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The vocalisation doesn't sound sincere at all to me. It sounds like a right-wing activist LARPing as a leftist.
The amazing thing is how the extremists really do sound like the conservative caricature of the lefties. "Surely they can't be like that in reality/Whoops..." The lead-in to the "but we hate you!" screaming by the maker of the video was 'in your wildest dreams' stuff:
"Scott, I think your legislation on trans issues and your legislation specifically protecting queers on sex offender registry is fantastic. Like, I really applaud you for that and I think you deserve to be here for that".
You did not just say that. Tell me you didn't. Imagine a GOP politician getting praised for protecting people on sex offender registries 🤣
(There was also criticism of his housing policy and aligning with YIMPYs (sic) before launching into the stuck record you've been terrible you've been terrible you've been terrible stuff).
Uh, yeah, because a lot of that isn't conservative caricature. Sometimes conservatives come up with a strawman position that it turns out the left actually holds, but much of the time conservatives are actually merely NOTICING.
Shhh, Nybbler, we are not supposed to NOTICE because nothing happened, nothing at all, and if it did it was the right wing fascist bigot haters who did it, and if it wasn't then it could have been, and anyway it was a good thing it happened!
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AIUI, there is talk of a problem among the Republican campaign staffers that it's hard to do attack ads because people think literal descriptions of Democrat rhetoric and policies are insane exaggerations. E.g. the "Yes, fuck you, we literally mean no more police at all" candidate for the House.
Kamala's 2019 run was an absolute gift to the Republican campaign because all they had to do was run the ad with the clip of her solemnly nodding about "absolutely, gender reassignment surgery and treatment paid for by the taxpayer for illegal immigrant criminals in jail, I am fully for that".
Golden. And she walked herself into that one because she misjudged that pandering to the progressive extreme was the way to go, forgetting that "it's Joe's turn now" and that she was giving way too many hostages to fortune. She did get her reward as his VP but that was as much "well he said he was gonna pick a black woman, might as well be her" as anything else.
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Clearly a crack squadron of secret false-flag right wingers are attending protests solely to push random internal schism stuff
It's not about pushing internal schism stuff. It's about trying to tar and feather the Jews and any pro-Israeli sentiment as pedophile-coded. And yes, that reeks of rightoid mentality. Leftists do not think or talk that way.
The leftists don't passionately oppose pedophilia because doing so is low-class and right-wing coded, so just like they don't oppose Israel or the Jews because doing so is low-class and right-wing coded. The way the left phrases these things is they're against sexual abuse of the vulnerable and against the colonialism of marginalised groups like Palestinians.
They're in the news going hard on this since October 7.
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It was the leftists screaming anti-Semitism, my friend. You can't No True Scotsman your way out of this.
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Leftists do passionately oppose pedophilia- often defined in nonstandard ways, but still.
As usual, it's who, whom. Leftists are totally fine with George Takei getting introduced to the wonderful world of gay sex at 14 by a camp counselor, but God forbid a man in his thirties should date a college girl!
Gay sex is different from straight sex, so it’s not a double standard at all- just bad values.
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Yeah. So much of the Epstein stuff and I'd argue the whole '17.9999999999 years sick fuck' manifestation is more Left-wing than Right
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Which leftists do you know? The ones I'm in circles with love talking about "the Epstein class".
In the same way they love body- and homo-shaming when it can target the outgroup. "The Epstein Class" feels like a good soldier to send to war - same reason it gets spammed by twitter posters from third world countries with mass, normalized child rape.
Most of those same leftists will turn around and say it's a human right for 15 year olds to have access to books that tell them how to get on Grindr, even though that sort of thing is almost exactly what Epstein actually did.
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I think that's as strong evidence that leftists care about opposing pedophilia as Republicans' calling out voter fraud in recent elections they lost is evidence that they care about opposing voter fraud. These are just easy weapons lying around to pick up and throw at enemies, nothing more, nothing less. That's even before getting into the fact that, almost certainly, Epstein and his ilk account for less than 0.1% of all pedophilic crime that happened during the time period when they were (are?) active and are almost certainly dwarfed by activities done by much lower class people that those same people conspicuously try to ignore or downplay.
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"The Epstein Class" is a right-wing shibboleth. An actual leftist would say "the capitalist class" or "the bourgeoisie."
While they're often talking about largely the same group, the worldviews are quite different: one world model runs on sexual blackmail, and the other on asymmetric bargaining power enabled by control of capital.
In my hard left coastal city, blues LOVE talking about the Epstein class in exactly those words
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Have you been on social media in the last year? Redditors love their Epstein references
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Leftists (meaning, here, Democrats and affiliated groups) are very eager to call out the Epstein class and variations of it that do center specifically on sexual immorality; this can be seen in everything from Reddit comments to statements by national Democratic politicians. Though it's less a belief in a conspiracy of sexual blackmail driving history and more a belief in the inherent corrupt perversions of the rich.
"Actual leftists" using your more materialist framing exist but have essentially no power.
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Some Dem politicians that have used the phrase "Epstein class" include Jamaal Bowman, Graham Platner, Jon Ossoff and Ro Khanna who, according to this, coined the term. New York City DSA, at least, also uses the term.
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