As Hurricane Helene careened toward Florida’s Panhandle, numerous Republicans voted against extending funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Last week, Congress approved $20 billion for FEMA’s disaster relief fund as part of a stopgap spending bill to fund the government through December 20. But the measure left out billions of dollars in requested supplemental disaster funding.
The Senate approved the measure by a 78-18 vote on September 25 after it passed the House in a 341-82 vote. Republicans supplied the no votes in both chambers.
Some of the Republicans who voted against the bill represent states that have been hard hit by Helene, including Florida Representative Matt Gaetz.
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To lemmy users, all Republicans are one-dimensional villainous caricatures twirling their mustaches
When have they proven otherwise?
I’d imagine they’ve proven otherwise many times. People aren’t one-dimensional pain-inflicting villainous caricatures. But nothing I say would convince you of that.
If you can give me a single solid event, I might be willing to believe it. But when people ask for proof and you respond “it’s happened, many people are saying it, but you wouldn’t believe me” that’s not a very convincing argument. Nor are the actions of local Republicans a convincing argument in favor of them not being mustache-twirling comic book villains. I believe this about them because this is all that they have given me reason to believe about them. If your every action is in service to evil then I label you evil. I will change my labels if and when they choose to act outside of them. I have seen precious little acting outside of that label since I’ve been old enough to pay attention to politics.
Ok, if you say “show me one single act where a Republican acted with any singular other interest besides the explicit directive of making people suffer” I’ll spend my time finding an instance. Or you can just admit that you didn’t mean what you said, and no matter what I say you won’t change your mind, and we can go about our days.
You find me one example of a conservative in office who has acted like an objectively good person, and acted in the interests of other people without a profit motive, within the last 20 years and I’ll admit right here in the public forum that some conservative officials are good people.
Whether you take me up on that or not is up to you. I’m not really going to lose any sleep over it either way. My intention here isn’t to make you do homework to try and prove me wrong about something. My intention is to highlight that people are their actions, and if we pay attention to the actions of sitting Republicans, every action they make is in pursuit of personal profit or of harming the other. There are almost certainly isolated cases here and there where one of them has acted in a manner befitting a public official, but I couldn’t name any of those times and if you go searching for one I expect you’re going to have quite a bit of homework attempting to find one.
If your every action serves evil then I label you evil. If nearly every action serves evil but not all of them we promise, that’s still not a great look and I am not sympathetic to it.
You are right, in a way, in that I’m pretty confident you aren’t going to change my opinions in any fundamental way here today. But that’s not because I’m unwilling to listen to an alternate point of view, it’s because I come armed with knowledge. I already know what these people do. I have already tried to discuss, and share, and debate with conservative supporting citizens for many many years already. My open mind has led me to the conclusion that some percentage of them are truly genuinely wonderful people that are tragically misinformed about the world around them. Many more are just ignorant, some willfully so. And the small percent that remains are the ones that typically end up in office under Republican colors, who are the ones who discovered they can espouse these views in order to amass personal power beneath the eaves of a massive propaganda network set up and abused by the generations preceding and feeding off the energy (and donations! Somehow!) of the poor, misinformed, typically rural, american.
Please note that “all Republicans are evil” does not also mean “all Democrats are good” nor does it mean that all republican voters are evil. Most of them just aren’t being presented with a factual view of the world that surrounds them. They are victims in this system. But what it does mean, and this is the hill I’ll die on regarding this subject, is that all Republican officials who currently hold office in the United States of America are horrid, vile little shits and it’s an order of magnitude easier to find evidence corroborating that rather than refuting it. You have a pretty good chance of being able to reply to this with an article showing that the governor of Indiana built an orphanage once in 2018 or something, and feeling good that you’ve got one over on me, but if that’s the case then you’ve really missed the point of what I’m trying to communicate here. You don’t seem like an unreasonable person. You haven’t called me names or rage quit the conversation and I respect that and wish to respond in kind. I do not think that you, personally, are an evil or stupid person. But I do think you need to take a critical look at most of your representatives in our government, and really see what they’re up to. It’s easy to be blinded by propaganda, I am not immune to it and neither are you, and it’s been getting really bad these days. But just listen to what they say from their own mouths and ask yourself if that’s what you want representing you to the world at large.
I think, for the most part, Republican politicians are pieces of shit.
If you look at my comments in this thread, I am talking about the consensus on lemmy/reddit that any Republican (not just politicians) are not only vile monsters, but that their only motivation is to cause suffering. This thought has been shown to me many times in many comment threads, including this one.
You are not making the same argument that I’ve heard many times before. Others in this thread are making that argument.
Also, it’s absolutely insane to me that stating the belief that “all Republicans aren’t one-dimensional villainous caricatures” gets me labeled as a Republican. I’m a straight ticket dem voter and have literally never voted for a Republican, even when (as often happens in my state ) my only option was a Republican.
That’s fair, I am but one among many. A lot of folks fail to realize that our perspectives don’t arise from a vacuum. As one example, fundamentalist Christian folks don’t hate trans folks because they just want to see them suffer, they hate them because they’ve been instructed by a malicious actor that their religion requires them to hate them and that they are a threat to public order. Ditto for a hundred other conflicts of opinion in modern America. We have been set against one another, set up like pawns across a chessboard. And those who fail to observe the bigger picture of the chessboard will be played like the pawns they’ve been cast as.
Everyone has a reason why they believe the things that they believe. Unfortunately it’s generally much easier to just discard that context, especially in a social media environment where that context is invisible and must be inferred, and the crowd is going to follow the path of least resistance generally speaking. I don’t know how to fix that.
Agree on all fronts.
Lemmy is increasingly seeming like a more reddit-y reddit to me.
Look if you can’t find one, just admit it and move on.
Still waiting…
Lol I don’t hear you saying “show me one single act where a Republican acted with any singular other interest besides the explicit directive of making people suffer”
I remember a few years ago the Republicans jammed through some piece of legislation that would allow terminal patients to take experimental medications. Even people on the left got fooled, thinking it was some benevolent thing that Trump and his team did for dying patients.
Really, what they did was create a loophole for drug manufacturers to allow them to skip right ahead to human trials, as long as they could find a patient desperate enough to sign a waiver, which, of course anyone who is terminal is also desperate enough to try anything; in law it’s called duress and it voids consent. It’s one step below doing forced medical testing on unwilling subjects.
There’s a reason we do drug trials and we don’t just skip straight into human testing. And I’m sure they gave it some fucking dumbass lie of a name like, the Compassionate Care Act or something. Pharmaceutical companies love it because it slashes the cost of testing, which is the most expensive part of pharmaceuticals after advertising.
I can’t honestly think of a single policy that Republicans support that doesn’t have an evil purpose at its core.
And I bet that you can’t show me one.
You tell me one Republican policy you think is rooted in compassionate and benevolence, and a genuine desire to help people in need of help, and I will take about ten seconds to point out exactly how you got tricked, and what the law actually does, just like with the human testing law I mentioned; The point of it wasn’t exclusively to make people suffer, it was to give a handout to the pharmaceutical industry, and Trump’s rich supporters.
I did a Google search earlier for another user, and Wikipedia mentioned that in 2006, repubs expanded Medicare and introduced a new plan for seniors. Feel free to tell me how that was evil
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskConservatives/s/y1VhdzJJp9
Please show me the nefarious motivations for every response in this thread, then prove to me that Dems don’t have nefarious motivations for every single policy they support. I want you to be as critical of dem policy as you are about the experimental drug policy - that is to say, ignore the obvious good it does and look for a way that it could be maliciously interpreted.
After all, I’m sure my aunt Michael didn’t actually want to get into the drug experiment that my mom drove her across the country to attempt to join. She should have had the decency to accept dying of cancer a few months later so that pharmaceuticals couldn’t take advantage of other people with 3 months to live. I’m sure you’d feel the same way if you had terminal cancer.
Can you find one vote which republicans voted for people?
Wikipedia says congressional Republicans expanded Medicare, supporting a new drug plan for seniors starting in 2006.
Now can you please move the goalposts, tell me why it doesn’t count, it was too long ago, etc. I’m sure there’s no way I could spend another 20 seconds finding other examples lol
So at best they are just stupid.
It doesn’t take stupidity to be caught up in propaganda.
So far you have said nothing to answer the question.
Imagine commenting this on a post about how the only people to vote against a bill to help disaster victims are Republicans. Lemmy users don’t have to assume anything. It’s the entire subject of the headline lol. Nice martyr complex though.
Martyr complex lol. Lemmy users love to assume that if you don’t demonize half of the country, that you’re a Nazi. You are the real caricature. I’ve been a straight ticket dem voter since I was 18 in the 04 election, probably longer than you’ve been alive. That doesn’t fit your extremely narrow worldview though lol
Cry about how poorly everyone is treating Republicans for doing what they are doing then say you’re a “dem”. Lol, good try. This strategy gets posted often in far right forums.
Also I didn’t say anything about Nazis. You brought that up. Really going through the checklist aren’t we? I said that the title of this post is about how Republicans did something objectively evil. I then called you out for defending that and trying to demonize the entire Lemmy community with a straw man. I’m sure that there are some Republican voters who are appalled by this vote and I hope they see what their party stands for.
Your attempt to create outrage and keep others from engaging will not work here.
Goddamn, you types are really weird. There’s always one of you calling me a pLaNt. I don’t even see what my motivation would be, lol “omg he’s saying people are multidimensional and have different motivations, must be a Republican PLANT trying to KEEP OTHERS FROM ENGAGING”, lol it “WILL NOT WORK HERE”, do you hear yourself and how insane that sounds? As if that’s more plausible than a progressive dem that believes that maybe 50% of the country aren’t solely motivated by the drive to inflict suffering?
what a dimented worldview to have, I genuinely feel sorry for you, that that’s the world you live in. That my totally reasonable takes in this thread defines me, a literal straight-ticket dem voter for 20 years, as a Republican plant
Good thing everything on the internet is true. You must be a real “dem” for sure. That is how us “dems” refer to ourselves all the time. Right fellow dem? Actually, I’m not a dem. I’m a straight ticket repub. I’ve just become disenfranchised with my party due to their policies which is what this post is actually about. For some reason you want to talk about anything but that though… Strange.
Instead of trying to convince people of something completely unverifiable, do you care to comment on the actual subject of this post or are you just here to complain about how everyone picks on the poor Republicans who are actively trying to block aid to hurricane victims so that they’ll be unable to vote in swing states?
Lol dude get a life, my comments are straightforward and comprehensive. Idgaf if you don’t want to read them, want to make a thousand strawmans, or make me into a REPUBLICAN PLANT that has REAL REASONS to lie about that. You very clearly project your bizarre worldview onto others. Have fun with that.
What? Lol. You’re not even coherent anymore. Do you care to comment about the actual subject of this post though?
Reading comprehension doesn’t seem to be your strong suit. Why would I waste any actual thought on some weird teenager who thinks there are uNdErCoVer rEpUbLiCaNs in this thread CREATING OUTRAGE and KEEPING OTHERS FROM ENGAGING lolol, I have a hard time even typing that out without cringing, you weirdo
Within the context of this bill, how else can one explain all the NO votes purely from Republicans? What about republicans whose states are devastated by Hurricane Helene?
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I don’t know man, I’m sure they had reasons other than “solely to inflict suffering on other humans”. Frankly, I don’t care. Republican politicians are mostly scum. But painting every Republican as a one-dimensional caricature that subsists on the suffering of others is shortsighted, naive, hyperbolic, and dangerous.
If they werent. They wouldnt be aligning with facists.
Lol jesus christ. What are you, 13?
Understanding the motives of so many individual people is difficult. Lets just reduce it to greed and come up with some memes. This way we arent doing nothing.
Oh yes, we just need to understand them and reach across the aisle to make it happen.
GTFO of here with this bullshit. Did you forget the last 20 years of Republican obstruction? Where they vote against their own policies and refuse to compromise.
The only thing to understand at this point is they will always place their party before our county. They will applaud a president who won’t take care of people because they didn’t vote for him.
Cruelty is the response to decades of hate and fear. They chose this shitty path to walk down and now we have to deal with edge lords like you saying, “ahh shucks, you just gotta understand them.”
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Make what happen?
The comment that i replied to is the opposite of a thought… its a desire to belong. If reductionist comments disappear, then we are forced to think.
We dont need people to find a new concise way to say things as simply as possible to repeat and spread it through the internet. Our goal shouldnt be to memeify our ideologies. We should shun zero-effort comments from discussion. We should believe in people to make the right decisions about the world while our discussions focus on truth above all else.
Running our country in a non-partisan way. The fact that the Republicans have chosen to make every single topic from child labor laws, equality, healthcare, education, to living wages a partisan topic is no accident.
It is pure obstructionism based on lies, fear, and hate. Your suggestion is, like so many wanna be edge lords right now, that we just don’t get them. That if we just took the time to understand them then we could communicate our message.
This is simply not true unfortunately. The solution is not trying to understand their ignorance, it is creating an environment we can all thrive in. This has been made near impossible by them purely out of spite. They can and will fuck everyone over if they perceive that whatever group they happen to be told to hate may suffer more.
So while I do agree generalization and over simplification can be a bad thing for discourse, I just have point out the reality that they are simply disingenuous. It really just feels like you are playing into their hand which is why you get pushback.
What fucking motive could possibly excuse abandoning entire states’ worth of people who were devastated by something outside their control?
If you vote for Trump, you’re a dumb piece of shit. It actually is that simple. You may not think you’re dumb or a piece of shit, but at a federal level, you’re both.
Who is talking about voting for trump?
I making a case on behalf of complexity, and that reduction is harmful to truth. And truth is all that matters.
Honestly, in my interactions here, the users don’t even claim it’s greed. In general, at least in all the interactions I’ve had, they legitimately believe all Republicans are strictly evil and just enjoy inflicting pain, with no other motive.
Edit: lol proven right below
Prove otherwise.
Every. Single. “Policy” that these ghouls put forth are solely designed to inflict pain, consolidate power in a fascist manner, and extract wealth for their oligarch masters.
I’ve had this discussion enough to realize that no matter what I say, your mind won’t be changed. it’s easier for you to live in a world where people are one-dimensional caricatures of evil. Good luck in the real world with that outlook, genuinely.
Not what I said. I specifically was speaking about the republicans in positions of power in the government.
If you can’t see how they’re all working in unison together to trash our democracy and destroy our freedoms, then there’s truly no hope for you.
They do it to themselves too. They try to speak for everyone and it never works, because you can only speak for yourself.
It confuses people who are trying to understand the world. They are trying to learn from people that will never understand the world. Its really dumb.
I’m speaking directly about the republicans in power.
Their motives are crystal clear and their actions are NOT EVER designed to help regular citizens that they are supposed to serve.
This is a simple fact of life and instead of grasping ahold of reality, you attack my worldview instead. That says multitudes.
If they stand back, and don’t denounce the members of their own party doing theses things, then they are just as bad.