|
Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread |
On October 16 2026 02:41 LightSpectra wrote:
Extremely blatant whataboutism, but regardless, I don't think you actually talk to a lot of left-wingers. Maybe you should try to get out of the house more and talk to some actual people instead of staying in your social media bubble. So who's responsible for more deaths in the 20th century, communism or naziism? Left-wing totalitarian movements or right-wing totalitarian movements?
On October 16 2026 02:44 Geiko wrote:Show nested quote +On October 16 2026 02:36 dyhb wrote:On October 16 2026 01:30 Billyboy wrote:
I’ve always found it strange how people on the right won’t acknowledge that the Nazis were a far right party. You don’t hear people on the left pretending the soviets were right wing when they committed atrocities (tankies might pretend they were not atrocities).
Like just say, sure they were right wing and awful, we don’t support them or anything about them. But instead they try to pretend they were left. You don’t hear a lot of left-wingers acknowledging that the soviets and communist Chinese killed several times more people than Naziism. Left wing totalitarian movements win the body count in the 20th century (and it’s not even close), but boy do I hear a lot of dissembling instead of admitting that fact. It’s not just tankies that bring up capitalism as something right-wing and dissembling on the subject. I’m open to being proved wrong. In this french report, they found that 80% of young people polled admitted that the communist regimes of the 20th century were responsible for millions of deaths and a similar proportion viewed communism negatively. https://www.fondapol.org/app/uploads/2020/06/memoireavenir-doc50p-va-2015-05-06-version-df-3.pdfI'm not sure where you get the idea that people on the left don't acknowledge that communism was likely responsible for more deaths than the nazis? Not directing this at whether French young people know it numbers in the millions and generally look down on it. It could work if it separated out Melenchon/LFI, EELV, and PCF and asked which ideology was responsible for more deaths.
On October 16 2026 02:57 blomsterjohn wrote:
Can only speak for my own experience/in a norwegian/.sca/.eu context, but "acknowledging that the soviets and communist Chinese killed several times more people than Naziism" is a super common thing.
But we also dont have nearly the same ratio of retarded people It's more the US left-wing context, particularly the internet denizens of that ideology, but I'm always glad to hear about Europe.
I honestly don't hear many right-wing people try to call Naziism a non-right-wing ideology, either, but maybe that's more common in European right-wing voters? Or Canadian, given the speaker? The racial stuff and nationalistic stuff is almost tautologically right-wing. The state direction of the economy could be either, but it was definitely aimed to the benefit of the racist ideology. It's not like left-wingers have to adopt the mantle of communist mass murder any more than right-wingers vice versa.
On October 16 2026 03:05 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On October 16 2026 02:36 dyhb wrote:On October 16 2026 01:30 Billyboy wrote:
I’ve always found it strange how people on the right won’t acknowledge that the Nazis were a far right party. You don’t hear people on the left pretending the soviets were right wing when they committed atrocities (tankies might pretend they were not atrocities).
Like just say, sure they were right wing and awful, we don’t support them or anything about them. But instead they try to pretend they were left. You don’t hear a lot of left-wingers acknowledging that the soviets and communist Chinese killed several times more people than Naziism. Left wing totalitarian movements win the body count in the 20th century (and it’s not even close), but boy do I hear a lot of dissembling instead of admitting that fact. It’s not just tankies that bring up capitalism as something right-wing and dissembling on the subject. I’m open to being proved wrong. I'm not sure if you're specifically referring to this forum, or American political discourse in general, or an even broader scope. Both the Republican and Democratic parties (and voters on either side) talk more about Nazis, but I'm unaware of people actively denying or dismissing other issues pertaining to Chinese and Russian death tolls. Are you asking left-wingers specific questions about genocides that they're refusing to acknowledge? More of the left-wing equivalent to right-wingers denying Nazis were right-wing. I'm not claiming that either are majority held.
I doubt if you polled MAGA or Republicans today that you would get majorities against "Was the Nazi party a German right-wing party?"
|
On October 16 2026 03:08 dyhb wrote:
I honestly don't hear many right-wing people try to call Naziism a non-right-wing ideology, either, but maybe that's more common in European right-wing voters? Or Canadian, given the speaker? The racial stuff and nationalistic stuff is almost tautologically right-wing. The state direction of the economy could be either, but it was definitely aimed to the benefit of the racist ideology. It's not like left-wingers have to adopt the mantle of communist mass murder any more than right-wingers vice versa.
Some right-wing Americans try to connect Nazis to left-wing ideology through the word "Socialist".
|
On October 16 2026 03:11 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On October 16 2026 03:08 dyhb wrote:
I honestly don't hear many right-wing people try to call Naziism a non-right-wing ideology, either, but maybe that's more common in European right-wing voters? Or Canadian, given the speaker? The racial stuff and nationalistic stuff is almost tautologically right-wing. The state direction of the economy could be either, but it was definitely aimed to the benefit of the racist ideology. It's not like left-wingers have to adopt the mantle of communist mass murder any more than right-wingers vice versa. Some right-wing Americans try to connect Nazis to left-wing ideology through the word "Socialist". Some left-wing Americans claim that attributing the 60-100 million deaths to communism must only be weighed against deaths caused by capitalism, and not equivalent right-wing ideologies. Noam Chomsky, left-wing DSA/socialist/red rose types, tankies/dirtbag left/breadtubers.
|
On October 16 2026 03:08 dyhb wrote:Show nested quote +On October 16 2026 02:41 LightSpectra wrote:
Extremely blatant whataboutism, but regardless, I don't think you actually talk to a lot of left-wingers. Maybe you should try to get out of the house more and talk to some actual people instead of staying in your social media bubble. So who's responsible for more deaths in the 20th century, communism or naziism? Left-wing totalitarian movements or right-wing totalitarian movements?
It depends on how you count it. World War II was uncontroversially started in all theaters by the fascist states (Nazi invasions of Poland, France, and the USSR; Japanese invasion of China, bombing of Pearl Harbor, etc.). That's 60-75 million deaths including the Holocaust. Depending on what numbers you use for the Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, Holodomor, gulags, etc., it could go higher or lower than that or be about the same. There were also non-manmade famines happening in the communist states during the 20th century which sometimes get counted as left-wing deaths even though there were famines during the Romanov/Qing periods too, so how responsible the communists should be held for those (e.g. the 1921 Russian famine) is controversial. There's also the question of if the Bengal famine of 1943 was primarily the fault of the British Empire or if that would've been avoidable if not for WWII.
Not really an easy question to answer without some boundaries. People who make sweeping claims like "the soviets and communist Chinese killed several times more people than Naziism" usually don't care about nuance or scholarship and aren't really looking for a good-faith answer anyway.
|
On October 16 2026 03:21 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On October 16 2026 03:08 dyhb wrote:On October 16 2026 02:41 LightSpectra wrote:
Extremely blatant whataboutism, but regardless, I don't think you actually talk to a lot of left-wingers. Maybe you should try to get out of the house more and talk to some actual people instead of staying in your social media bubble. So who's responsible for more deaths in the 20th century, communism or naziism? Left-wing totalitarian movements or right-wing totalitarian movements? It depends on how you count it. + Show Spoiler +World War II was uncontroversially started in all theaters by the fascist states (Nazi invasions of Poland, France, and the USSR; Japanese invasion of China, bombing of Pearl Harbor, etc.). That's 60-75 million deaths including the Holocaust. Depending on what numbers you use for the Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, Holodomor, gulags, etc., it could go higher or lower than that or be about the same. There were also non-manmade famines happening in the communist states during the 20th century which sometimes get counted as left-wing deaths even though there were famines during the Romanov/Qing periods too, so how responsible the communists should be held for those (e.g. the 1921 Russian famine) is controversial. There's also the question of if the Bengal famine of 1943 was primarily the fault of the British Empire or if that would've been avoidable if not for WWII.
or scholarship and aren't really looking for a good-faith answer anyway. We have a winner.
You don’t hear a lot of left-wingers acknowledging that the soviets and communist Chinese killed several times more people than Naziism.
Result: It depends how you count it. Not an easy question to answer.
Any more questions, Geiko, bomsterjohn, DarkPlasmaBall?
|
Your great gotcha is a guy giving you actual numbers and still acknowledging the people that the soviets and Chinese killed. With everyone else you consider a crazed lefty just agreeing. Congrats! Totally standard center left behaviour, no clue why people don’t believe or trust you.
|
Behold, I predicted you weren't looking for a good-faith answer for your whataboutist strawman and I was right.
|
On October 16 2026 03:32 LightSpectra wrote:
Behold, I predicted you weren't looking for a good-faith answer for your whataboutist strawman and I was right.
How could you possibly predict such a thing with such accuracy! Amazing, what’s my future? 🤣
It’s wierd to me that so many people from the right think that right means “freedom” in spite of the mountains of evidence that dictatorships can brand themselves either way and it’s always awful no matter the “side”. Protecting democracy is far more important than your team winning. I hope people figure it out before it’s too late.
|
dyhb compared me to a child molester because I said I cared more about what the U.S. Senate candidates in Michigan said than what an Internet streamer said. Perhaps it's just extremely obvious he acts in bad faith, or perhaps I am a prophet.
|
On October 16 2026 03:28 dyhb wrote:Show nested quote +On October 16 2026 03:21 LightSpectra wrote:On October 16 2026 03:08 dyhb wrote:On October 16 2026 02:41 LightSpectra wrote:
Extremely blatant whataboutism, but regardless, I don't think you actually talk to a lot of left-wingers. Maybe you should try to get out of the house more and talk to some actual people instead of staying in your social media bubble. So who's responsible for more deaths in the 20th century, communism or naziism? Left-wing totalitarian movements or right-wing totalitarian movements? It depends on how you count it. + Show Spoiler +World War II was uncontroversially started in all theaters by the fascist states (Nazi invasions of Poland, France, and the USSR; Japanese invasion of China, bombing of Pearl Harbor, etc.). That's 60-75 million deaths including the Holocaust. Depending on what numbers you use for the Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, Holodomor, gulags, etc., it could go higher or lower than that or be about the same. There were also non-manmade famines happening in the communist states during the 20th century which sometimes get counted as left-wing deaths even though there were famines during the Romanov/Qing periods too, so how responsible the communists should be held for those (e.g. the 1921 Russian famine) is controversial. There's also the question of if the Bengal famine of 1943 was primarily the fault of the British Empire or if that would've been avoidable if not for WWII.
or scholarship and aren't really looking for a good-faith answer anyway. We have a winner. You don’t hear a lot of left-wingers acknowledging that the soviets and communist Chinese killed several times more people than Naziism. Result: It depends how you count it. Not an easy question to answer. Any more questions, Geiko, bomsterjohn, DarkPlasmaBall?
I don't know enough about the topic in general, but why don't you engage with LightSpectra's answer? LS attempted to justify an "it depends" response with some key events and relevant numbers; if you disagree so vehemently with LS, it would make sense to dispute LS's rebuttal. What is LS not considering in the evaluation of your original statement?
|
On October 16 2026 03:21 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On October 16 2026 03:08 dyhb wrote:On October 16 2026 02:41 LightSpectra wrote:
Extremely blatant whataboutism, but regardless, I don't think you actually talk to a lot of left-wingers. Maybe you should try to get out of the house more and talk to some actual people instead of staying in your social media bubble. So who's responsible for more deaths in the 20th century, communism or naziism? Left-wing totalitarian movements or right-wing totalitarian movements? It depends on how you count it. World War II was uncontroversially started in all theaters by the fascist states (Nazi invasions of Poland, France, and the USSR; Japanese invasion of China, bombing of Pearl Harbor, etc.). That's 60-75 million deaths including the Holocaust. Depending on what numbers you use for the Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, Holodomor, gulags, etc., it could go higher or lower than that or be about the same. There were also non-manmade famines happening in the communist states during the 20th century which sometimes get counted as left-wing deaths even though there were famines during the Romanov/Qing periods too, so how responsible the communists should be held for those (e.g. the 1921 Russian famine) is controversial. There's also the question of if the Bengal famine of 1943 was primarily the fault of the British Empire or if that would've been avoidable if not for WWII. Not really an easy question to answer without some boundaries. People who make sweeping claims like "the soviets and communist Chinese killed several times more people than Naziism" usually don't care about nuance or scholarship and aren't really looking for a good-faith answer anyway.
WW2 was started by the fascist states hand in hand with the USSR...
|
Shocking that the "both sides are bad" guy comes in here trying to explain how leftists are the problem.
Can someone remind me how many times we had people spouting stupid things like Nazis actually being "left", or defending Musk doing a Nazi salute, or just how many times in general were there discussions on how bad Nazis and Germans were during WW2?
Because compared to 20+ times this thread devolved into this there was 0 similar instances of leftists trying to deny or rationalize stupid tankie shit.
There might be an occasional reality denying GH post defending China or Russia over the years where most of the generally left posters here disagreed, but compared to right wingers defending Nazi shit it's literally nothing.
Despite all that, our resident pretend centrist somehow decided to right this wrong and proclaim leftists just as problematic as right wingers.
My guess because he got his ass handed to him in the I/P thread so he had to go on the attack here to feel better about being on the wrong side of history.
|
On October 16 2026 03:46 maybenexttime wrote:Show nested quote +On October 16 2026 03:21 LightSpectra wrote:On October 16 2026 03:08 dyhb wrote:On October 16 2026 02:41 LightSpectra wrote:
Extremely blatant whataboutism, but regardless, I don't think you actually talk to a lot of left-wingers. Maybe you should try to get out of the house more and talk to some actual people instead of staying in your social media bubble. So who's responsible for more deaths in the 20th century, communism or naziism? Left-wing totalitarian movements or right-wing totalitarian movements? It depends on how you count it. World War II was uncontroversially started in all theaters by the fascist states (Nazi invasions of Poland, France, and the USSR; Japanese invasion of China, bombing of Pearl Harbor, etc.). That's 60-75 million deaths including the Holocaust. Depending on what numbers you use for the Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, Holodomor, gulags, etc., it could go higher or lower than that or be about the same. There were also non-manmade famines happening in the communist states during the 20th century which sometimes get counted as left-wing deaths even though there were famines during the Romanov/Qing periods too, so how responsible the communists should be held for those (e.g. the 1921 Russian famine) is controversial. There's also the question of if the Bengal famine of 1943 was primarily the fault of the British Empire or if that would've been avoidable if not for WWII. Not really an easy question to answer without some boundaries. People who make sweeping claims like "the soviets and communist Chinese killed several times more people than Naziism" usually don't care about nuance or scholarship and aren't really looking for a good-faith answer anyway. WW2 was started by the fascist states hand in hand with the USSR...
I would count the deaths from the Soviet invasions of Poland and Finland as being communist-caused deaths, sure. You have to do some weird mental gymnastics to blame communists for any deaths because the Nazis invaded them and France etc. though.
|
On October 16 2026 02:58 r00ty wrote:Show nested quote +On October 16 2026 02:31 LightSpectra wrote:
The Telegraph is reporting that the Houthis are 'days' from taking Taiz city. Presumably they'll be able to close the Bab al-Mandab Strait at that point, which chokes all of the maritime traffic going through the Suez, no?
Does anyone have a source to read up on or good reason on why the US under Trump is not supporting the Saudis with air strikes anymore? That's the least they could do and had been standard procedure. I've been wondering for weeks. Also regarding the rulers relationship with Trump and family. Is the supply chain really that strained already? That surely can't be. Do they want to keep the oil price as high as possible? I don't really get it. Anyway, so far it seems the Saudis alone with all their fancy equipment, but questionable morale might not be able to hold against battle-hardened fanatics with third hand equipment in sandals. The US, despite starting the war against Iran was not ready for war with Iran. Expensive planes got destroyed by drones on their airfields, bases in the region that normally supply the army have been heavily damaged. Logistics are disrupted to the point where carrier groups cannot be kept supplied.
The US was, maybe still is, actually planning to abandon all its bases in the region and retreat to a single base within Israel. Because it can't defend anything from Iranian drones.
Tons of expensive munition was wasted on target lists generated by Grok rather then military intelligence.
Yes Trump has had to stop attacks because the US was running out of ordinance, at least locally.
Patriot batteries were diverted from Korea to the Arabian peninsula in a completely useless effort to stop drone swarms.
You say surely the US can't be that strained. And normally you would be right. But the current US administration really is this incompetent.
They are this stupid.
And no they don't want to keep the oil price high, in fact Trump is desperate to bring the oil price down because it will single handily cause a crushing loss for the Republicans in the upcoming midterms.
All because Trump went to war with Iran because Netanyahu told him to.
|
On October 16 2026 03:48 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On October 16 2026 03:46 maybenexttime wrote:On October 16 2026 03:21 LightSpectra wrote:On October 16 2026 03:08 dyhb wrote:On October 16 2026 02:41 LightSpectra wrote:
Extremely blatant whataboutism, but regardless, I don't think you actually talk to a lot of left-wingers. Maybe you should try to get out of the house more and talk to some actual people instead of staying in your social media bubble. So who's responsible for more deaths in the 20th century, communism or naziism? Left-wing totalitarian movements or right-wing totalitarian movements? It depends on how you count it. World War II was uncontroversially started in all theaters by the fascist states (Nazi invasions of Poland, France, and the USSR; Japanese invasion of China, bombing of Pearl Harbor, etc.). That's 60-75 million deaths including the Holocaust. Depending on what numbers you use for the Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, Holodomor, gulags, etc., it could go higher or lower than that or be about the same. There were also non-manmade famines happening in the communist states during the 20th century which sometimes get counted as left-wing deaths even though there were famines during the Romanov/Qing periods too, so how responsible the communists should be held for those (e.g. the 1921 Russian famine) is controversial. There's also the question of if the Bengal famine of 1943 was primarily the fault of the British Empire or if that would've been avoidable if not for WWII. Not really an easy question to answer without some boundaries. People who make sweeping claims like "the soviets and communist Chinese killed several times more people than Naziism" usually don't care about nuance or scholarship and aren't really looking for a good-faith answer anyway. WW2 was started by the fascist states hand in hand with the USSR... I would count the deaths from the Soviet invasions of Poland and Finland as being communist-caused deaths, sure. You have to do some weird mental gymnastics to blame communists for any deaths because the Nazis invaded them and France etc. though.
I'm just pointing out the fact that the way you described the start of WW2 is historically inaccurate.
I would also say that the Soviets share part of the blame for all victims of the war (as do the fascists). Without their pact with the Nazis there likely would've been no WW2 at all.
|
There would've been no WWII at all if Britain and France stopped Germany's remilitarization of the Rhineland or annexation of the Sudetenland, but it would be even weirder to blame all of the deaths of WWII on liberal capitalism.
|
On October 16 2026 03:42 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On October 16 2026 03:28 dyhb wrote:On October 16 2026 03:21 LightSpectra wrote:On October 16 2026 03:08 dyhb wrote:On October 16 2026 02:41 LightSpectra wrote:
Extremely blatant whataboutism, but regardless, I don't think you actually talk to a lot of left-wingers. Maybe you should try to get out of the house more and talk to some actual people instead of staying in your social media bubble. So who's responsible for more deaths in the 20th century, communism or naziism? Left-wing totalitarian movements or right-wing totalitarian movements? It depends on how you count it. + Show Spoiler +World War II was uncontroversially started in all theaters by the fascist states (Nazi invasions of Poland, France, and the USSR; Japanese invasion of China, bombing of Pearl Harbor, etc.). That's 60-75 million deaths including the Holocaust. Depending on what numbers you use for the Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, Holodomor, gulags, etc., it could go higher or lower than that or be about the same. There were also non-manmade famines happening in the communist states during the 20th century which sometimes get counted as left-wing deaths even though there were famines during the Romanov/Qing periods too, so how responsible the communists should be held for those (e.g. the 1921 Russian famine) is controversial. There's also the question of if the Bengal famine of 1943 was primarily the fault of the British Empire or if that would've been avoidable if not for WWII.
or scholarship and aren't really looking for a good-faith answer anyway. We have a winner. You don’t hear a lot of left-wingers acknowledging that the soviets and communist Chinese killed several times more people than Naziism. Result: It depends how you count it. Not an easy question to answer. Any more questions, Geiko, bomsterjohn, DarkPlasmaBall? I don't know enough about the topic in general, but why don't you engage with LightSpectra's answer? LS attempted to justify an "it depends" response with some key events and relevant numbers; if you disagree so vehemently with LS, it would make sense to dispute LS's rebuttal. What is LS not considering in the evaluation of your original statement? Since the question was given that some right-wing people will argue with you on Naziism's right-wing ideology, I think including one that left-wing people will argue with you about is absolutely appropriate. If they could admit to some best-estimate or point to the clear winner and give a range, I think they would have by now, but I will accept late answers. I don't think the cognitive dissonance between "acknowledging that the soviets and communist Chinese killed several times more people than Naziism" is a super common thing" and "It depends how you count it. Not an easy question to answer" can stay forever.
|
If you do the accounting in some kind of butterfly effect way where you're at the level of saying, since the Nazis started the war in Europe, and Britain also joined the war, and it stressed the empire potentially contributing to famine in British India so those deaths are technically in the Nazi column, it might be possible to pad right-wing totalitarianism's numbers enough to be on par with left-wing totalitarianism's. Otherwise, if you compare apples to apples, it's not even close, and it's not sweeping, it's just a claim. A sweeping claim is like all the French are taller than the Dutch. A claim is France is bigger than the Netherlands.
The more unhinged thing that everyone missed was the idea the right is going "Black Lives Don't Matter."
|
If you use the highest scholarly-backed estimates possible for communist deaths and lowest possible estimate for fascist deaths, the communist number is higher, but not "several times more," and regardless of that, nobody acting in good faith would intentionally pick the most favorable numbers hypothetically imaginable for their argument anyway.
|
On October 16 2026 04:06 oBlade wrote:
If you do the accounting in some kind of butterfly effect way where you're at the level of saying, since the Nazis started the war in Europe, and Britain also joined the war, and it stressed the empire potentially contributing to famine in British India so those deaths are technically in the Nazi column, it might be possible to pad right-wing totalitarianism's numbers enough to be on par with left-wing totalitarianism's. Otherwise, if you compare apples to apples, it's not even close, and it's not sweeping, it's just a claim. A sweeping claim is like all the French are taller than the Dutch. A claim is France is bigger than the Netherlands.
The more unhinged thing that everyone missed was the idea the right is going "Black Lives Don't Matter." Once you bring in all right-wing totalitarianism vs all left-wing totalitarianism, you're going to get stuck in semantics until the cows come home. I brought up three specific regimes, and I got back Imperial Japan, the USSR included among "fascist states", and refuse to answer. You can't make this stuff up.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
