We have to agree where we ARE before we stand a chance to agree about what we do from here.
This doesn’t work with cultists. Any reasonable republican left bailed on the party with Trump.
If this “let’s reach across the isle” approach was viable, the present thread would not exist. I’ll go beyond, trumpists watched Jan6 unravel like anyone else and they still voted for him in 2024. So while I’m not advocating for hatred, I would not consider any plan viable that heavily relies on trumpists changing their minds.
The fundamental problem with reaching across the aisle is that the people you’re reaching to aren’t influential in any meaningful capacity.
I’ve got family who voted for Trump. I can visit them, grab dinner, talk politics, reach sensible rational positions that would lead us both to be able to live freely and fairly. And none of it matters. Because neither of us write legislation, enforce the law, or adjudicate disputes.
Meanwhile, I’ve got friends who are working their way up the respective party organs at the local level. And I’ll periodically ask what they think about this or that. They tend to be as annoyed and disgusted as I do (although I’ll often get the “But your team is worse” rejoinder). Then I’ll ask what they are hoping to change. And the simple response I get back is “We just have to be patient until we’re in a better position”. But they’re never in that position. They’re always subservient to some other vulgar asshole. They’re always pandering to some gross freak of a mega-donor. They’re constantly getting hoodwinked by the Elon Musk / Jeff Bezos political turn.
I would not consider any plan viable that heavily relies on trumpists changing their minds.
There are plenty of voters who went from Obama to Trump in 2016 and then from Trump to Biden in 2020 and then from Biden to fucking Jill Stein in 2024 and it didn’t fucking matter. Even when you do get people to change their minds, they don’t get to do anything with the new information.
Vote for Trump or don’t, your district is as gerrymandered as ever. Vote for Beto O’Rourke for Senate or don’t, the SCOTUS isn’t changing hands in our lifetimes because the deck has already been stacked. If Dems retake Congress in 2026, it won’t matter because they’ll still be the same pack of sycophants courting elites in the Tech and Finance Sector that they were back in 2018 and 2006 and 1992. Many of them literally the same people just moldering in office for 40 years or more.
Winning doesn’t mean anything in a system where the outcomes are predetermined. Shaping opinions among the powerless doesn’t mean anything unless you can convince them to actually take back power for themselves.
Right now, its just voting for your favorite politician on American Idol.
Keep in mind, the amount of conservatives that have shown any regret in the slightest is an extremely small percentage.
The majority of them do not use social media outside of Facebook. They still get their news from Fox and Newsmaxx.
We do not owe them anything. Conservatives who have a conscience need to abandon POLITICAL conservatism. If you want to be socially conservative, go right ahead and do that in the privacy of your own home. But, if you think you’re going to cross the aisle and try to organize with leftists while still holding politically conservative beliefs you wish to eventually see enforced for everyone, then yea, fuck off.
Yeah, no thanks. These people were fine with all the hateful and cruel shit the Republicans pedal until it affected them. Whether it’s because they themselves are cruel or just morons, that’s up for debate. But either way, I will not consider them an ally in this. They’ve got to change their shitty ways first.
100% this. They didn’t care at all until it affected them directly. They refuse to feel empathy for others so I refuse to feel empathy for them.
Nah, they should both admit that they were wrong and okay with extreme bigotry in the White House.
Meanwhile, the rest of us who will continue organizing with our fellow minorities, trans, and working class folks.
That’s not how you get people to start moving over to our side here mate. Sure, what they supported is pretty fucked, but if you’re not going to offer people a way to crawl out of the hole they dug themselves in, no one will want to leave the hole.
You’re not wrong for wanting that, but in your righteous superiority, you’re not helping to make anything better.
You are misunderstood. The path to crawling out of their hole of conservative bigotry is simple: abandon conservative bigotry.
It is they who want us to compromise our ethics and values. They want us to compromise on immigration, LGBTQ+ rights, and helping the unhoused.
You can’t be a conservative AND join leftists in organizing a better future, sorry. Conservatism is antithetical to progress.
They weren’t lied to. They had a whole road map for this. They just didn’t think they would also be affected.
They have plausible deniability. Some of them truly think trump doesn’t mean most of what he says because he’s trolling. They have poor critical thinking skills, so they aren’t able to take a lot of information and pick out the truth. That’s also why they copy each other. They want the easy solutions.
They need to be given an appealing way back to sanity. We need them and they need us.
I guess I feel like being a decent human being should be an appealing enough way. Even if they thought he was joking, what he was joking about wasn’t funny. They were fine risking him, at the very least, being their mouth piece. Saying they were lied to removes the responsibility. It doesn’t make them inherently bad people, but they need to admit they made a mistake (if that’s what they truly believe) and want to come back into sanity because it’s right, not because they feel bad that it’s now their eggs and Medicaid that’s being fucked with.
The average person will only spend 5 to 10 minutes a day watching news. The networks they watch are owned by billionaires. I bet most people haven’t heard of project 2025 let alone know what it contains.
Just because you are tuned into politics, doesn’t mean everyone else should be.
This is our curse. We know things, but if we want things to improve, we must also convince the average retarded voter of the things. If we fail, we don’t get to write off half the population.
I guess I’m just tired of always having to force this horse to the river to drink. We’re told to make it more inviting, change the flavor, talk softly, and they still go galloping into manure, flinging it on the rest of us in the process. Then they look back, covered in shit, and go, “I didn’t know the shit would have this much shit. Why didn’t you warn us? Aren’t you at least going to help us clean up?” It’s like weaponized incompetence, but with politics.
but I’m also still incredibly bitter about the current situation. My anger is going to have to die down before I can be reasonable. Which is a me problem at the end of the day.Your feelings are valid. It might be worth taking a break from the politics for a bit. Burnout is real and it is happening to quite a lot people after this last election.
Why in the fuck would I agree to give you people a second chance? Yall openly voted for the racist, criminally convicted sex offender. Fuck you, fuck your farm, and fuck your entire colonist bloodline.
“So anyways, that’s how I made sure the Democrats wouldn’t gain any voters!”
“But I thought you were anti Trump…?”
They were not lied to though… it was known they were going to do this.
They were all under the impression it wouldn’t happen to them personally. While it is satisfying to say, “I told you so” it’s never helpful. We kinda need to lift up our dumb compatriots if they see the error of electing a huge mistake.
Even when it happens to them it seems like they would still vote for him again, and they are more complaining they were affected than the outcome itself.
And they aren’t going to listen to liberals. Only ones who they will listen to is conservatives so the only way to change their mind is conservatives or false actors pretending to be conservatives to win their vote.
Suffering is better than voting for a lib.
There’s a quote from Robert A. Heinlein that I like to bring up:
Of what use, then, are the American Communists?
They serve one function extremely useful to you and to the country, so useful that, if there were no Communists, we would almost be forced to create some. They are a reliable litmus paper for detecting real sources of danger to the Republic.
Communism is so repugnant to almost all Americans, when they are getting along even tolerably well, that one may predict with certainty that any social field or group in which the Communists make real strides in gaining members or acceptance of their doctrines, any such spot is in such bad shape from real and not imaginary social ills that the rest of us should take emergency, drastic action to investigate and correct the trouble.
Replace “Communist” with “Conservative” and the quote works the exact same way. People don’t take on awful political views in a total vacuum. Their lives and futures got messed up somehow, and in all probability by vast forces beyond their comprehension, let alone their control. And then they went looking for what felt like real answers, and someone was willing to say to them “I’ve got the solution to your problems.”
On some level, their grievances are real. They just got sold on a lie about what could be done to fix them.
This is gold.
When I was a young teenager I was a communist because I believe in fairness and equality and on paper communism sounds great. Because of this I believed that Russia must just be misunderstood and maligned by the evil capitalist west - 2+2=4. I didn’t have access to a lot of info and my idealism carried me a long way. Then I read about what had happened under communism and in Russia, and it didn’t take long until my views changed entirely.
I think the (not sociopathic or psychotic) majority of MAGA supporters are that way because of what you said - MAGA uses real issues too - a clever mix of lies and truths, and because they believe the ‘fake news’ lies and immerse themselves in echo chambers of MAGA lies.
This has also happened in the UK with the BNP, EDL etc and now reform, which does well mostly in deprived areas (I wonder why?)
There has to be a point when they no longer believe the lies because reality directly contradicts them. But by then will it be too late?
Sure, you may want me to be beaten to death, but at least you admitted eggs aren’t cheap now, this makes us allies.
What’s funny is I have no idea if this is written from a red or blue perspective
Only one side wishes extreme violence on the other. It doesn’t go both ways.
Not anymore after the last election. I’m done with fucking kid gloves.
NAZI LIVES DON’T MATTER
You are deluded.
If the leftists got their way, everyone would have Healthcare and a greater standard of living. Left and right, rich or poor.
If the conservatives got their way, leftists would either be killed or put into camps or attempted to be deported. There are dozens of examples of elected officials in power calling the entirety of the left pedophiles, scum, vermin, demons, and the enemy. The amount of open violent hostility that occurs on a daily basis is staggering. Churches work into their sermons to tell their sheep about how evil the democrats are.
It goes one way.
Okay I guess I’m not on a side, I just want to see the deaths of fascists and nazis. Does that fit your narrative still?
The only people worse than the nazis and the fascists are the sympathizers who only want to play nice with them, or get out of their way.
This is self defense against what I described. Not sure why you’re being hostile when eyes on the same side.
Wait, I don’t know which one you mean. Honestly.
If you are “conservative” in any manner, you’ve been voting for the destruction of both people and society in both word and deed for the past 40 years.
Mr. Pink doesn’t
tipwork with fascistsI don’t disagree but, just like the prison system, revenge doesn’t solve any problems. It only makes them worse. The goal should be rehabilitation to improve society, not revenge seeking to make it worse just to make us temporarily feel superior.
At what point do you stop letting the person cause damage in this quest for rehabilitation? If someone knowingly hurts groups of people and is proud of it what is your path there? To rehabilitate someone like that they need empathy, the one thing Republicans lack en mass. That’s the only reason they are upset now, because it finally impacts them. If a person is proud of hurting people and lacks any empathy I don’t see a path to rehabilitation for them. And trying to do so just gives them more slack to cause more harm. We’ve tried talking and reasoning for years, look where we are.
Stop letting them cause damage? We’re “letting” them do that? Sorry, we don’t have any control of them causing damage. Making sure they double down instead of seeing an opportunity to change only makes sure they cause more damage. Insulting them doesn’t make them want to stop.
To rehabilitate someone like that they need empathy, the one thing Republicans lack en mass.
Ironically, this is a response with a total lack of empathy. No, they largely do have empathy. They’re just told that the path that does the most good is the wrong one. They want to protect women, and they’re told that trans women are a threat to them. Sure, it’s lies, but they’re lies that abuse empathy. If they lacked empathy then the messaging wouldn’t target empathy.
We’ve tried talking and reasoning for years, look where we are.
No, we haven’t. Our political class has specifically sought to divide. Sure, they try to get republican support when they need to, though they don’t do it through going left. They do it through maintaining the status quo.
Regardless, it doesn’t matter what “we’ve tried” before. Its about practicality. What does telling them they are bad and can’t move past that do? It only ensures they’ll never be useful. That’s not the way forward. We need to push leftist policy, which they largely do agree with (but only if it’s not called leftist) and invite them to join us. If we don’t then we are stuck where we are, which personally I don’t really care for.
Stop letting them cause damage? We’re “letting” them do that? Sorry, we don’t have any control of them causing damage. Making sure they double down instead of seeing an opportunity to change only makes sure they cause more damage. Insulting them doesn’t make them want to stop.
You seemed to miss the last part of that sentence, which is a very important part of it, the “in this quest for rehabilitation”. Let me give you an example and maybe that will be easier to understand. If you let a person stay at your house because they have no where to live and then steal stuff, that’s not ok. Now you bring them to therapy and explain why it was wrong and they promise to stop. Then you let them stay at your house and they still again. So you talk to them again and tell them they need to stop. They continue to steal. Now, at some point, you trying to reform this person is just an invitation to having your stuff stolen because it’s not getting through. You’re not “letting” them steal, but you are enabling them to do it when you know they most likely will. This is my stance on these people. MAGA supporters have “stolen” from us too many times for me to open my door and let them back in my house.
Ironically, this is a response with a total lack of empathy. No, they largely do have empathy. They’re just told that the path that does the most good is the wrong one. They want to protect women, and they’re told that trans women are a threat to them. Sure, it’s lies, but they’re lies that abuse empathy. If they lacked empathy then the messaging wouldn’t target empathy.
How am I not showing empathy? But moving past that, they don’t largely have empathy… Or do you think deporting people, banning books, telling people they aren’t the gender they claim to be, limiting health care, passing voter suppression, taxing the lower and middle class to fund tax breaks for the rich, you think all that shows empathy? People either know what they’re voting for and have no empathy or they are idiots who enabled horrible things. Either way they are not great people.
No, we haven’t. Our political class has specifically sought to divide. Sure, they try to get republican support when they need to, though they don’t do it through going left. They do it through maintaining the status quo.
I’m getting to the point where this has to be a troll. One side was literally making up insulting nick names for people, banning the press from even covering them, people running as dems them voting republican. Hell there are sitting members of or govt who think Jewish Space Lasers are real and that federal workers don’t deserve a paycheck or a job, they said that out right. The left isn’t doing all that. The left tried to use laws and order to bring Trump in order. Look at what he is doing right now, firing people en mass, putting media people in charge of the FBI and FDA. They aren’t talking to anyone about anything, they are forcing what they want, even if it breaks the law. Trying to act like one side is pure lawless while the other side is trying to use the law is silly.
Regardless, it doesn’t matter what “we’ve tried” before. Its about practicality. What does telling them they are bad and can’t move past that do? It only ensures they’ll never be useful. That’s not the way forward.
Dude, wake up. People are losing their jobs because of Trump and they still think it’s for the good of America. These are cult members. They are not interested in compromise or discussion, literally look what is going on in the govt right now and people still support it. Trying to appeal to them is like trying to appeal to Hitler in WW2, it doesn’t work. You’re the group in WW2 that thought Hitler could be reasoned with and kept trying to appease him. It doesn’t always work, this is one of those times.
We need to push leftist policy, which they largely do agree with
Out of touch doesn’t even begin to come close to addressing this… Holy crap man. Do you follow politics at all?
invite them to join us
Ahh yes, invite them to sabotage any plans we have. Great idea. Super naive, but great idea.
If we don’t then we are stuck where we are, which personally I don’t really care for.
No, we need to let them know that what they want and are pushing isn’t acceptable. This idea of you have of “just push leftist policies” ignores the how. There’s a reason why people call themselves “Forever Trumpers”, they will follow him to the end. This is not a group of people that can be reasoned with. Look at some of the street interviews of these people, they don’t care about policy, they care about their side winning, fully stop. That and marginalizing people. Those are the only policies the right has advertised and pushed, and the voters love them for it. That’s not a group looking to change their mind, that’s a group that needs to be cast out and shamed.
Nah… fuck all that.
To be fair, they’ve also been lied to for longer than that, sometimes by their own parents who too we’re lied to.
“conservatives” globally have been given more grace and caused more destruction outside of any groups other than literal nazi’s and fascists, of which they are the gateway drug. We put up with them and they offer almost nothing constructive to society.
They aren’t idiots, and if they were even a bit intellectually curious, they would know better.
Fuck them, fuck fascists, and fuck this sublemmy. It should be removed. The time for grace is over. The gracious that has been offered to conservative movements has been trampled upon repeatedly and perpetually bad this bad faith ideology.
Yes let’s round them up in the camps For reeducation.
Derp
Tbf, that reeducation would realistically look like your local middle & high school curriculum 😂
I mean, maybe it would look like your middle or high school. My middle and high schools taught me that the civil war wasn’t about slavery. Like if you circled “slavery” on the multiple choice “what was the civil war about” test question, it would be marked wrong. This was in state-funded public school too, not some ultra-conservative private school or homeschooling. And that’s only one example of the conservative propaganda that was fed to us in school. Some of the most conservative people I know were straight-A students. For people who live in liberal areas, it can be difficult to even comprehend how deep the conservative lies go, and how soon they start.
Saying “just send them back to school” is reductionist, because they did pay attention in school. They simply never questioned what the school had taught them, and took the info at face value. And that is honestly a large part of conservative conditioning; Don’t question the authorities. Don’t question the church. Don’t question the leaders. Don’t question your teachers. If someone is a higher authority or social status than you, you take them at their word. A child’s place is to be seen, not heard. If someone has been raised to never question authority, can they really be blamed for failing to do so when in school? Conservative ideology is rooted in conformity. The nail that sticks out gets hammered down. And questioning conservative authority is historically rewarded with a big fucking hammer.
The time for solidarity has passed and this bullshit “sowwy” crap some cons are trying to put out there is disingenuous at best. No, will fix everything again and y’all will get the benefit again then go right back to being shitty Republicans again. Fuck all conservatives.
Yeah. Definitely don’t need to take an responsibility for your actions. You can be both wrong and lied to. It’s not like there wasn’t 4 years of this already and a very large group of people telling you what was going to happen if you repeated your past mistakes.But no. Keep on blaming others for your fuck ups. No one is perfect. No one can blame you for this mess.Fuck you.Sorry, maybe that was too uncivil. Let me rephrase.
Conservatives are the neighborhood kid that keeps showing up to the park when the rest of us kids are playing soccer. We let the conservative play because we are trying to be inclusive, but this is the third time you’ve kicked the ball over the fence, and every time we go get it, you swear you’ll play right, but then do it again. We don’t want you on the playground any more. You aren’t welcome to play. We don’t care if you felt like you were lied to. You’ve been told how to behave, and you have chosen not to, time and time again. The rest of us aren’t looking to take your hand in friendship and welcome you back. You’ve run out of second chances. Now, we just want you to sit at home and try not to mess anything else up. No one wants to be your friend.
You ever wonder how the right seems to move in lockstep while the left constantly debates between themselves about the details?
It’s shit like this that fosters that attitude. If some people on the right can look at something like this and then really examine their positions then thats a win.
The goal with something like this isn’t to get someone to 180 on their beliefs, they know that the government is untrustworthy. It’s to have them really look at what they’re supporting, and if they truly want those changes, after learning what it might cost them.
I don’t want 180s. I don’t want wishy-washy. I don’t want fair weather friends. Why? Because they are untrustworthy. Oh, you flipped 180 and support trans rights now? How long until the next grifter comes along and scares you into thinking the drag community is stealing children? Oh, you’re good with minorities having rights? Are you gonna feel that way the next time some old white man comes along and tells you they are bringing drugs into the country?
I’m sure you’d love to say that you’ll stand by your convictions, but history has shown that you won’t. Repeatedly you have changed your positions. Repeatedly you have flip-flopped. I don’t care about you, anymore. Truly. Believe whatever you want to believe, just please do it quietly.
What a fucked up view of the world. Its not about them being your “friends”, it’s not about trusting them.
It’s about reaching out to your fellow man, educating as much as you can, focusing on their actual grievances (no matter how much propaganda they parrot) and convincing them that we can build a better future. Maybe that enthusiasm only lasts for one vote, maybe not. Winning support isn’t automatic, especially with the full weight of a propaganda machine purpose-built to crush critical thinking.
If you don’t want to even try to overcome the systemic suppression of progressive politics then why are you even here? Take your own advice and suffer in silence.
For an example of how this isn’t useful, my dad (a long time ago) bought the rhetoric against gay marriage. The reasoning was that it was a thing done by the church, because that’s the lie he’d been told. It was a lie, but he supported a bad thing because he’d been given a “good” reason. Once it was explained the church had nothing to do with it and it was a state issue, he realized it was wrong.
I could have just called him a bigot and pushed him further down that path, as a sort of revenge. What good would that do though. It might have made me feel better for a moment, but that’s it. It wouldn’t have cause any real change.
Your feelings, at the end of the day, matter little. Outcomes matter. If we can push some propaganda to get people who traditional vote conservative to vote liberal, that’s worth it. We don’t have to refuse to out of some backwards morality because they believed something in the past. It’s cutting your nose off to spite your face. It only hurts you in the long term, even if it felt ideal in the moment.
We should focus on actually doing good and creating the best outcomes for trans people, the drag community, minorities, women, and everyone else. We shouldn’t care about how it makes us feel.
You make the argument that this is all a new concept for people. That the issue of gay marriage or whatever is on the chopping block this week, is something that is a new topic. These topics have been at the forefront of conversation for decades now. And even if you somehow haven’t been subject to the talking heads on every media outlet for the last 50 years, there is a level of common sense that I think is necessary to even walk upright that tells you, “Hey, these people should be able to marry whoever they want, because it has zero effect on my life.”
Critical thinking is at an all time low. No one has been thinking for themselves in decades, it seems, and when there are consequences for their actions, they just think a half-assed apology is enough to get the job done, and they go one with their lives like nothing was ever wrong. I’m done with it. I’m done with the people that think that way. I don’t have a place for them in my world. I don’t want them near me, I don’t want them interacting with me, and I don’t want them to infect others with their disease.
Everyone has a right to live and a right to think what they want to think, but if you are wrong, then you are wrong, and if you continue to be wrong despite all of the evidence to the contrary, then you are a detriment to this species, and your role has to be minimized. I’m not going to advocate for taking away the rights of people I don’t agree with, but I’m also sure as hell not going to welcome them with open arms when they finally decide to come around. They can continue to live their lives, and they can do the right thing from here on out, but being an asshole that suddenly gets it right doesn’t get a pat on the back. It get’s a shrug as I continue on my way. I’ve already wasted enough time and effort on changing hearts and minds. If they haven’t got it by now, then I don’t care if they ever do.
There are others out there that need my help more than the hillbilly lifelong GOP voter. They can fend for themselves. I’m not going to waste a breath on them when I am too busy fixing all of the shit they’ve been breaking. If they want to do good, great, get a hammer and some nails and get to work. If they don’t, fine, just stop kicking out the supports we are trying to build to keep everyone else safe. Being a good person doesn’t get a participation trophy. It doesn’t even get weekends off. It’s the baseline. It’s the expectation. If they can’t meet it, kick rocks.
…you are a detriment to this species, and your role has to be minimized.
I’m not going to advocate for taking away the rights of people I don’t agree with…
Lmao which is it?
These people have a right to vote and live in the same society as you. What the fuck is your solution? Disenfranchisement? Balkanization? Ghettos?
It’s hilarious because you could swap out a few talking points and the hillbilly voter would say the exact same thing
The problem is they don’t have all evidence to the contrary, as you say. They’re told there’s a massive issue of trans people playing sports and making impossible for women to compete, and things like that. They’re given very impassioned reasons to believe that they’re believing the morally correct thing. They’re told it’s to protect people. You just refuse to accept that your “opponent” can have the same moral reasons for doing something as you do.
There are others out there that need my help more than the hillbilly lifelong GOP voter. They can fend for themselves. I’m not going to waste a breath on them when I am too busy fixing all of the shit they’ve been breaking.
Yeah, sure. I’m not asking you to. I’m asking you to shut the fuck up while other people try to do good. You don’t need to tell them they aren’t allowed in joining us to fix things, or to work to get them on side. You just need to sit down and not say anything. You seem to have plenty of time to waste telling them they won’t be accepted, which can’t work to do good.
They are allowed to join in and fix things. They shouldn’t do it for an attaboy, though. You talk about the information that they’ve been given as though they only have the one source. Willfully ingesting poison is suicide. They keep going back to the same fear mongering news sources that spout the same shit. Why? Because fear and hatred feel so fucking good. Oh, god. Like an orgasm for the soul. I’m persecuted, but look at me, I’m still standing. So, yeah, I’ll shut the fuck up. This will be my last message. But don’t make it like these fucks are the victims. They are the ones doing it to themselves. Go read a Reuters article. Check out NPR. Give APNews a glance. OAN and Joe Rogan are fucking toxins. They have all the tools at their disposal, but they refuse to use them.
When did I make it out like they were the victims? I pretty clearly said they aren’t I think. I said it’s more useful to turn them into allies if possible rather than ensure they remain enemies.
I agree their news sources are toxic, but also like you said it’s addicting. I think we should try to assist addicts of all kinds, because it isn’t necessarily their faults, and even if it is fighting them doesn’t help. It only causes more harm. It’s better to help them get to a better place where they can be made to do good.
People are complicated and can carry multiple, nuanced beliefs. There are people out there that support LGBTQ+ rights, think that drag is fun, and believe that people of color get treated unfairly systemically without also wanting to take up arms in a violent revolution against the established systems in America because social progress is still happening, albeit slowly.
Every social media platform(Yes, even the independent ones) tends to remove all nuance and push every issue as binary, and sometimes worse than that, it will bundle issues together. There are people here that will argue in all seriousness that if you voted for the candidate that would’ve pushed forward progressive policies, that you also support the genocide in Gaza.
That is a cop out. You either take a stance or you don’t. It is binary. If your choice of “fiscal conservatism” or whatever other blanket term you want to use also includes systemic racism, misogyny, and homophobia, it doesn’t matter to me if you “don’t believe in that”. You still voted for the person that does, and that makes you just as bad.
There is no “nuance”. Anyone that tells you that is only trying to get your vote. There are people who’s lives are on the line. Those are who we vote for. Trickle down rights don’t work any better than trickle down economics. We vote for women’s right to choose. We vote for freedom to recognize your own sexual identity. We vote for safe havens for those seeking shelter from the storm. We vote to help our fellow human, because if we don’t, then we have lost what it means to be human.
“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” -Helen Keller.
When a conservative leader wants to separate humans into groups like cattle, they are the enemy. It doesn’t matter what your policy is, if it hurts my friends, it makes you the antithesis to my very being, and if you don’t feel the same way, you are on the wrong side of things. I didn’t vote for Trump because I can’t vote for Trump. I also can’t vote for any other conservative, because they are all culpable. They are all responsible. They are all accountable.
Hmmm why is it binary?.. Let’s brainstorm that… Could it be that you’re reducing 77 million human lives to which of the two circles they filled out of a slip of paper?
Aside from Bernie and AOC, when is the last time anyone on the American left actually attempted to appeal directly to the lower working class? Why are there there ballots with votes for both AOC and Trump?
This is a bloc of groomed voters: undereducated, underpaid, and living in a homogeneous bubble where they don’t see the consequences of fascism. The right has targeted their rhetoric to a sharp point, keeping this base strong even though their policies are the source of the oppression.
I went to high school in a small Midwestern town. NAFTA gutted our towns largest employer, outsourcing thousands of jobs. In a school with hundreds of students, there was ONE (1) PoC.
Like it or not, people vote for whoever promises to improve their lives the most. One party campaigns on reforming systemic racism for that one student; the other drills the lie that they’re on foodstamps because the Democrats gave their jobs to foreigners.
When the status quo has failed them, why would they vote for a candidate like Kamala?
We didn’t defeat the Nazis the first time with amnesty, conversation, and kindness.
We defeated them by stabbing them, shooting them, and fire bombing their cities.
We will have to do it again.
Violence isn’t the answer
History book: about that…
Charlie Brown and the football gag.
Day after day.
Year after year.
There are always people on the left that think this is the time things will be different. They’ve been yanking it away at the last moment since before the civil war.
It’s time to stop being a Charlie Brown.
I think the point is really to give amnesty and try to move on. This idea breaks down and apart the team mentality. It allows people to unite. But by all means keep antagonizing people and see how they dig in their heels.
How many times do I forgive the person who keeps kicking me in the face?
Just once more, bro, trust me bro I’ll do right this time bro, c’mon, just once more. I’m kinda tired of always having to be the bigger person for this. Let’s let the right be the bigger person for once.
That’s how we got the Nazis to stop the first time around: we sat down with them over a cup of tea and expressed our unity with them.
Oh no, wait, that’s not how we defeated Fascism, at all.
They’re not a monolith. Political ideologies gain and lose members every day.
The kid who kicked the ball over the fence today is never exactly the same one from last time, and sometimes the last kid is the volunteer who fetches the ball.
lol. Keep telling yourself that. I’ll keep seeing the same news stories about the same right wing politicians trying to take the rights away from the same people while spouting the same lies. Then, I’ll hear the same family members and old high school acquaintances repeating it all as though it were the literal gospel. The only time the conservative kid is volunteering to go get the ball is when they think that a minority might go get it instead.
I’m saying individual people can change. They can learn and grow.
You can stay mad at the conservatives of today, but you must let them “defect” when they’ve matured enough to do so.
Otherwise there’s no point to any of this.
I don’t want defectors. I can’t rely on defectors. They’ve had years–decades–to get their shit together, and they have chosen this path against better moral judgment. They are not welcome. I do not want them. As I said in another thread in this, I’m done with second chances, because their are on their hundredth and show no signs of self-correction. The straggler that jumps sides is worthless to me, because I can believe that they will do it again when it is convenient. At least the die-hards have conviction, even if it’s wrong.
They’ve had years–decades–to get their shit together
Maybe you have had decades. Plenty of people just turned 18 and voted for the first time this year. As an above commenter pointed out, “conservatives” aren’t a monolith. They’re individual people, of all ages and backgrounds.
You’re not going to win by trying to convince a politician to change parties. Instead, you focus on the individual voters who put those politicians in office. And seeing “fuck em, they can stay conservative” rhetoric like yours doesn’t really help win hearts or minds.
Are you telling me that you can be old enough to vote, but not old enough to understand the moral implications of your actions? Maybe they aren’t a monolith, but they also aren’t a microcosm. They don’t exist outside of the larger reality and then are suddenly thrust into it when they have a change of heart. As someone who grew up in a racist family from central Florida, I know exactly what it means to leave all that behind to be a better person. It doesn’t start when it’s convenient. It starts when you realize it won’t be, because it starts with realization. The realization that you aren’t doing the right thing. The realization that your actions affect others. The realization that a lot of the things you’ve known your whole life have been wrong. We are a lot more connected now than we were when I was learning all of this. There is no excuse for ignorance. The truth is right there. They are free to come to that realization whenever they want, but they aren’t going to make any friends if they sit on their hands and wait for someone to carry them out of the hole. If they voted, they knew what they were voting for, and I won’t accept any other made up reality to help them justify their actions.
But don’t you see? Some conservatives haven’t even been alive for decades. Some don’t even truly understand why they were handed that banner in the first place.
I’m not saying there shouldn’t be accountability. I have friends and relatives I’ve had to place in various stages of social probation due to their politics, but for each I’ve had to consider what redemption and rehabilitation would look like. If there is in fact no redemption for any of them, where would I draw that indelible line?
Though I’ve not voted Republican, I’ve often been wrong in my life about many things, so I’m certain I would need to include myself in that group or irredeemables. Honestly, who would survive the culling of those who’ve been wrong? Would you?
Where do you draw the line? Let’s start at telling others what they can do with their bodies. Let’s start at denying US Citizens the right to be in the country. Shit, pick something off of the Project 2025 list and draw that line.
I’ve been wrong about things in my life, too. For instance, I ordered Taco Bell a few days ago and it wasn’t great. I didn’t suddenly feel like abolishing gay rights, though. I’m being glib. It’s OK to be wrong. You have to admit it, and then SPEND THE REST OF YOUR LIFE REPAIRING THE DAMAGE YOU’VE DONE. All this “uwu, sowwy” bullshit that comes out of the mouths of the “reformed” is worth less than what I left in the bowl after the Taco Bell. Actions are all I care about. Fix your mistake, fuck your apology.
That is a viable path to redemption. In fact I think spending one’s life repairing damage done is only the minimum expectation.
Also to be clear, I’m talking about common voters, rank-and-file conservatives. Public figures on the other hand, especially those active in the current administration, must be imprisoned, and many of them for life, if only to demonstrate to the world the severity of their crimes against the republic and its people.
We have to agree where we ARE before we stand a chance to agree about what we do from here.
We don’t do that with self-delusion and deflecting blame though.
The blame doesn’t rest solely on conservatives for this current situation, sure. Some of it falls on the huge number of people who “protest voted”. Some of it rests on the Democratic party for pretending to be the party of the people, but really just being a milquetoast center-right corporatist party that serves the same masters as the Republican party.
For any of us to “come together” and “agree about what we are to do from here,” for any one group to trust the other, we all have to come to terms with and accept our share of the blame. Deflecting blame or deluding ourselves with rhetoric like “we didn’t do anything wrong, we were just lied to” is unproductive. No side will trust the other as long as anyone is still making excuses for themselves.
Be adults, look inward instead of projecting blame, accept responsibility for your actions, and then maybe we can come together to fight against fascism.
Baby steps
Wow this thread is kinda fucked. Im way more left than most to the point that i think supporting biden/harris leading up to the last election was a mistake, although i would’ve begrudgingly voted harris when it came down to it. But this is just vindictive and unproductive. How about “lets both admit the corporations and their stooges have fucked us for way too long and come together to stop them” rather than some stupid childish finger pointing shit. Like i get the rage, but keep it pointing at the ones who are actively fucking you over.
It’s unproductive to try working with people who, for the past few decades, were actively voting to get rid of my friends and family because they didn’t fit White Heteronormative Christian Right America’s box.
They put all of their faith into Trump. They literally believed God sent him to save America from the Democrats and liberals trying to “destroy” this country.
I’m sorry, but I do not want to put my trust in the hands of racist bigots who can easily be lead astray by their own greed and prejudices.
The ones who are actively fucking me over are the ones that keep supporting the ones that are also actively fucking me over. Accountability doesn’t end at the ballot.
So we agree that the ones fucking you over are the billionaires bankrolling the fire hose of toxic media that gets people to vote against their interest?
Genuinely not sure of the stance you’re taking…
Yeah yeah. We already get that “both sides bad” argument. You’re clearly ignoring that the Republicans are actively destroying our government, our rights, and our access to necessary infrastructure and services while giving even more power to corporations. One is orders of magnitude worse. So trying to equate the two parties is insultingly misleading.
This place has become a self-righteous circle jerk with no means of spreading the information we believe in as they’re hostile to anybody that isn’t exactly the same.
So if all use leftists are here and all the right wingers are on Twitter, then nobody is going to learn anything new as we have become our own echo chambers.
Oh no! How will I know what right wingers think? That would mean I need to open a newspaper! Or turn on a television! Or spend an evening with my mother in law’s new boyfriend!
Fuck off with your echo chamber bullshit.
I know what they want. They want to hurt me and mine. And I’m not going to roll over.
So you don’t believe us all being in echo chambers is going to make the situation worse?
Do you believe that you can’t get any right wingers to turn left wing? What about vice versa?
I couldn’t give a fuck what they think you pleb, I am interesting in trying to get people to open their eyes and leave the right and come join us on the left.
Many of those people have been lied to, just as much as we have and I believe given the opportunity we would be able to reason people out of their mindsets to find a common enemy which is elites.
Edit: There is a YouTuber who makes left leaning content and he has said on numerous videos how he was drawn into the alt-right pipeline and he was smart enough to learn that wasn’t right and that they’re not spreading truth. He’s called JimmyTheGiant. If he is able to be taken from the right to the left then that means other people are and they’re only going to make that leap if we talk with them. Sure some of them are lost causes, but I want to focus on the people who we can reach.
Unless you just want to hang around here and we can all wank each other off a how much more superior we are because of our beliefs whilst never actually increasing our numbers because nobody wants to interact with the perceived other side.
Funny how you can now what all republicans want, but I’m sure you would take issue if they said all leftists want the exact same thing.
I love how the comment degenerates into madness slowly like a bad copy pasta.
