• sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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    9 hours ago

    I’m not talking about intolerant speech, like disparaging marginalized groups or something, I’m talking about even mundane policy. Try agreeing with Trump on something and you’ll get the same tired “Nazi bar” reaction.

    For example, try agreeing with the pardon of Ross Ulbricht, who was given a life sentence with no possibility of parole for hosting a website that facilitated relatively safe drug trade. He was a first time offender, there’s no evidence that he actually sold anything illegal or did anything violent, and he acted on the philosophical idea that consenting, peaceful adults should be able to trade things freely (i.e. he wasn’t in a cartel or anything). But because he was pardoned by Trump, people jump to the conclusion that it must somehow be bad. If Biden (or Harris) did the exact same, it would get positive responses and people would likely assume it was somehow good. This has absolutely nothing to do with either side here, and if anything, it leans liberal/progressive, but because a conservative did it, it’s automatically bad (he only did it because he made a deal with libertarians to try to get their vote).

    It’s the same kind of tribalist nonsense we see on the right.

    And to be clear, this isn’t a “both sides, lol” argument, it’s commentary about tribalism in general. If something sounds sufficiently different from what we’re comfortable with, we reject it without further consideration. This is more extreme on the more popular instances (e.g. Lemmy world), which seem to be a lightning rod for this type of behavior, and my best argument is that people comfortable with group think flock to larger instances, whereas people interested in combating it flock to smaller instances.

    • frezik@midwest.social
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      5 hours ago

      You have to be pretty damn naive to think Trump pardoned the guy in a vacuum. That’s not tribalism, but a simple observation that Trump doesn’t do anything unless it benefits himself.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        4 hours ago

        Right. He went to the Libertarian Party national convention and promised to pardon him, and this is him making good on that promise. It doesn’t cost him anything and it potentially gets him a little more support from the libertarian-leaning people in Congress.

        • frezik@midwest.social
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          4 hours ago

          Oh, it’s not just that. Trump wants to setup a bitcoin reserve. Ulbrich had 50,676 bitcoins (~$5.3B at the current exchange rate) that were all confiscated as part of his arrest. He doesn’t get those back just because he was pardoned. Good chance it’s now the seed money for the bitcoin reserve.