What are the go-to subjects for revealing the true, regressive beliefs of reactionaries who don’t consider themselves reactionary? Off the top of my head:

-Trans people in sports: Major gateway to transphobia and misogyny. Complaints about trans athletes inevitably lead to sexism towards literally any woman with muscles. Pretty sure this is how Joe Rogan and a ton of his supporters became so unhinged.

-Affirmative action: So, so many liberals and “leftists” will complain about how they would’ve totally gotten into Harvard and Yale if not for The Blackstm. Love to bring up SAT scores even though they’ve been proven to be racist and classist and a shit metric for intellectual value.

-Shakespeare authorship question: A bit niche. Basically, Curtis Yarvin and other Dark Enlightenment dweebs don’t think that Shakespeare was capable of penning such timeless plays because he wasn’t rich, and according to them, not rich=dumb and uncreative mental husk.

  • NoGodsNoMasters [they/them, she/her]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    Homeless people. Even demsocs/socdems ostensibly progressive pretty much everywhere else will sometimes with almost no prompting (other than being with you when they see a homeless person) just make disparaging comments about homeless people without a second thought. Their reactionariness usually extends well beyond that too, but they keep it better camouflaged and them being anti-homeless will often be a first sign

    • Kuori [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      really good observation tbh, i think this is one of the most sure-fire ways to do it unless you can build a real hitler-detector

      a lot of people are willing to “tolerate” shit that they don’t have to see but homelessness is omnipresent throughout capitalist society; it’s basically impossible to have never had an interaction with a homeless person. people who feel that homeless people (rather than the existence of homelessness itself) are repulsive are almost inevitably just waiting to be scratched on a variety of subjects before they go full pigmask-off

    • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      100%. Liberals’ hatred for homeless people is pretty much genocidal. They just lack the spine to say what they want to be done to them, but are more than happy to complain about how they smell like piss or how homeless camps are vectors for disease, comparing homeless people to vermin that must be exterminated.