cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/31730469
To redirect revolutionary energy from destroying to the system to just criticizing Trump. It is a way for them to gain popular support and show themselves as anti-establishment instead of the bourgeoisie that they are who need to be overthrown
Yeah I had many similar experiences when some o my acquaintances in high school started an 'atheist club' and asked me to join because I was one of the more vocal non-believers in school (in that I would actively discuss and push back against faith-based narratives in class, but just within what was being discussed) but was still friendly with the more liberal evangelicals. I think I attended two meetings before I realized that most of them were just "Science as the superior faith" people and not really all that interested in the philosophy of knowledge or how to know things. It was a really eye opening moment for me that there needs to be more to this whole skeptic thing than just contrarianism, and felt that it was doomed to online obscurity.
I don't think much has changed, if anything there are more conservative Dennis's than there ever were before.
I feel like a lot of us calibrated on the atheism scale. I was an out loud atheist when I was a teenager too, but I realized after a year or so that it's not cool to go out and pick fights. I feel like it was part of my over all radicalization in the way that I learned that just because you're right, doesn't mean you get to be a dick about it.
Liberals have a hard time dealing with that reality and won't even think about how their messaging hurts them. Not that the message is any good in the first place...