Gulags to help denazify Trump supporters

[_huckelberry]

EAllusion, I thought you have tracked current extremist political groups more than I so I was wondering if you thought Stalinist ideological groups were current. I admit I inclined to think they faded out thirty years ago. The internet does seem to be able to incubate some surprising views. It can combine a narrow selection of ideas and ignorance into a strange brew

Is the party still functioning in a formal sense in the United States?
,,,,,,,,
Then I thought I should not be so lazy as to not check Wikipedia at least. I see there still is a current party leader though Gus Hall was last presidential candidate.

I do wonder if they are currently nursing rosier views of Stalins Gulag than Kruschev did?

[_moksha]

I couldn't find any mention of Kyle Jurek on reputable media.

[_Gunnar]

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/01/14/project-veritas-bernie-sanders-field-organizer-suggests-gulags-to-help-nazified-trump-voters/

I guess this is what people here mean when they say education is the key. Bernie Sanders is probably one of the most evil and dangerous men in American politics I've seen in my lifetime.

You couldn't be more wrong about that. That honor clearly belongs to Donald J. Trump. It is positively amazing to me that anyone supposedly educated enough to qualify as an optometrist can take seriously a source like Breitbart. It's bad enough that you subscribe to and take Breitbart seriously, but that you continue to do so even after they gave credence to something coming from as famously discredited and slimy an organization as Project Veritas is really mind blowing!

Project Veritas was founded in 2010 by James O'Keefe.[12]

The organization has produced deceptively edited videos targeted against ACORN, NPR and others.[13][14][15] During the 2016 campaign, the organization falsely claimed to have shown that the Hillary Clinton campaign accepted illegal donations from foreign sources.[16] O'Keefe was sued for defamation by a man he wrongfully depicted as a "willing participant in an underage sex-trafficking scheme"; the suit led to a settlement in 2013, in which O'Keefe issued an apology and paid $100,000.[17]

In 2017, Project Veritas was caught in a failed attempt to trick the The Washington Post into posting a fabricated story about Roy Moore.[2][3][18][19] Rather than uncritically publish a story that accused Republican candidate Moore of impregnating a teenager, The Washington Post critically examined the story that they were presented with, checked the source, assessed her credibility and ultimately found that there was no merit to her claims, and that instead Project Veritas were trying to dupe The Washington Post.[11]

O'Keefe has been barred from fundraising for Project Veritas in Florida and other states because of his federal criminal record for entering a federal building under fraudulent pretenses.[20][21]

Even most other Republicans and Conservatives realize what a fraudulent and corrupt organization Project Veritas is. How can someone claiming to be a scientifically trained, professional Optometrist possibly be gullible enough to still take them even the slightest bit seriously?

[_Chap]

Even most other Republicans and Conservatives realize what a fraudulent and corrupt organization Project Veritas is. How can someone claiming to be a scientifically trained, professional Optometrist possibly be gullible enough to still take them even the slightest bit seriously?

People keep things in compartments. Ajax18 would not prescribe for a patient without assuring himself that there were solid factual and scientific grounds for choosing a particular course of action, but politics and religion? Naah, there the gut rules, not the bits of the brain that do rationality.

Remember that there are highly trained and competent scientists who still believe in the Book of Mormon, the Koran, the Bible, and a lot of other stuff whose factual basis is, shall we say, debatable.

[_honorentheos]

Personally, I'm kind of glad this video is out there. The things the person in it says are things I've heard before from people who have no problem stressing the socialist in Democratic Socialist, want to see Bernie and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez take over the Democratic party, and largely view most Democrats as little better than most Republicans. Democrats should not dismiss that that is the face of real people in the party. Granted, the pro-gulag talking points sound like they came right out of the 1930s when anti-fascism was often pro-communist and Stalin's Soviets were portrayed in many venues in the West as a model to aspire to rather than understood to be the authoritarian terror state it really was. But the majority of that screed is familiar to me. I've broken bread with couples who will turn dinner conversations that direction.

We're reliving the 1930s for sure.

Coda: The person in the video talking about Milwaukee is something that does legitimately concern me. While it's still far too early to make comfortable predictions about the Democratic primary convention, right now it seems possible the first primary ballot could have four candidates on it, of which one is certain to be either Sanders or Warren. Right now it seems improbable anyone is going to win a majority on the first ballot, so it's almost guaranteed to go to a second. And that's when the super delegates, whom the Bernie bros blame for 2016, come back into play. My personal belief is this is why Bloomberg entered the race - not because he has a shot at winning the nomination outright, but because he could quite possibly become the nominee through a brokered convention. His campaign approach suggests he knows he can't win conventionally, so he's approaching the race in a way that only makes sense if one assumes he's playing for votes at the convention once the delegates are no longer obligated to vote for whomever they were chosen to represent on the first ballot.

Reread/listen to the person in the video while thinking about Bernie being a 2nd place first ballot finisher without a majority winner, and Michael Bloomberg suddenly being on everyone's lips as the candidate gaining momentum as the super delegates now get to vote on the second ballot...the outrage that would spark could very well make Chicago '68 seem tame in comparison.

[_Some Schmo]

People keep things in compartments. Ajax18 would not prescribe for a patient without assuring himself that there were solid factual and scientific grounds for choosing a particular course of action, but politics and religion? Naah, there the gut rules, not the bits of the brain that do rationality.

Remember that there are highly trained and competent scientists who still believe in the Book of Mormon, the Koran, the Bible, and a lot of other stuff whose factual basis is, shall we say, debatable.

This is highly benefit-of-the-doubt giving.

I have a feeling there are a bunch of hicks running around West Virginia in bad glasses.

[_Some Schmo]

Bernie Sanders is probably one of the most evil and dangerous men in American politics I've seen in my lifetime.

You couldn't be more wrong about that. That honor clearly belongs to Donald J. Trump.

This is the kind of thing that makes it clear ajax is absolutely full of crap. He knows it's Trump.

He has to know it's Trump. If you are competent enough to turn on a computer, you know Trump is the most obvious corrupt piece of crap this country's ever seen in a President.

ajax is simply a damned liar. He has to be. It's either that or someone has to turn his computer on for him and take dictation to enter his idiotic, blathering posts.

[_EAllusion]

EAllusion, I thought you have tracked current extremist political groups more than I so I was wondering if you thought Stalinist ideological groups were current. I admit I inclined to think they faded out thirty years ago. The internet does seem to be able to incubate some surprising views. It can combine a narrow selection of ideas and ignorance into a strange brew

Stalin apologists are a real, current thing on the American left. They sound just like the person in the OP. You can look them up on Twitter if you'd like. There's a youthful online culture of people who stan Stalin. It should be emphasized that they are a small, weird niche group, though.

Is the party still functioning in a formal sense in the United States?

Communists are still a real thing in the US, but the pro Stalin group is a subset of them.

I do wonder if they are currently nursing rosier views of Stalins Gulag than Kruschev did?

Some of them, yeah. Obviously this is more involved than a one sentence takeaway, but the the general theme of their Stalin apologia is that doing great things for the people often involves some collateral damage. It's improper to hypocritically treat Stalin as some aberration from great men in this regard, and most of the actions you or I would regard as appalling were necessary for the greater good.

It's about as wild to read their stuff as it is to read modern day Nazis.

[_Gray Ghost]

Bernie Bros are pretty cringy, but Project Veritas is not trustworthy.

[_Chap]

... the general theme of their Stalin apologia is that doing great things for the people often involves some collateral damage. It's improper to hypocritically treat Stalin as some aberration from great men in this regard, and most of the actions you or I would regard as appalling were necessary for the greater good.

A contemporary critic of Stalin once said something along the following lines:

"People tell me you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. Well, the ground is covered in eggshells, but so far I can't even smell an omelette.'"

Alas, with 'great men' the real aim is, all too often, simply to smash eggs, since that's what 'great men' do, isn't it? There will always be loyal followers willing to imagine the omelettes, or denounce those ungrateful enough to complain about their absence. It seems to me that the egg-smashing alone is often enough to provoke slavish admiration and loyalty, even in complete default of any prospect of something to eat as a result.

How far can this be applied to the persistence of loyalty to the big orange D?