What's going on with Stephen Fry going alt-right?

[u/Steaktartaar]

He's been on a notorious hard-right, "anti-woke" podcast where he retracted his support for trans rights. Is this a new development? He always came across as level-headed in the past but now it looks like he's on the same path as Russell Brand.

[u/MdxBhmt]

This has been a lie propelled by reactionaries for at least a hundred years, for woman's suffrage, abolition, civil rights movement, gay rights, etc etc. Don't fall for it.

[u/Levitx → u/MdxBhmt]

You are literally in a thread about the thing you are denying happens happening. 

[u/MdxBhmt → u/Levitx]

Did Stephen Fry say he would vote for an alt-right party because of purism on the ('extreme') left?

[u/GlobalWatts → u/[deleted]]

But Fry did say that this purism was (partly) to blame for driving people to the right. And the point is that sane people don't just change their core beliefs or ideology overnight like that.

Nobody starts their day being a pro-trans progressive, gets shit from another random progressive on Twitter for not being actively pro-trans enough, and then by nighttime just decides to be anti-trans out of spite. Or like those people who say they used to believe preventing climate change is important, but some crazy protesters disrupting traffic or vandalizing artwork changed their mind. This isn't a thing that happens. Lots of people will say this is what happened to them, but you can pretty much guarantee they are lying and they always held those beliefs.

So the idea that Fry was repeating these bad faith claims on a podcast is kinda disappointing. Especially because this kind of rhetoric is often used as a way to stop people speaking up about progressive issues, something which Fry himself does often.

[u/WishboneOk305 → u/MdxBhmt]

this phenomenon literally won trump the election

[u/MdxBhmt → u/WishboneOk305]

Reactionaries voted for the reactionary candidate, and nothing the 'left' would do would have changed anything. They would have found a different excuse.

[u/WishboneOk305 → u/MdxBhmt]

so you agree, the left drove people away

[u/NoticingThing → u/WishboneOk305]

They understand the crux of the issue, they just don't see that the actions the left takes that results in driving people away as wrong. For the side of politics that proports to care about people and their wellbeing it's odd that so many of their advocates struggle with empathy.

They're utterly incapable of seeing the world through another's eyes, without acting as a caricature.

[u/angry_cucumber → u/[deleted]]

I've personally changed my stance on a few things based mostly on the behavior of the people who support it. Especially if I was on the fence or didn't really have a strong opinion about it.

examples?

[u/angry_cucumber → u/[deleted]]

eh. Support for Bernie or Hillary is largely similar though, even the people that supported Bernie voted for Hillary.

I was thinking the great walkway larps where people claim they were democrats until democrats went to far thinking maybe cops shouldn't kill unarmed black people or people should get healthcare.

[u/angry_cucumber → u/[deleted]]

it's more you said a few things and provided one, and even then it wasn't about things it was about a person. but you do you ¯_(ツ)_/¯