It hurts people they think are lesser, such as LGBTQ and people of color. Racism and bigotry are very much alive in the USA. They would eat a shit sandwich if they thought a lib would smell their breath. Hate is all they know.
I’m going to go on a less extreme take. They’ve been told from childhood they live in the land of opportunity, yet they work in dead end jobs or working fields.
They see money flying away every paycheck they live week to week on while being pumped propaganda (that people in suburbs and urban areas don’t see) that shows people who look different from them getting gov’t housing and getting programs funded with their tax dollars.
The same party they now demonize supports ridiculous looking gay parades that show a mentality they don’t understand, so they begin to hate. They wake up morning after morning in the same place with no change, and they stew and stew and stew.
So now they basically give up and see a hyper-masculine wannabe saying all the things against those who are different, and the long encrusted anger starts spewing out.
Most of the comments here are ignorant and hate filled against the wrong people. It’s not the MAGA supporters that did this, it’s the system. We need to stop polarizing ourselves with hatred and point the finger at those truly responsible. Not the poor (literallly) voters who are so dejected and living in decay that they just don’t give a rats ass anymore.
The more you hate the other side, the less you see the truth. The goal is to make you hate them. The goal is to make them hate you. You can’t define an entire person in a paragraph.
I think MAGA represents to Republicans what progressives like Bernie and AOC represent to Democrats. Republicans were able to reimagine their party into a form that isn’t just going to follow the status quo that, like you said, has led to a stagnant existence for average Americans over the last 50+ years. And stagnant is probably a nice way of putting it, since buying power has essentially disappeared, on top of wages barely moving.
So Trump comes in, he says drain the swamp, and you hear that to mean the whole machine, everyone who, for the last 50 years (and some folks have been involved in that government for a good chunk of that 50 years, just perpetuating that status quo) has allowed the rich to get richer at the expense of the working middle class.
And so you toss on your blinders. You’re not necessarily a bigot, but you believe social issues are a distraction from actual problems (i.e., ones that affect you directly), and you vote in a way that you hope will better your life. It’s hard to blame someone, especially someone just exhausted from grinding through their shitty life, for thinking about themselves. It’s not the right way to think, but I get it.
And so you toss on your blinders. You’re not necessarily a bigot, but you believe social issues are a distraction from actual problems
Tbf, identity politics are 100% used as a smokescreen
You won’t hear me disagree.
This is pretty much it, in my view.
Americans need to watch the Estonian-Georgian movie Tangerines before demonizing “the other side”. Besides an anti-war movie, it’s also about a movie about how two sworn enemies realize the other is also human.
A good clip to watch if you’re not interested in watching the entire (relatively short) film
They will 100% sacrifice their own happiness and rights if they know it’s hurting people who live their lives is ways they don’t like.
This isn’t an exaggeration.
They literally want bloodshed and the world to burn
This is conservative vengeance
And everyone is going to suffer from it
I realized this during the 2016 election. People always say they are voting against their own interests, but their only real interest is to spite someone else. Hurting other people is a win, for them.
I normally do not talk politics with people I know, but this one person said they like trump because: “all I know is when he was president, I did good financially”.
I tried to tell him that the government is slow to enact things so he did good because the previous president. He didnt want to hear that and dismissed it.
If that’s all he knows he doesn’t know very much.
My cousin said the exact same thing.
They don’t know shit, but they still vote with such confidence. It’s maddening.
Like most MAGA.
Causing a complete collapse of society to own the libs.
“That’ll show em!” They said, proudly looking at the divet in their face where their nose used to be.
This is actually what many of them want: no government at all telling them what to do, but they’re safe because they got guns! And that’s where the thought process ends.
Add in that they think once they stop paying taxes they’ll be rich like Trump too.
Plus an serious dose of racism.
The complete collapse of society, but not to own the libs. It’s to set up a new political system controlled by billionaires as techno feudal lords:
https://piped.wireway.ch/watch?v=5RpPTRcz1no%3Fsi%3Dfev-OzgZmzcUfsPW&t=1
They’re not even trying to hide it:
https://thenetworkstate.com/the-network-state-in-one-sentence
I’ve talked to friends that were very excited Trump won. Recently tried having an open conversation with someone that left my community afterwards over the conversations because I didn’t come to his side.
They just believe it’ll be better. What better? They don’t know. They can’t verbalize, because they’re told it’s terrible now and will be better.
They believe Trump isn’t a criminal, didn’t incite violence on Jan 6, the woke people are out to get them, etc. I’ve literally asked people to define “woke” for me when they use it that way. They can’t. They don’t know. They’re not bad people, they’re brainwashed at this point.
I agree. I’ve heard people say that they willingly voted for a criminal rapist huckster and I don’t believe that. They thought he was something different. They are fucking dumb, not evil.
The way it is playing out in my family has led me to have to totally reevaluate my perception of my own father.
He is a generally kind man. He stayed with my mom for two decades as she declined with Parkinson’s. He took good care of her when so many people might have ghosted.
But based on his inability to see the danger here to things he himself values, I can no longer think of him as a good man. He has always valued knowledge and reason yet he swallowed the cat-eating crap out of Ohio in spite of the clear bullshit of it.
He is Mormon and very faithful. So I don’t know what he gets out of this all, except that it has required me to grieve him before his passing.
He is not actually a good person I am afraid, but he is very obedient. Learning that distinction is very painful. He does not possess the moral clarity to know the difference between what is legal/popular and what is right.
I always idolized my dad as a child because he was in so many ways a good father. We will probably never speak again.
“ He is not actually a good person I am afraid, but he is very obedient.”
Sadly this is the legacy of the LDS faith.
Don’t forget the cliqueiness. I’ve been the victim of the mormon cliques more than once.
The first LDS family I knew were all rabid aggressive assholes. It’s funny that in hindsight these might be the most real and honest LDS followers I have met.
You guys should watch Heretic.
Which one? I see three in the last 12 years. I’m guessing it’s the 2024 one?
Yeah that’s the new one. Hugh Grant’s best performance.
Sorry for your loss.
Religion sucks so much, especially the more dogmatic ones. Mormonism is gross.
One insight I would offer is that categorising people as “good” or “not good” may not be helpful. I suspect that your dad probably invests a lot of effort in being a good man, he’s just unable to acknowledge that his perspective has been corrupted.
We judge ourselves by our intentions but others by their actions.
It’s not wrong to never speak to him again, but maybe this will make the mourning easier.
Thank you.
Yes, I agree black and white categories aren’t the ideal way to describe people.
But there comes a time when nuance is used against the compassionate to normalize reprehensible actions. We are in that time now.
It is for these reasons that I cannot stand listening to NPR anymore. The ineffectual hand wringing and disingenuous ’liberal self-reflection’ is tiresome and we are well past the time for thoughtful think-pieces.
I shared with my mother, only yesterday, that I consider her somewhat of a bad person for voting for orange for a second term. I said that she could be forgiven for not perceiving what he is the first time (though it was obvious to anyone with limited understanding of the world), but after seeing him in action and voting for him again, she should be ashamed of herself. I don’t expect the relationship to ever fully recover, as I will not forgive her for endangering my loved ones and all of us collectively.
I have a brother who leans conservative, but not part of the cult. He is generally a good guy but a combination of being surrounded by conservatives and believing too much of what he reads online.
He’s an engineer at an old time manufacturer and especially condemns DEI hires. I have no way of judging whether they really do hire primarily for reasons other than merit, or if he has a limited perspective informed mostly by his peers, or if it’s really a generational problem as he’s part of the old timers being replaced by upstarts.
It’s probably partly generational. I mean the old guard got pensions and we get wtevs.
People who aren’t in leadership often have no idea how to judge actual merit anyway. Especially among engineers who often develop very myopic views informed by their tech specialties. I am often gob-smacked by the incredibly stupid ideas otherwise brilliant engineers have about how the world works.
So sadly folks like your brother are probably feeling validated for their racist feelings right now.
I’m very grateful that my parents have never lived in the Utah bubble; they saw right through Trump in 2016, and, for the first time in their lives, voted for someone other than a Republican.
Keep in mind that Benson was hard right; he would have thought that John Birchers were leftists. He and his faction may not have led the church for very long, but they had a profound influence on it.
It can hard to see good people do bad things. To learn all that love came with limits
if you ask a hundred of them…
you will get a hundred different answers.
they voted because it made them feel good and addressed their anger. not for any rational reasons. it’s why they are so surprised at what is going on.
they had NO IDEA what they were voting for or why they were voting.
True.
One conservative acquaintance voted for trump to bring Jesus to the country and to stop abortion.
Another voted for trump because they worship money and believe that another trump administration will help him get richer.
Are they surprised about what’s happening? I don’t actually think they realize or care at all as long as it’s their boy doing it
They don’t all agree on anything. Logic and reason aren’t part of the requirements for MAGA.
Their actually frowned upon. They love the uneducated.
Please tell me your choice of “Their” was a joke…
Hey, let them be loved by MAGA if they want to, it’s not my kink, but no kink-shaming
Autocorrect IDs absolutely useless lately.
That’s bit a joke. Nether is that. It’s that bad.
Reactionary ideology is all about protecting privilege by demonizing marginalized people. They believe in zero-sum rights and privileges: in their view, expansion of rights for another group inherently means a loss of rights for them.
Bingo. Conservatives believe that if someone outside their group is given anything, they lost that thing.
It’s stupid simple, zero-sum game theory is the only thing they believe in.
Lemmy: “It’s RACISM!”
No, it’s far simpler than that.
It’s also racism.
Not a loss of rights, a loss of advantages. They want to keep them.
A MAGA I know told me this is all worth it because he doesn’t want his son to know gay people exist and wants revenge on the people who told him he can’t say “Merry Christmas” anymore…
So straw man arguments and a misunderstanding of sexuality.
Oooh, big words there fella. What are you, educated or something?
MAGA doesn’t know.
They’re fearful, hateful, instinctive idiots who are more afraid of being proven wrong than anything. The definition of ride or die.
Crabs in a bucket. They don’t care if things get worse for them as long as they inflict the same suffering on everyone else.
Many years ago, I was at a friend’s house and his parents were watching Bush on Faux News. Friend said, “We’re loyal Republicans. We’d rather have an idiot in office than a Democrat.”
Edit: Before the inauguration, I got back in touch with another Friend who went to a few protests but converted to maga because he started listening to the JRE podcast and whatever the algorithm also recommended. We know the type of influence that jre guy has on vulnerable minds. The podcast host literally twisted his mind 180 degrees.
Edit 2: I’m not sure that I consider them friends anymore as they would rather have their guy in office and not care that people like me get screwed over.
Validation of their feelings and a return to a mythologized past. Try having a reasoned political discussion with someone like this:
Well back in my day things were just better. America was the best and we didn’t have to apologize for that. And the blacks and mexicans and what not didn’t complain so damn much because folks were wired different back then and there wasn’t nothin to complain about. Chuck Berry. You know Chuck Berry? Greatest rock and roller of all time and he was colored. Didn’t nobody have anything to say about it, he was just damned good at guitar. Now the kids - black kids - listen to all sorts of damnable noise and them from the cities in gangs shooting each other up and corrupting good white kids in the small towns and suburbs getting them into drugs. We’ll be lucky if we dont end up like another Chicago. And they whine and complain about racism, but we had a black president and look how that turned out. Granted he was a muslim and not even a citizen, but try tellin them that. I mean hell look at what Hillary did to all them folks at Benghazi - just let them muslims kill all of em, probably wouldn’t have been politically correct to fight back. Dumb broad even wrote it all down - the emails. Had her dead to rights - she should’ve hanged but thats what you get when you have all those corrupt democrat senators in charge of the kangaroo court. And those democrat cities just keep letting illegals stay because they know they’ll vote democrat - they don’t care how many of them are raping and murdering women and kids long as they get their votes. Not even just the mexicans anymore, you got those communist gangs from venezuela taking over whole apartment complexes and the defunded police can’t do anything about it. You know something was wrong with that Biden election - not just illegals voting but I saw on Fox that they were sending out whole reams of mail-in ballots to blacks and college kids and what have you. And then they take all the conservative ballots and conveniently lose boxes of them. Maybe Elon’s going to fix it now since he knows all about those voting machines. Liberals voting for dead people too, but that’s been on the news since Bush - I don’t know why nobody does anything about that. Now you know what’s really racist is planned parenthood - nobody hates babies, especially black babies, as much as planned parenthood. They kill more black babies than anything and the demonrats just keep convincing folks that its OK. Makes me sick that we kill hundreds of thousands of babies every year and i dont care what color they are. You know another thing? We knew which bathroom to use - we figured out a genius method. I’ll tell you: drop your drawers and look down. Then you’ll know. And you’ll know if you should be on a mens or womens track team and if you should wear dresses. It’s probably because all the kids have autism from the vaccines these days - now I guess they’re mutants because of that COVID mRNA vaccine too - but not me. No sir. I’ll stick with the DNA god gave me. That’s probably why all the boys think they’re girls now. Or cats and try to piss in litterboxes at school. People knew who and what they were once. They knew their place, worked hard, and didn’t complain. Now if we can just get Trump in for a few more terms then he’ll set everything straight and get rid of all those regulations so I can afford eggs again.
That is roughly paraphrased from my parents, grandparents, other family, some senile guy at the grocery store who wouldn’t stop telling the cashier about Chuck Berry, etc. They don’t have rational political goals, usually. These folks are genuinely operating on an entirely separate set of facts and assumptions to us. Their brains are co-opted by decades of counterfactual propagandized conspiracy theories, which are too numerous and ingrained to easily disabuse them of. They are faced with an increasingly complex world and are constantly told versions of events that are terrifying or disgusting to them and spoonfed the solution: fascism, piece by piece, until you get MAGA.
I couldn’t even finish the paraphrased quote. I want to slap this nonexistant being who never actually said those things, because they never existed…but in a way they exist everywhere. Like I just screamed, knowing I can’t reply to you, and put some facts in place, because you’re not actually saying those things. You’re showcasing the spirit of someone who does say those things. And I get it. I do.
I just also want to scream into a pillow.
It’s exhausting. And trying to convince someone like that of anything is basically impossible. I have had painstaking, well-reasoned and well-sourced political discussions with many people like that. Funny thing is, I can almost always get the to agree to progressive or socialist policy goals. But, there are all these ideological land mines and, if you trip one, then they fall back into their defensive web of miscellaneous falsehoods and conspiracies.
That’s the crazy thing. If you explain leftist policies to them they will generally say that sounds good. But once they hear a trigger word like socialist or even Democrat they’re out.
Reads like satire.
If they like Chuck Berry, they’re gonna love Morgan Freeman.
