be more radically left after previously being in bed with the fascists.
I do agree about his sort of shapeshifting, but in some cases (still to be determined with Platner) that comes from being a mailable young man looking for camaraderie and community and finding an oh so welcoming cult. I knew folks like this growing up. One case in particular I remember. A guy I had known in elementary school fell in with a friend group because of shared interests like hunting, fishing, off roading, classic rural US activities. Also roughly represented the group of guys that were going to finish high school and start working the family business or go to trade school. These were also many of the guys from families that had been hardline right wingers for a long time.
Anyway, this guy I had been closer to hung out with them all 4 years of high school, but on the day of graduation he came up to me and said “hey, I’m really sorry for how the people I hung out with treated you. I tried really hard to stop them when I could and never really participated” and while it might sound a bit hollow, in the moment I realized he was right. Over the span of 4 years, while our friendship might have kind of faded, he in fact never participated in the bullying that group did to basically anyone. He was already realizing the harm the cult he was born into was doing.
Platner has a more privileged background than a lot of those guys, so it actually tracks in my mind that he didn’t start to break all this down until he was an adult. Could definitely still be performative, but at the very least he is introducing anti-capitalist language to a bunch of guys that were hook line and sinker republicans. In the end I think helping blue collar folks deconstruct their capitalist mindsets will lead to deconstructing patriarchal mindsets, and then after those neofascist mindsets.
I read pretty much all your comments in this thread and I think we are opposite sides of the same coin. Yourself hoping to be proven wrong after not really being convinced, myself hoping to be proven right after being (perhaps overly) willing to give him a chance.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and listening to mine. Stay safe out there.