There is currently a very funny, kind of sad dust-up over Helldivers 2, in which self-proclaimed “anti-woke” gamers have previously heralded it as a rare game where they believe “politics” does not play a factor. Their faith was been shaken by an Arrowhead community manager they believed they found to be (gasp) progressive who was then subsequently harassed, but their head-scratching reading of Helldivers 2 as a “non-political” game is worth examining.
The only thing that makes sense is that these players have the shallowest of surface-level readings of the game. You are a patriotic soldier serving Super Earth. You must kill bugs and evil robots trying to hurt your brothers-in-arms and innocent citizens. There are no storylines to insert progressive causes into, everyone wears helmets so no “forced diversity.” Therefore, no politics.
Of course, this is…wildly off the mark, as Helldivers 2 is about the most blatantly obvious satire of militaristic fascism since the film that inspired it, Starship Troopers.
I am sorry, voting has no measurable impact on what and how the military and government of the US chooses to commit genocide and fight wars.
Edward Snowden would be put away in jail for the rest of his life for the second he stepped on US soil for speaking up against the US government.
I am equating living under a typical military dictatorship with living in the US? No, but honestly we aren’t very far from a military dictatorship given how incredibly, incomprehensibly powerful the military industrial complex is in the US. There has never been a more powerful military either in absolute terms of force or in relative terms of force compared to similar peer militaries, it doesn’t really matter that we can vote, the votes don’t have any meaning against that degree of entrenched power.