Thread by @mcjulie

This kind of "loyalty to the state" garbage is something we used to make fun of the USSR for, back in the 80s.

https://twitter.com/JeffreyASachs/status/1467163956573790211

This seems relevant:
"The bill updates a piece of Cold War-era law that bans educators from advocating for communism in schools, and adds additional bans on advocating for socialism and Marxism."

It sort of resolves something that used to be a bit of a conflict for me, back in the day. Around the age of 15-16 I started to get political and hated Reagan & all things of Reaganism.

But I ALSO hated the USSR! I thought they were an oppressive, tyrannical dystopia. So, when Reagan did things like call them an "evil empire" I would be put in the very uncomfortable position of agreeing with Reagan about something.

I had ideas that I was told made me a "leftist" but I looked around & all the major communist countries were authoritarian nightmares, I figured communism couldn't possibly be the answer.

But now I see: the right wingers who loved Reagan & still follow him as a cult figure, they never hated the tyranny of the USSR at all, they only hated the "ostensibly communist" aspect of that tyranny.

They never hated the USSR for the lies, the propaganda, the cultlike veneration of leaders, the lack of democracy, the brutal subjugation of freedom of speech, movement & assembly, the grim despairing reality of the lives of ordinary people -- they loved all THAT stuff!

The Reagan-era political right hated two, and only two things about the old USSR. 1. Their official stance as a communist state 2. Their official stance as an atheist state.

When they pointed out the tyranny of the USSR, that was only to persuade people like me to their side. Like, they'd make fun of the obvious lies & propaganda of Pravda, and I would be on their side. But those same people went on to build their own Pravda in the form of Fox News.

It's similar to how the same evangelicals who warned me in the 70s & 80s about the rise of a terrifying Antichrist figure went on to not ONLY elect one president, but ALSO turn him into a straight-up Jesus-susbstitute cult figure.