There's a pattern see today. It's not new but it is all over the place. Low quality influencers making dumb arguments. It's on the left and the right.
The result is that the responses to these low quality people are also low quality. I see it a lot in conservatives because they often are responding to retarded leftists that are not only wrong but uninformed.
I'm reminded of Ben Shapiro's early days debating college students. People would tell me how brilliant he was. He is smart. He is a good debater. Maybe even a master debator. But it's easy to look smart next to idiots.
What we need more of is steel manning. Destory the ideas of socialism. Don't just knock down the libs on TikTok. Go for the best people and break down their ideas.
I guess we are just lazy and too obsessed with owning people. It mostly ego I see online these days. Not real debate. Not reason. Just bravado. There is a place for that. But there should be more substance
The problem is that it's the influencers people are listening to.
If you go after the strongest version of the ideology, you're ironically doing something similar to strawmanning because you're attacking an argument that no one is making.
Chinas mixed economy combining state capitalism and free market competition is creating more wealth than the wests tired, entitled and corrupt crony capitalism.
The problem is that neoliberalism has failed.
The narrative that all you need is free markets and government to get out of the way of the miraculous free markets has been demonstrably demolished!
So now anyone pointing out that Chinas mixed economy- a combination of free enterprise and state capitalism has out competed the west is attacked- not in a logical reasoned manner but in a desperate trolling shoot the messenger way.
Neoliberalism/Libertarianism are overly simplistic dogmatic failed ideologies.
Humans form groups and work in groups to maximise their advantage in the endless competition for territory and wealth.
The free markets fix all assertion fails to take this into account.