Why is being apolitical now seen as deferring to the opposing side?

[Iwasamwillbe]

I once asked a woman (who notably was wearing an "Ask Me About My Feminist Agenda" T-shirt) about who they were planning on voting for this coming election. They said they would "bite the bullet" and vote for Biden, because Vote Blue No Matter Who, and to stay home and abstain from voting was to effectively vote for Trump. And we can't have four more years of Trump, of course.

What I'm wondering is why and when did people in certain groups start to consider being apolitical as basically the exact same as voting for the other party?

 

[Icasaracht]

"You're either with us or against us", now spiced with autism.

 

[LargeChoonger]

Something something complacency blah blah blah Trump=Nazi uhhhhhhh I use buzzwords and strawmen because I'm retarded and can't win actual arguments

 

[byuu]

Fuck anyone too lazy to vote though.

At least vote for a third party or smear feces on the ballot.

 

[Syaoran Li]

I think it's the Woke Left's mantra of "Everything is political" has been leaking into the mainstream rapidly over the past several years.

You sort of saw it during GamerGate and SJW's defending pretentious walking simulators and other woke indie hipster fare, and then it migrated onto defending shit like Fembusters, Black Panther, and The Last Jedi and conversely demonizing things like Joker.

It doesn't help that so many Millennial leftists treat Marxism and postmodernism like a religion thanks to college indoctrination, and Marxism is all about making everything political.

Entertainment is seen as bourgeoisie in Marxism, and the only purpose it can serve in a Marxist or communist society is as a form of cultural propaganda.

Postmodernism also lends itself well to making everything hyper-political, even if the thing in question is otherwise apolitical.

Look at hobbies and "nerd culture" in the 2010's and how they went from mocked in the 80's and 90's to being seen as trivial but otherwise tolerated in the 2000's, to somehow being a focal point of aggressive social political debate in the 2010's.

Again, the dominance of left-wing postmodernism in academia and its impact on the Millennial generation is why autistic internet slapfights like Gamergate became these huge cultural debates and why so many SJW's still blame Gamergate for damn near everything from Trump's election and Brexit to the invention of AstroTurf and the cancellation of Firefly.

Half a decade after it became dead and irrelevant, so many SJW's talk about Gamergate the same way that TERF's talk about patriarchy and /pol/ talks about the Jews.

TL;DR-Blame the corrupt universities and the fundamentally broken Millennials/Early Zoomers who fell for their bullshit

 

[Arctic Fox]

Fuck anyone too lazy to vote though.

At least vote for a third party or smear feces on the ballot.

Didn't Null send in ballots printed in Russian for the last election?

 

[UnclePhil]

Both sides are engaged in an ideological cold war. If you don't give a shit about the noise they're making then you are Part of the Problem(tm).

 

[Martys_not_smarty]

Because you're fucking a white male REEEEEEEEE.
Seriously though this whole silence is compliance bullshit is the fastest way to burn the bridge of support from the silent majority.

 

[heyilikeyourmom]

I’ve seen people I consider friends go on tirades about how disgusting the american non-voter is while I’m in the next room actively banging their hot relatives with the door open, and they still don’t realize their priorities are horribly misplaced because I always finish before they do.

 

[From The Uncanny Valley]

because the left is Zapp Brannigan now

 

[Red Hood]

Only a Sith deals in absolutes!

 

[sadstuck]

A wise man once said that ideas begin on Tumblr about 4 years before they shift into the Overton window. Including this shit.

 

[Robert James]

What makes a man turn neutral? Lust for gold? Power? or were you just born with a heart full of neutrality?

 

[Common Carp]

As said, it's tied to the "everything is political" line of thinking. I've had an encounter with someone like that when I met up with someone I haven't spoken in years, wanting to catch up and such. One quote of his that I still remember is that when I told him that I didn't really care about this whole culture war thing that much, he said to me "Seems like you're just tolerating the intolerant." As if to say me not actively partaking in it is me enabling the Alt-Right or whoever we were talking about.

Needless to say, we didn't stay in touch for long after that.

 

[raspberry mocha]

They don't have any unifying mission other than "one of us" so they have to paint every moderate with the same brush they do their opponents. Although I do think a lot of them aren't fully on board with the clown car and that they're just disillusioned. Most "third way" movements don't work for one reason or another, so they've joined the intersectionality cascade because numbers equal power.

 

[LatinasAreTheFuture]

I think it's the Woke Left's mantra of "Everything is political" has been leaking into the mainstream rapidly over the past several years.

You sort of saw it during GamerGate and SJW's defending pretentious walking simulators and other woke indie hipster fare, and then it migrated onto defending shit like Fembusters, Black Panther, and The Last Jedi and conversely demonizing things like Joker.

It doesn't help that so many Millennial leftists treat Marxism and postmodernism like a religion thanks to college indoctrination, and Marxism is all about making everything political.

Entertainment is seen as bourgeoisie in Marxism, and the only purpose it can serve in a Marxist or communist society is as a form of cultural propaganda.

Postmodernism also lends itself well to making everything hyper-political, even if the thing in question is otherwise apolitical.

Look at hobbies and "nerd culture" in the 2010's and how they went from mocked in the 80's and 90's to being seen as trivial but otherwise tolerated in the 2000's, to somehow being a focal point of aggressive social political debate in the 2010's.

Again, the dominance of left-wing postmodernism in academia and its impact on the Millennial generation is why autistic internet slapfights like Gamergate became these huge cultural debates and why so many SJW's still blame Gamergate for damn near everything from Trump's election and Brexit to the invention of AstroTurf and the cancellation of Firefly.

Half a decade after it became dead and irrelevant, so many SJW's talk about Gamergate the same way that TERF's talk about patriarchy and /pol/ talks about the Jews.

TL;DR-Blame the corrupt universities and the fundamentally broken Millennials/Early Zoomers who fell for their bullshit

I don’t hear anybody talking about gamergate but you.

 

[Banworld]

Most people said it already, it's the notion that everything is political, and therefore everything must be made into left vs. right and consequently right vs. wrong.

Beyond that, it's a scare tactic. Same reason left wing people shit on South Park these days, if a show manages to make you laugh and tells you that it's okay to be somewhere in between and make fun of the eccentricities of both sides of the argument, it can break that fear of 'joining a side'. Right wingers used to shit on South Park and stuff too, but they've taken their licks culturally so they generally don't start those fights any more.

 

[DDBCAE CBAADCBE]

I don't know what you're talking about. Everyone knows that liking memes makes you a Nazi.

 

[Syaoran Li]

I don’t hear anybody talking about gamergate but you.

Except I was mentioning gamergate in the past tense.

Gamergate itself has been dead and irrelevant for years, but I'd say the "Everything is Political" mantra of the modern Left really started gaining momentum around the time the insane controversy over Gamergate was at its peak.

Nowadays, the only people who still think Gamergate is still relevant are Sargon of Akkad and a certain sub-faction of SJW's involved in gaming and nerd hobby culture.

 

[DrunkenDozing]

Easy. People who say shit like that got suckered into their political beliefs by that very same line of thinking.

They want to instill guilt in you over not doing enough to fight teh nazees and now you must join their side to absolve yourself of sin. Put enough time and money into wokery and maybe you'll get your societal acceptance card back. We'll see.

People who are weak willed require other peoples acceptance to function so the fact that someone could really not care about how society views them ortheir positions never even enters their heads. If you dont want the acceptance of the twitter checkmarks, that MUST mean you are one of the people standing against them. You must have been a secret nazi this whole time. You cannot just not care. That's impossible.