Social identity is a helluva drug
Social identity is a helluva drug
141 comments
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Social identity. Hardship together. This is no joke.
I just FaceTimed with a MAGA this week as they industriously cooked a weeks worth of food to freeze. This is an individual who traditionally only defrosts processed crap on baking sheets, despises leftovers, and grocery shops every 1-3 days rather than storing food.
Not this week. Now they’re all about unprocessed foods, cooking to save money, and meal planning in advance. A 180 shift from a week ago. In addition, they’re starting a pantry.
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That's the rough part a lot of Americans need to swallow: MAGA is full of disenfranchised people that would otherwise organize in solidarity for the common good of the working class.
There's just been so many wedges and fences built up from the Cold War that the ruling class has been able to deflect and distract from progressive policy and maintain power.
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Try the Civil War
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There is no need to swing Trump voters over.
There are more citizens who did not vote at all who can be engaged with and energized - because these policies are going to fuck them too.
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We need to pretend to be conservative and be like: "I VOTED TRUMP AND HE DID NOTHING FOR ME, BOTH SIDE ARE THE SAME, I'M VOTING LIBERTARIAN 😡😡😡"
If half of conservatives voted a third party candidate, it would splinter the republican party.
Aka: the Reverse Kremlin stretegy
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You're talking about babies who couldn't wear a mask during COVID. They have no sense of struggle and no toleration for hardship
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They also had their god emperor refusing to wear masks, and political leaders openly denying the disease.
They had support for their grievences.
They won't get that over the economy. Instead, they're getting "this is necessary" and "you'll just have to make some sacrifices for the economy".
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Their God emperor was wearing a mask and taking vaccine shots behind the scenes. He then tells them the opposite.
I even have trouble believing the people that "converted back". I just think if things change for them and time passes they'll go back to being Republicans or MAGA.
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They'll just be told that Democrats, immigrants, and trans people are causing the hardship.
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“you’ll just have to make some sacrifices for the economy”.
Musk's new response when asked about hundreds of thousands of starving children directly tied to USAID cuts. It's a sacrifice he's willing to happily make.
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I actually disagree.
There is a tipping point when MAGA followers are forced into situations where they must rely on their neighbour and mutual aid. They'll be forced out of necessity to interact with people across the aisle who are giving them compassion.
You're already seeing republicans flipping before that point from the DOGE cuts. Also, the governor of Kentucky is already flipping after their largest purchaser by a long-shot, Canada, took all their booze off the shelves.
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I think this overlooks how most MAGAs are rural.. and when you live rural you already rely on your neighbors. Most of which are also white and the exceptions are ""one of the good ones."" It's why they can demonize entire demographics and still feeling like a good person since they're good neighbors.
They're not going to stop blaming 'the others' for hardships.. They're just going increase complaints about 'the government' and how much they pay in taxes.
I grew up in Amish country/farmland and it's painful to see how stagnant my family has been over the years.
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The question is, will I have reached a breaking point where I will no longer be willing to help them?
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There is a tipping point when MAGA followers are forced into situations where they must rely on their neighbour and mutual aid.
By the time we reach that point, there won't be an aisle. There won't be a government.
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MAGA followers are forced into situations where they must rely on their neighbour and mutual aid
That’s the point. Republicans want to get rid of government aid, because they want others to rely on churches or other private charitable organizations - which are able to control and force the normative behavior that conservatives want.
The government can’t say “stop being trans or we’ll cut your section 8 voucher.” But the Salvation Army can say “wear women’s clothes if you don’t want to sleep outside tonight.” Churches can make you sit through their sermon before they feed you.
There’s also the lovely aspect of church finances being a bit more opaque than the governments… sometimes that aid can trickle up…
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I really hope that this is what’s gonna happen.
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Andy Beshear isn't a Republican who flipped, he's always been a Democrat.
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Doubt, fortunately. The extremists will largely never be turned, but most Trump supporters are moderates who care more about their own well-being than solidarity with the group. Mussolini is a great example of how an idiot dictator can quickly fragment his supporters and end up in the streets
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"You can't reason out of a position you didn't come to through reason."
They just hate for hate sake. It's time to come to terms that the dumb will not be saved by gentle parenting but need to be dragged into reality.
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Sure, but most of Trump's voters did vote for him for a reason: their lives got noticeably harder under Biden. When their lives get even worse under Trump, they'll vote for another change of party.
The cultists waving Trump flags and buying Trump teddy bears and reading Trump bibles are fueled by identity politics, but the idea that the average Trump voter is one of those cultists is a lie that Trump would very much like you to believe
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"quickly" only after massive damage is done.
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And they can also continue to blame Biden.
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Yes, this is all they will do.
Shun them. Trump supporters are evil, try and avoid working for them or with them in any way. Don't talk to them. There is no need to be friendly. These people are actually supporting a Nazi revival.
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That's what I'm saying but my wife says I still gotta go to her dad's house with her.
I really, really, have no interest in talking to that man. She shouldn't either. He was a shit human before Trump was president and he'll be a shit human long after. Half his kids (none of her full siblings, just her half- and step- siblings...her moms side is like some of the best people I've met and my MIL is probably the nicest lady in the world) are equally shitty, as are half his grandkids.
I mean hell, she gave up Target because of DEI, and she visits Target far more often.
Aitah?
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Biden is also a tool of neoliberalism and class warfare. The fact that we sit here understanding that Trump voters will "endure suffering" for fascism should tell us something. It is because a vast majority of people in this country are fed up with neoliberalism that has existed since Reagan.
One side of the country has moved to the left and found actual answers that explain the alienation that they feel and the reason for their frustration. That reason is class conflict and worker exploitation. (This is sadly a small amount of people)
Another side of the country has been fooled by fascism and xenophobia. These are the Trump supporters.
And then we have the "middle" that is a minority in this country that is continue to defend neoliberalism. This is the democratic party and it's loyal "vote Blue no matter who" block. These are often the people comfortable enough still to not feel frustration, that do not actually feel the economic impact.
Sadly that minority that is still holding strong to neoliberalism and the status quo is heavily preventing the country from learning actual leftist ideals.
No one wants the status quo and neoliberalism. So the average American is leaning right for "something else" because the Democratic party is offering them nothing but the status quo and weak policies.
The Democrats inability to evolve to a leftist populist message, under Sanders, is a very important part of understanding why people voted for Trump twice. They gave the Democrats one last chance under Biden and felt no material improvement to their lives.
It's why they will blame Biden and hold onto this "change" in Trump. They will gladly suffer under something different than to suffer slightly less under the same system that has caused their struggles and alienation.
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Unfortunately for us the only party that is somewhat normal is the dems and like you said they’re stooges for the capitalist class. I see no way out of this. I believe the dems are controlled opposition at this point. They would rather defend the status quo than fight for economic mobility. Bernie was right the whole time. While the republicans were cleaning house for MAGA, dems were eliminating all internal opposition. We need to do the same here on the left if the Democratic Party is to be saved.
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If only they agreed that Social Security, Universal Healthcare and just being nice to each other is better for everyone.
If we try to increase the quality of life for everyone, we'll have a better world.
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Some people can't be happy unless they're constantly angry about the people they were told to hate.
We call them gammons over here.
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Even more so if it hurts the ones they hate even more. If they lose their job but see five children deported, they probably see it as a win.
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Y’all learned nothing from the election if you’re still trying to turn them.
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If we had taxpayer universal healthcare, that'd be easy. Just give them all semaglutide. Problem solved.
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I just encountered this last night with hardcore Trumper family members. They believe his tariffs are because the tariffed countries have their military subsidized by the American government and they need to pay their fair share. They think xwe're going to have to "feel a little pain" for a year or two, then "it" will be better. What is "it"? Who the hell knows. They certainly don't.
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My dad isn’t a Trump supporter but he sure sounds like one. He’s fine with tariffs because “we won’t be paying them”. The underlying belief is that we shouldn’t import electricity or other goods, we should be producing our own, we should be self sustaining. And these tariffs are speeding up factories to open up in the states and produce US goods. The adjustment period (a few years at most) will be hard but worth it in the end - everything will be US made. Wohoo?
Never mind that our current infrastructure is crumbling and nothing is being done about it. And Trump is siphoning off any resources the us has. Never mind that many people today live paycheck to paycheck and as a result of this self imposed trade war will starve or freeze to death in the interim. Never mind that even if the US government decided to invest in this, it would take many many many decades to make US self sustaining, and once achieved prices will be higher than if we were to import the goods.
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Yanis Varoufakis explains the reasoning
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That's a great read and makes a ton of sense. Thank you!
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I like Yanis but I really don't think that's what Trump is doing.
I'm sorry, but Trump's "America has been treated very unfairly" is more likely just an extension of his own persecution complex, which in turn is just fascist rhetoric, always with the grievance, eternally playing the victim card ("they humiliated us but we will get our revenge"), so I feel like Yanis is trying to interpret the well-known fascist humiliation fetish into a coherent economic vision... But it just isn't. Trump's woefully incompetent, so the only way what Yanis is saying would make sense is if his Heritage goons or oligarch buddies whispered stuff in his ear... although I would be highly doubtful even then that this is the plan, because their priority here seems to be to loot and plunder the state and turn it into a kind of Russian oligarchy with Christofascist characteristics. They're way too high on power, as can be seen by how much they say and do right in the open, thinking they're untouchable.
And I didn't even mention the whole Curtis Yarvin network states tehnofeudalism, which Yanis should know about since he has a whole book called Tehnofeudalism, and I hope he mentions Yarvin and Peter Thiel in there and isn't just saying how WEF style neoliberalism will eventually usher in tehnofeudalism, right? Right?!
PS: UnHerd is a pretty sus publication with a very TERF-ish bent. While they do sometimes get prominent lefties to write for it, it's always for articles like this that are useful to them as they don't really challenge the MAGA worldview (source: a MAGA acquaintance recommended me a recent Yanis interview rehashing this very article, and his takeaway was how smart Trump is). Tread carefully, there's always an angle with this site.
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And where did they stand on feeling a little pain when egg prices went up during the campaign?
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That was Biden's incompetence! The mental gymnastics astound.
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Not every Trump voter is a die hard MAGA, a large amount just don't pay attention and vote republican out of habit because the media has told them for decades that Republicans are better for the economy or just because that is the party their parents voted for.
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Knew 2 guys that just hated Trans ppl more than anything
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That's the base, right there. Frothing hated of "others." There's a core of Americans that are just shit, and they've been smearing it everywhere they touch since Nixon. Or that fucking cocksucker Woodrow Wilson.
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I know people like that too, and I know a lot more who aren't like that. On average, 24% of the people I meet voted Trump, and I know exactly three people who wear the hats and complain about the transes. The vast majority of people who voted for him feel the same about him as Harris voters felt about her.
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Struggle is a key part of propaganda and cult of personality, all for the "better good". And if they already are this far, they will keep going
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They are trash people who are lost causes
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Believe it or not, there are already MAGA people pissed at him in hard red states/districts.
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Yep, and they'll vote every Republican in again next time regardless.
99/100 of em are lost causes.
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Ah yes, the "Pity me, I didn't get mine" crowd.
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... until THEY lose their job to the Trumpcession.
Difference is that Trump Term 1 didn't really impose a cost on them directly. And so far, the idea of hardship sounds alright.
But when they are dumped to the curb at age 66 with social security cuts, half the 401k they thought they had, and even Walmart ain't hiring...
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This is starting to sound a lot like the typical Russian mentality.
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Russia's biggest export atm.
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It's more common.
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Reverse the kremlin playbook:
Talk to conservatives and be like: "Both side are the same, I'm voting Libertarian"
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That's kind of true: you can't get them to see reason, only spite.
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It's the same playbook as foreign sanctions elsewhere.
The Assads, Kims, and Putins of the world can get their people to rally into a "bunker mentality" which helps prop up their regimes as a grand and noble struggle.
Trump has brought the same energy home. And history shows you can milk it for decades or generations even before something essential craxks.
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Hardship will just make them blame foreigners
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Something about the LiBeRaL dEeP sTaTe keeping him from deporting them fast enough. The "in" group has to be simultaneously strong and helpless, the "out" group weak but somehow paradoxically able to prevent the "strong" leadership from accomplishing anything for the good of the people.
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Their struggle isn't shared thou. Trump supporters are not a monolith, they are composed of a diverse number of groups with different and often competing interests.
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It is absolutely shared in the sense that any hardship they face is solely because they voted for Donald Trump. We ran into this last night with my MIL. She thought both the employees at Lowe's and Panda Express were "harassing" her because they somehow knew she was a Trump supporter.
My wife said that people were just having a hard time right now to avoid the conflict and her mom responded that "Oh that must be Trump's fault too" and stormed out of her husband's birthday party lmao.
Trailer Park burnt down? Must be someone who hates that they love Trump. Economy crashing? Must be because they just hate Trump.
It's so fucking annoying.
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Sounds like your MIL is in the 2nd stage of grief.
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Yea they all deal with the same rise in prices, the same lack of services from their government... the same treatment from not racist members of society.
Ok sure the corpos and whatnot who put him in place dont share the struggles, but all the civies who voted for him sure do.
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Surely, middle income households are not as effected as those earning minimum wage, just like high income households does not face the same challenges as those of middle income. Yes, all things become more expensive, but only some have to worry about basic sustenance.
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They need to be eaten by the leopards...
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i.e. hardship
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The resistance has arrived!
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Not if the argument is to offer the democratic party and more neoliberalism as an alternative. Yes, they'll gladly suffer for fascism.
It's our job to offer something better that explains their suffering and alienation. Thankfully this guy named Marx did a pretty good job explaining it.
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And life for most Germans turned shitty really fast, with wages dropping to depression levels with a lot more work hours.
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Yes, but the number of Trump supporters is dwindling.
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They've been saying that since Cheeto ran for office the second time and look where we are. 🙄
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No, they're selfish and borderline retarded sheep. When a few retarded sheep start making the suffering noise, they'll all join the chorus because they don't have the capacity for independent thought
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Social identity is key to survival, so it's no surprise how resistant people are.
An old mentor of mine at UCLA did a study where they put people in an fMRI machine and monitored brain function when feeling rejected during a digital game of catch. When the other two "players" (NPCs) started only tossing between each other and excluding the participant, the part of the brain responsible for physical pain triggered.
Not being rejected from others around you is so important to human survival that evolution hardwired our brain to feel pain at the slightest hint of being rejected. Other experiments found similar, we forego an awful lot to stay in good graces with our society.
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Group think is bad. Larger the group the lower the IQ.
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Does that count here and on Reddit? Although I'll say here on Lemmy, folks are much more open to actual dialogue than on Reddit.
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Although I’ll say here on Lemmy, folks are much more open to actual dialogue than on Reddit.
I mean yeah. At least Lemmy instances aren't site banning people for upvoting the wrong thing. Or communities using bots to autoban anyone who has ever posted to certain communities. Or communities banning anyone who isn't fully on board with the "correct" views about all things at all times.
Turns out not reinforcing a space as an echo chamber reduces the degree to which it is an echo chamber, who would have thought?
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So like music, the more popular the simplest chords it has.
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That and cons will always find a way to spin something to cause outrage and anger towards anyone but themselves.
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Just went through that with an elderly neighbor recently.
She broke her foot and is in poor health, so we were walking her dog twice a day cause we are nice like that. She was always praising us for being such good people and a godsend to her.
One day, she made a comment that she thought Trump was doing a great job and I gently tried to explain to her that he was ruining our lives and countless others out there.
I was hoping she would have a moment of introspection, but no. She just immediately went on about the democrats, how we get offended too easily, and how she thinks I swear too much but she doesn't hold it against me.
Everything except: "I'm sorry. I didn't realize."
Told her we no longer feel comfortable walking get dog.
Cue the waterworks and the "What about me? I can't walk!"
It's not worth engaging with these people. There is something broken in their brains.
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They are brainwashed. The people we hate are actually some of trumps biggest victims. They are the victims of brainwashing. And they will soon be victimized in other ways as well. And when they question it, Trump will blame them, othe people, anyone but himself. And like victims of narcissistic abuse, they will do the mental backflips required to forgive Trump.
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This is true of USA in general though. The state is always attacking people inside and outside its "borders". But people still genuflect, sing the anthem, "defend the constitution", etc. It's not just "social identity". It's a nationalist cult.
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All Trump's gotta do is blame the Dems. Already going that route
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And his dumb ass parrots will repeat his lies forever no matter what evidence they’re presented with
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This is BS.
Every single election we are told that economic hardship is the only thing pay attention to. Sure, many of these rubes will continue to be fooled and are irredeemable. But a shit ton are going to notice and eventually get tired of getting fucked.
I am not saying they will stop voting republicans because they do seem to like the pain, but they would sure as hell eat the current administration
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Are we all just cowering down? Reading these comments makes it sounds like we should just all give up.
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I do not think it is saying we need to give up fighting.
I think people like me need to hear these messages because we have conservative friends and family we haven't given up because we think that once things get absurd enough, they will finally see the error of their ways.
We still believe they are good people, but they are clearly not.
There's something really wrong with them, and it is not within our power to remedy.
What we can do instead, is redirect our time and our energy towards others in our communities that are ready to flight.
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We heading to the bad place. Im ok though, I realize in many ways I hit a sweet spot in history and location. Kinda like riding out the wave of progress into the dumpster.
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The blame can always be shifted. Dying of diabetes because your Medicaid got cut? That’s actually the fault of that DEIgger president who broke healthcare.
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Sounds pretty communist to me
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But that's communism!
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GUNS
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**EDIT: Like you all didn't just try to get us all to vote for a literally brain-dead guy who let you get poorer for four years. You may not want to admit it, but you're the same as they are.
LOL
The irony here is that this meme is equally applicable to all partisans no matter your team color.
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We're all operating on the same human operating system, yes. Would be nice if we could figure out how to sand down some of the sharp corners, though.
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Agreed.
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Both sides hurr durrr
141 comments
It's very frustrating.
What I've seen when I bring what's happening up to family members step one is denial "oh he's not doing that" step 2 is defend "well it's probably for the best, kids do yern for the mines".
Nothing is convincing.
Stages of grief. Most are just getting to denial.
My 90 year old grandma has moved onto bargaining. She's trying to write a letter to DJT to "warn him about Musk"
Not bad progress, considering I couldn't get her to budge at all over the past decade.
That's kind of adorable.
Exactly. It doesn't only apply to grief — any major change of beliefs will need to go through this process... unfortunately.
I remember a moment before the election in 2016. A family member was going off on a Trump worshiping rant. I asked them what they thought of all the awful things that come out of his mouth. They responded with, "Oh, he's just saying that stuff because he likes to get attention."
I quoted a passage from Luke's gospel. "The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil; for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks."
What happened next was amazing. They kind of paused and stared at their shoes with this expression that, if I could put words to it, would have said, "Shit. He's got me there. How do I get around this one?" They then looked up, physically shrugged it off; like water off a ducks back. That stopped the rant but I knew that If they had to choose between Jesus and this particular version of the anti-christ, their choice was already made and it wasn't Jesus.
I've been there friend. It is not a fun experience but it was very enlightening. Someday they may see it but it is terrifying to understand how willingly ignorant some of us choose to be.
I’ve seen multiple news articles/discussion about pastors being told that the Sermon on the Mount is too “woke.”
It’s been like that since Reagan. Carter was open about his faith and really genuine in it. He made the mistake of interviewing with Playboy and saying he had his own struggles with sin - as any believing Christian would admit.
But somehow Reagan became the evangelicals choice. Christian nationalism has always been the latter wearing the former as a fig leaf. The tenets of Christianity - as evidence by the things that they fight for their “first amendment rights” for - are reduced down to opposition to LGBT+ people, abortion, and ultimately women having any form of independence from their fathers or husbands. They have had nothing to do with Jesus or anything that could be said to be his message for a long time.
When Ollie North started giving tours on the evangelical circuit - that should have been a wake up call.
It doesn't help that they have literally been programmed by right and far right propaganda that only influences and reinforces that mentality of "unity".
the media titans know what they're doing
It's also defending the cult leader mentality. Breaking with the cult puts you on the outside, and an enemy of the cult. Breaking free of a cult isn't easy when the cult's actions are constantly being reinforced and regurgitated by their leader and his media disinformation networks.
I’m a member of a lot of hiking communities on FB. Prior to Trump second presidency, they would blame any kind of problems related to insufficient budgeting to “ sending all money to Ukraine”. Now that he’s the president, and is BLATANTLY cutting budgets to national parks and forests, I see his supporters say “ it’s too bad we donated so much money to the national parks of Ukraine” or “ if Biden did this, you wouldn’t be complaining”, or some version of “ this is necessary, nothing really changed”.
Wild, would assume a hiking community would lean pretty solidly blue and be livid about cuts to national parks. As the last handful of elections have shown though, there are idiots all over the political spectrum.
"The GOP controls all three branches of government. Whatever the situation looks like next election, whether it's good or bad, it's entirely the fault of the GOP."