"the moderates have a meme problem"

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > "the moderates have a meme problem"

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Peel: Dec 3, 2007

missing an 'enabling the alt-right from arms length' to counter 'defections to the alt-right'

# ? May 21, 2017 17:20

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# ? Apr 23, 2024 19:28

Doktor Avalanche: Dec 30, 2008

these memes are physically painful in their lack of humor
I mean the alt-right is poo poo but it has funny memes (when they're not disgusting) and the leftypol crew as well, this is just bland

# ? May 21, 2017 18:11

im on the net me boys: Feb 19, 2017; Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhjjhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhjhhhhhhjhhhhhhhhhjjjhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh cannabis

This is all Chile's fault

# ? May 21, 2017 18:59

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

Barbe Rouge posted:

these memes are physically painful in their lack of humor
I mean the alt-right is poo poo but it has funny memes (when they're not disgusting) and the leftypol crew as well, this is just bland

Did you expect anything from centrists?

# ? May 21, 2017 19:01

Fallen Hamprince: Nov 12, 2016

neoliberalism memes are blowing up right now but i think libertarianism memes are the next big thing

# ? May 21, 2017 19:27

TrixRabbi: Aug 20, 2010; Time for a little robot chauvinism!

I thought neoliberal memes were supposed to mobilize millennials and win the election for Hillary?

# ? May 22, 2017 02:16

Byolante: Mar 23, 2008; by Cyrano4747

Neolibs have the best memes in existance, I don't know what you are talking about

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoXDe8HxHBA

# ? May 22, 2017 03:50

get that OUT of my face: Feb 10, 2007

all the neoliberals need to do is create a facebook group with the words "dank meme stash" in the title and go nuts

# ? May 22, 2017 04:36

byob historian: Nov 5, 2008; I'm an animal abusing piece of shit! I deliberately poisoned my dog to death and think it's funny! I'm an irredeemable sack of human shit!

Hodgepodge posted:

I'd nominate Trudeau

pere ou fils?

# ? May 22, 2017 04:38

Taintrunner: Apr 10, 2017; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

get that OUT of my face posted:

all the neoliberals need to do is create a facebook group with the words "dank meme stash" in the title and go nuts

well first they'd have to get behind weed legalization

# ? May 22, 2017 04:39

pushpins: Sep 11, 2006; Title text (optional; no images are allowed, only text)

Top Text: UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE

*Scumbag Steve*

Bottom Text: NO MEANS TESTING

# ? May 22, 2017 14:54

KomradeX: Oct 29, 2011

get that OUT of my face posted:

all the neoliberals need to do is create a facebook group with the words "dank meme stash" in the title and go nuts

There is a Milton Friedman Dank Meme Stash. I know this because the Centrist I know shared an image from it

# ? May 22, 2017 15:56

The Puppet Master: Apr 9, 2005; Would you fuck me? I'd fuck me. I'd fuck me hard.

Helsing posted:

Neoliberals embrace the insult that has been used by people to criticize whatever they don't like about the current system. They believe in empirical evidence-based policy instead of rigid abstract ideologies.

...

They priorities of neoliberals are: eliminating global poverty with free trade, forging stronger international ties to prevent wars, and using capitalism to ensure growth and prosperity.

[zizek sniff]

# ? May 22, 2017 16:39

Bushiz: Sep 21, 2004; The #1 Threat to Ba Sing Se; Grimey Drawer

my favorite part of r/neoliberal is that you can say "sweatshops are bad" anywhere on reddit and they'll come out of the woodwork to explain how sweatshops are good, actually.

# ? May 22, 2017 17:43

Agnosticnixie: Jan 6, 2015

The beauty of unironic neoliberals is that they basically helped created almost every single meme of the alt-right, and are now acting shocked when the far right at home adopts the ideologies of the far right strongmen they used to support abroad.

# ? May 23, 2017 00:16

Fallen Hamprince: Nov 12, 2016

*farts sonorously* liberals are the real nazis

# ? May 23, 2017 11:55

Bulgogi Hoagie: Jun 1, 2012; We

these darn liberals, giving birth to every single evil in the world through a convoluted series of levers and pulleys

# ? May 23, 2017 12:43

Squizzle: Apr 24, 2008

i cant even find neoliberia on a map

# ? May 23, 2017 13:51

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

Oh cool the thread is turning into a honey pot for the unironic neoliberals on this forum

# ? May 23, 2017 14:13

Fallen Hamprince: Nov 12, 2016

Squizzle posted:

i cant even find neoliberia on a map

neoliberian warlord charles taylorism

# ? May 23, 2017 14:17

Condiv: May 7, 2008; Sorry to undo the effort of paying a domestic abuser $10 to own this poster, but I am going to lose my dang mind if I keep seeing multiple posters who appear to be Baloogan.

With love,
a mod

i keep finding spanish neoliberal memes that i can't read

it's amazing though how the word neoliberal is in spanish too despite it having absolutely no meaning

Condiv has issued a correction as of 15:39 on May 23, 2017

# ? May 23, 2017 15:28

Bulgogi Hoagie: Jun 1, 2012; We

hasta la victoria neoliberal

# ? May 23, 2017 15:37

Pener Kropoopkin: Jan 30, 2013

Fallen Hamprince posted:

neoliberian warlord charles taylorism

# ? May 23, 2017 16:18

Agnosticnixie: Jan 6, 2015

It's great that the alt-right's love affair with south american juntas is making the neoliberals pretend their ideological founders didn't spend a generation giving them full throated support.

# ? May 23, 2017 17:24

MizPiz: May 29, 2013; by Athanatos

Condiv posted:

it's amazing though how the word neoliberal is in spanish too despite it having absolutely no meaning

Much like neoliberals themselves.

# ? May 23, 2017 17:45

Bushiz: Sep 21, 2004; The #1 Threat to Ba Sing Se; Grimey Drawer

Helsing posted:

Oh cool the thread is turning into a honey pot for the unironic neoliberals on this forum

Neoliberals have that same problem that libertarians have where they believe that the only way a person can object to their ideology is if they are a) stupid beyond measure or b) bad faith actors. Like they think people being exposed to the gospel of friedman will spontaneously rewire the normal human brain to understand the brutal abuses of the global south are for their own good.

# ? May 23, 2017 18:05

Condiv: May 7, 2008; Sorry to undo the effort of paying a domestic abuser $10 to own this poster, but I am going to lose my dang mind if I keep seeing multiple posters who appear to be Baloogan.

With love,
a mod

Bushiz posted:

Neoliberals have that same problem that libertarians have where they believe that the only way a person can object to their ideology is if they are a) stupid beyond measure or b) bad faith actors. Like they think people being exposed to the gospel of friedman will spontaneously rewire the normal human brain to understand the brutal abuses of the global south are for their own good.

it's amazing how they think sweatshops are charity. are there any funny sweatshop memes?

# ? May 23, 2017 18:13

Agnosticnixie: Jan 6, 2015

Condiv posted:

it's amazing how they think sweatshops are charity. are there any funny sweatshop memes?

So this is the people who unironically believe octogenarians and kids working is heartwarming, feel-good stories

# ? May 23, 2017 18:24

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

So another day, another article that out of nowhere is celebrating r/neoliberal, a subreddit nobody had heard of a month ago. I wonder if this is just econ journalists getting super excited by the idea that kids these days are turning to neoliberal memes or if somebody behind the scenes is actively trying to push this crap into people's newfeeds as part of a broader pushback effort against "extremism".

In this case watch a economics professor trying to pretend that FDR and paleoliberals are actually neoliberals.

quote:

Centrism Takes On the Extremes

A blend of free markets, regulation and redistribution turned the U.S. into the world's richest nation. What's not to like?

May 23, 2017, 2:00 PM GMT+2

We live in an age where political discourse is defined by internet memes -- iconography and symbols that compress complex ideas into short bursts suitable for the age of social media. Donald Trump�s most ardent online supporters often brag that they �memed a president into office.� But because memes are typically used by young people with extreme views, the format naturally lends itself to ideological excess. The sensible center just doesn�t have many memes of its own.

The people at the r/neoliberal subreddit -- a small neighborhood in the sprawling online forum Reddit -- aim to change that.

�Neoliberalism� isn�t the most well-defined of terms. It loosely refers to free-market economic ideas, combined with a technocratic, incrementalist approach to fixing market failures and redistributing wealth. Many criticize the term for being too vague, but it�s slowly catching on:

The Center Tries to Hold

Neoliberalism is essentially the centrist economic framework embraced by U.S. presidents like Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. It�s also the paradigm that most academic economists implicitly use to think about policy -- they see themselves as advisers offering smart, often subtle advice to generally benevolent policy makers. In other words, neoliberalism is the model the U.S. has been operating under for decades, and it has had significant influence abroad as well.

People on the socialist left, especially in the U.K., like to blame neoliberal ideology for many of the woes of the modern world. Meanwhile, on the right, protectionist and xenophobic ideas have rapidly replaced free-market libertarianism as the rallying cry of the Republican base. The neoliberal center is under assault from both sides. So some internet jokesters have decided it�s time to fight back.

The neoliberal memes poke fun at both the socialist left and the populist right. They proudly defend taco trucks from Trump�s rhetorical assaults and tease left-leaning politicians like the U.K.�s Jeremy Corbyn and the U.S.�s Bernie Sanders. And they portray centrist leaders like Germany�s Angela Merkel, France�s Emmanuel Macron and Canada�s Justin Trudeau not as embattled apologists for a disintegrating order, but as saviors leading the strays back to the light:

This nascent pushback is long overdue. People in Western countries have been far too quick to throw centrist technocracy into the dustbin of history. Despite the deep wounds of the Great Recession and the 2008 financial crisis, developed countries have not seen their economies collapse. Employment languished for almost a decade, but it�s now recovering to pre-crash levels:

Meanwhile, wages have begun to rise in the U.S. and are increasing faster for those at the bottom of the income distribution. Home prices and stock markets have fully recovered from their recession-era lows. There are still plenty of economic problems to be dealt with, but it�s now clear that advanced economies based on neoliberalism have not suffered any kind of systemic collapse. Battered and scarred, the system built in the late 20th century still stands.

And young radicals on either side of the political divide should heed the warnings of history. The Great Depression, almost a century ago, prompted many countries to turn to new and extreme political and economic philosophies -- communism, fascism, or militarism. In the end, the country that came out of that era in by far the best shape was the U.S., whose leader, Franklin D. Roosevelt, was the original center-left technocrat. The New Deal has taken a lot of criticism from hardcore free-marketers in recent decades, but it was just the compromise the U.S. needed to steer a middle path between self-destructive extremist ideologies. Many will disagree, but to me FDR seems like the original neoliberal.

But even as they rediscover their confidence and their voice, neoliberals should take caution. Recent decades have exposed flaws in standard centrist ideas that need to be addressed in order to neutralize the threat of extremism in the long term.

For example, economists are finding that workers displaced by forces like trade and technology are much slower to find new jobs than had been previously assumed. Standard neoliberal answers -- for example, that the government should compensate those who lose their jobs because of trade, or provide them with retraining assistance -- have proven either politically untenable or have failed outright. A better method of protecting workers from career-destroying shocks is needed.

Another issue is wealth inequality. Though some European scholars like economist Thomas Piketty have called attention to the problem, their counterparts in the U.S. and U.K. have shown much less interest. Wealth disparities have risen steadily, in good times and bad. Instead of assuming that this inequality isn�t a problem, neoliberals should talk more about how to combat it.

A third problem is monopoly power. For reasons not entirely known, a few superstar companies are coming to dominate their industries, fostering inequality and threatening to reduce economic output. Neoliberals should be thinking about how to use law and regulation to halt the menace of industrial concentration.

So while it�s great to see neoliberals fighting back against the dangerous forces of extremism, winning that fight will ultimately require more than funny internet memes. Centrism�s success comes from successful reforms that patch holes in the system. �Neoliberalism: Mend it, don�t end it� should be the slogan of the day.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

It's remarkable watching somebody with a PhD trying to stretch the term neoliberal so broadly that it covers both the New Deal and the people whose central political project was rolling back the New Deal.

# ? May 23, 2017 18:48

Bulgogi Hoagie: Jun 1, 2012; We

what the gently caress is paleoliberal

cave man economy

# ? May 23, 2017 18:57

Condiv: May 7, 2008; Sorry to undo the effort of paying a domestic abuser $10 to own this poster, but I am going to lose my dang mind if I keep seeing multiple posters who appear to be Baloogan.

With love,
a mod

Helsing posted:

So another day, another article that out of nowhere is celebrating r/neoliberal, a subreddit nobody had heard of a month ago. I wonder if this is just econ journalists getting super excited by the idea that kids these days are turning to neoliberal memes or if somebody behind the scenes is actively trying to push this crap into people's newfeeds as part of a broader pushback effort against "extremism".

In this case watch a economics professor trying to pretend that FDR and paleoliberals are actually neoliberals.

It's remarkable watching somebody with a PhD trying to stretch the term neoliberal so broadly that it covers both the New Deal and the people whose central political project was rolling back the New Deal.

ah, that's why neoliberal means nothing. cause neoliberals want it to mean nothing.

# ? May 23, 2017 18:57

Doc Hawkins: Jun 15, 2010; Dashing? But I'm not even moving!

Condiv posted:

i keep finding spanish neoliberal memes that i can't read

It's the unofficial other official language of America, you should know this much.

"You speak against capitalism and the neoliberal system BUT LET YOUR KIDS CELEBRATE HALLOWEEN"

# ? May 23, 2017 19:39

Doc Hawkins: Jun 15, 2010; Dashing? But I'm not even moving!

Renowned center-left figure FDR, who had to be talked out of a 100% top tax bracket.

# ? May 23, 2017 19:40

and i must meme: Jan 15, 2017

Helsing posted:

So another day, another article that out of nowhere is celebrating r/neoliberal, a subreddit nobody had heard of a month ago. I wonder if this is just econ journalists getting super excited by the idea that kids these days are turning to neoliberal memes or if somebody behind the scenes is actively trying to push this crap into people's newfeeds as part of a broader pushback effort against "extremism".

would lol if the CIA is funding neoliberal memes

# ? May 23, 2017 19:56

Thoguh: Nov 8, 2002; College Slice

Helsing posted:

So another day, another article that out of nowhere is celebrating r/neoliberal, a subreddit nobody had heard of a month ago. I wonder if this is just econ journalists getting super excited by the idea that kids these days are turning to neoliberal memes or if somebody behind the scenes is actively trying to push this crap into people's newfeeds as part of a broader pushback effort against "extremism".

In this case watch a economics professor trying to pretend that FDR and paleoliberals are actually neoliberals.

It's remarkable watching somebody with a PhD trying to stretch the term neoliberal so broadly that it covers both the New Deal and the people whose central political project was rolling back the New Deal.

I dunno who would benefit from an agenda of pushing neoliberal memes so I'd assume it is the unironic work of true believers. If dangerously unfunny libertarian memes can be a thing then I suppose dangerously unfunny neoliberal memes can be a thing too.

# ? May 23, 2017 20:21

Thoguh: Nov 8, 2002; College Slice

You could probably give David Brock a couple million bucks and even he would be like "Um, I guess I can make that happen, but why?"

# ? May 23, 2017 20:21

Doktor Avalanche: Dec 30, 2008

Doc Hawkins posted:

It's the unofficial other official language of America, you should know this much.

"You speak against capitalism and the neoliberal system BUT LET YOUR KIDS CELEBRATE HALLOWEEN"

what does halloween have to do with neoliberalism and capitalism

# ? May 23, 2017 20:29