Linda at the bottom there "I am pleased with the extralegal concentration camps, mass deportations, and arrest/abduction of citizens who just aren't white enough. The jackbooted thugs with no legal oversight or accountability are great. But what else has he done for me lately?"
The trouble is that, despite noticing that everything else is a lie, they still believe that ICE is only deporting people who 'deserve it', rather than paying any attention to the constant reports of ICE throwing people who are legally in the USA in vans and disappearing them.
Worse, the antifa riots rethoric is held against them. It looks like people start to wonder why these riots were allowed to start under the current administration.
And who spells it in all caps? What does each letter stand for, Evan? Is it an acronym, or a portmanteau of anti-fascism? Evan is losing me, to be honest 😒
Propublica just had an article where they dived into just fox news' coverage of portland and apparently they spice up their footage with pictures of the 2020 riots every time they mention portland.
To the point where it may be possible the city of portland could probably sue fox for defamation.
Several different conspiracy theories have emerged in the year since the insurrection, according to an analysis of online content by media intelligence firm Zignal Labs on behalf of The Associated Press. Unfounded claims that the rioters were members of antifa went viral first, only to be overtaken by a baseless claim blaming FBI operatives.
How are these people calling themselves Christians?
This is where unlucky asylum seekers have to stay between 2 days to more than half a year. People entering as legally.
You can't bring any items like a book inside and you can't leave except for food time in cafetaria like some prison with no yard-time. Just sit still and sleep until we process your papers in 4 months.
Ours had walls instead of cage thankfully but toilet was inside with no door. This was the conditions in 2018.
"Pleased" said the love-thy-neighbor Christian, "satisfied."
How are these people calling themselves Christians?
Where did they call themselves Christians?
IMO, it takes a special type of double-think to believe that what ICE is doing is loving our neighbors. I sincerely hope they are not actually Christian.
A lot of those areas are under 60%. If you exclude the two top categories (evangelical Protestant and Mormon), it's much closer to 50/50.
The real problem IMO is the evangelicals Protestants. Those are much more based around influential individuals (megachurches/TV preachers) rather than community or religious tenants.
The infographic makes no claim about the size of each group, just the left/right split within each group. You cannot draw such a conclusion from that data alone. This is a common misunderstanding in statistics when dealing with conditional probability.
Here is an infographic showing the inverse, religious affiliation given party affiliation.
This indicates both parties are majority Christian, the Republican party overwhelmingly so.
Not really trying to hide the racism anymore, are they?
I mean I've been paying attention to politics for the last 20-25 years now and I've known all along the Republican party had a racism problem, but the current boldness of it, almost flaunting of it, is still catching me by surprise.
I could have never imagined seeing the world's wealthiest man fire off two seig heils on stage at a Presidential Inauguration (with literally nothing coming of it), back during GWB's administration.
The goalposts have moved completely off the field at this point. It's clear that conservatives cannot be trusted and should never, under any circumstances, be allowed to aggregate power.
I can only hope it's all so extreme that in the long run it helps bury this traitorous party and confine them to the shitpile of history.
Faux news absolutely lost their fucking minds when Obama tossed a salute at a jarhead while gasp holding a coffee. Wave a sign of respect to one of your guards while being black…they scream for weeks.
Actively salute a North Korean officer while being orange or seig heil while white and rich…totally patriotic and cool what’s he gonna do tomorrow.
I find it horrific that people can say this ugly shit out loud "pleased with ICE"... how does "being happy" with dehumanizing other people make you happy ?
I bet if I sent this to either one of my parents, they'd be like, "yeah? me too."
I am super glad even as I came from white cis parents into a white cis town, I rolled homo and got the minority perspective because otherwise I'd be one of them. My mom really believes "democrats buy off blacks with welfare so they keep voting for them" and other such mind-bogglers I can't anymore.
Not always true, I'm white, cis, and straight born to conservative Christian parents but fell out of that line of thinking by my teenage years. A lot of it really was just learning and understanding history and politics. Making friends with black kids early on might have helped as well.
As long as you are intelligent you likely would have figured it out on your own.
I know I was figuring it out myself even before I had any idea I was queer. This was back in 2018 or 19 when the big outrage was Ukraine aid being held hostage. It took until the second term for me to no longer be civil with anybody who did support Trump. Figuring out that I was queer just put another nail in the coffin that was already sealed shut
This is the problem with people who don't understand social control. Welfare is not a handout from Democrats, it is a mechanism of social control the government uses.
People are so brainwashed they don't understand the issues anymore. I wonder why Fox News doesn't tell the the truth.
The "ICE took my wife" guy still loves trump. For most of these people losing their job or their house is basically the only path to changing their politics
I’m always wondering what it would take to actually turn people like this.
Direct, negative consequences. They're upset as they watch their lives slowly get worse, and they see inaction on that from the administration.
But if that administration says "we will be taking $5,000 in taxes from your paycheck" or "we are going to forcibly house a military member in your home because fuck the constitution", that is when they actually make the mental connection between politician they support and bad consequences that have only now directly harmed them.
Otherwise, they just see it as "damn, I guess politicians really are just kinda annoying and don't like doing much to help me. Oh well!" and not "This politician just hurt me", even if a politician never improving your life as it endlessly gets worse is still a measurable harm.
"I'm beginning to think the guy is not gonna come back with the drugs we paid for. We gave him the right amount, didn't we? Maybe something happened to him, maybe the cops got him."
You have to apply, like all paid jobs. They only accept minorities, not white ones. They bring face paint and other props so acting like you've been tear gassed looks realistic. You have know the director to get a brick to throw during the police encounter. All of this is /s FYI
Okay like of course this perspective is vile. I would never defend it. The people I refer to below are not the same people represented in this tweet.
But the right's justification for anti immigration makes sense to people. Its the oldest trick in the book! Artificial scarcity? Housing crisis? Employment crisis? Some of us have a rigorous class analysis that can neatly disprove these lies, part of why red scares are such a fundamental component of the right's culture war (a component many progressive liberals accept unquestioningly.)
But for the average person who doesnt think about stuff that way, the working/middle class swing voter who is simultaneously directly affected by economic and political oppression but deeply confused about the underlying causes, how do we convince them? The pendulum has flipped and Trumps policies are deeply unpopular, but what is the convincing explanation that the whole basis of their logic is flawed? How do we prove that immigrants aren't the problem?
Its like in avengers, thanos says he will kill half of all people in order to end scarcity in the universe. And none of the heroes even questions his logic. The attitude is like, he's a bad guy but it would still work. And, no it wouldn't, scarcity in advanced society is driven by class, not population. Malthus was thoroughly disproved like 150 years ago and yet this myth persists (like the myth of immigration and race-based scarcity).
Because as long as our political strategy amounts to "shame anyone who demonstrates an affective affinity with the right, and vote" we won't be able to resist the creeping threat of fascism. In 5-10 years it will be full on Nazi shit and I dont want to die in a concentration camp please and thank you
I think you're trying really fucking hard to pretend that there are people there worth saving and it eats at me that your perspective is not only popular, but common.
These people are irredeemable. Their primary goals are to hurt others for their inalienable traits.
You don't need these people. When the common opinion was such that they had to hide their shitty opinions, everyone was better off for it.
What you need, is people who don't pay attention to pay attention. Stop focusing on the magas. You can never find compromise with them, nor convince them with reason, because all of the arguments they give are fundementally based on "I hate that person because they are the out group".
That trumps literally everything else to them, as you are clearly seeing here. They are not outliers. Thats the common maga mentality.
You doing mental gymnastics to pretend that the common person just has to be good is a coping strategy that is killing you.
Because as long as our political strategy amounts to “shame anyone who demonstrates an affective affinity with the right, and vote”
When has that been anyones political strategy. Thats what the right says it is (instead its trying to sell people on a DNC lead democrat party that fundementally does not want to offer noteworthy change).
Firstly, we should shame them, because the right wing is demonstrably awful, and pretending it has merit does no favours. That is what the DNC wants to do, and has done for the past.... very long time.
So shame is not the solution, but its also not the problem.
Instead, the problem is that an average person here's 2 people put up some arguments, doesnt think about it further, thinks "ah well both sides" and then stops thinking.
Left leaning people often don't help this as they screech more loudly about the party closest to actually being moldable into something positive than they do the party doing harm, which helps keep precisely the group they need to convince the most in that valley of "both people are shouting, both sides I guess" and then that person stops caring.
Also,
we won’t be able to resist the creeping threat of fascism.
Creeping threat??? You're currently trying to fight your way out and you call it a creeping threat. Just part of the problems.
My opinion on the world is that 50% of people don't really care all that much about anything and have an extremely mild positive bias, 30% of people are just awful, and focus more on hurting others than making things better, and then 20% are the inverse of the 30%.
Your "solution" involves somehow convincing that 30% instead of figuring out whats stopping that 50% from figuring out how this will personally affect them, and to snap out of they're "both sides" voter apathy/general apathy delusion.
Part of the problem is that their position is self defeating. They think nothing works, everything is corrupt, and so there is no point doing anything, and that entrenches all of those problems, making them even worse.
Thats the real struggle; getting them both to see the personal threat to themselves (as they don't care about the larger picture) and then getting them to see that they do in fact have none bloody death alternatives to that.
All of this just emphasizes how disastrous it was that the democrats folded and didn't let people see the consequences of their actions with the government shutdown.
One thing alone would help shift the Overton Window MASSIVELY in a country like the USA - mandatory voting. If everyone who had the right to vote actually voted, Republicans would never hold federal government ever again and would only be able to hold onto a couple of states and a few dozen local governments across the nation.
Without mandatory voting, Republicans can become more and more egregious in seeking to rally voters while simultaneously painting the whole establishment as broken which essentially disenfranchises the non-voting centre. With it, they’d have to seriously moderate their platforms to have any hope of forming government ever again. It would likely cause a party split that would then coalesce again into a two-party coalition on the right, starting the efforts to break down the two-party system.
If you introduce ranked choice voting as well, that’ll speed up the dismantling of the two-party system, but just mandatory voting alone would prevent Trump and his ilk from ever being in power again.
One thing alone would help shift the Overton Window MASSIVELY in a country like the USA - mandatory voting. If everyone who had the right to vote actually voted, Republicans would never hold federal government ever again and would only be able to hold onto a couple of states and a few dozen local governments across the nation.
The problem with "solutions" like this (and I actually don't even think this would fix things vs any number of other solutions in a similar vein), is that these aren't solutions. These are vague wishlist goals, and very much so have all the hard parts of getting there removed.
Like I think every country having proportional representation would improve the quality of their politicians and government massively, but good luck getting the establishment politicians who benefit from the old system to give that up.
If you introduce ranked choice voting as well,
Im always super shocked at why anyone likes ranked choice voting. It doesnt actually solve the 2 party system at all.
Proportional voting is what solves that. Ranked choice just means that 2 party system has a slightly higher chance of changing who the 2 parties are.
This is the part that always gets me laughing. At the level of effort that would be necessary to actually get voting reform, we might as well just overthrow the government. That is how difficult it would be, it would require a nationwide coordinated mass movement hitherto unseen in the United States, and it would only really solve one of our problems.
I think it would actually solve a huge swath of problems, but absolutely yes its ridiculous to state as a solution just as we both agree.
As for the overthrowing the government part, I think that given they're both at the same levels of difficulty, Id probably opt for the one that also accomplishes the practical goals and doesnt end up in half of us being bloody pulp on the ground.
it really doesn't. It would start the process of fixing the problems, but you then still need to take money out of politics, curb the right-wing misinformation machine, introduce and pass widespread economic, education, and equality reform, all the while billionaires will continue to do everything in their power to bribe the multitude of parties to halt progress.
If they're both the same level of difficulty, I'd rather fix all the problems at once, rather than take step one of a hundred.
If they’re both the same level of difficulty, I’d rather fix all the problems at once
Neither fixes all the problems at once. People keep holding onto the ideas of some hail mary that wins the "game" and it aint coming.
Proportional representation would break 2 party and be one of many steps. People would be able to vote for one of many parties and no0 longer would throwing away your vote with a third party be a thing.
rather than take step one of a hundred.
Many steps is the only way to eventually fix things. Your basically faced with a highly liable to fail, bloody fictional solution you wont do, and the long, diet and exercise you swear wont work.
Wow you're really cheesed. Like I said in my first sentence, I don't support those views or people with those views. Ive worked with people who are do try to reach over and convince the MAGAs and frankly they're the worst. I'm not one of them I'm asking a question about the middle, the exact folks you are talking about.
But to someone who genuinely thinks that immigration threatens their jobs, their logic based in the education they received, the news they consume, the ambient culture.
My question is how do you do that? How do you reach the people in the middle who are most affected, fearful, worried, and hence easy to manipulate ideologically?
Explain to me, a regular person just trying to get by, how immigration doesnt affect me. Convince me.
What "solution" did I even offer? I asked a fucking question. This is legit the most bad faith response ive ever received.
Is this how you engage in political discourse? You just blow up at whoever you're talking to? Assume they are evil and stupid? Let me ask you, who are you recruiting to the cause? What real work are you doing to help people and resist fascism? Are you just getting mad at people you made up in your head? Im pretty sure you aren't doing shit, because people who are doing the work dont act like this. Fucking relax.
Is this how you engage in political discourse? You just blow up at whoever you’re talking to? Assume they are evil and stupid?
Fucking relax.
Jumping to trolling with the comment equivalent to "u mad bro?" while pretending to care about civility is wild.
This is legit the most bad faith response ive ever received.
This right here is straight projection, especially given clearly some others thought my comment fit perfectly/was a reasonable interpretation of yours.
What “solution” did I even offer?
Because as long as our political strategy amounts to “shame anyone who demonstrates an affective affinity with the right, and vote” we won’t be able to resist the creeping threat of fascism. In 5-10 years it will be full on Nazi shit and I dont want to die in a concentration camp please and thank you
You are clearly suggesting that not shaming the fascists is part of the solution here and now you're feigning ignorance to having said that.
Explain to me, a regular person just trying to get by, how immigration doesnt affect me. Convince me.
and
I asked a fucking question.
Yeah, nah. Now, with the rest of the comment as context this seems more like an effort to sealion than a real question, especially with you saying:
Explain to me, a regular person just trying to get by, how immigration doesnt affect me. Convince me.
Which completely changes who you're portraying yourself to be and asks me to waste my time with a right wing talking point that is now suddenly the focus, as if the uncaring people think this is a major point anyways.
I probably spent to much effort responding to this comment that is clearly actually in bad faith.
I mean look at this shit:
What real work are you doing to help people and resist fascism? Are you just getting mad at people you made up in your head? Im pretty sure you aren’t doing shit, because people who are doing the work dont act like this.
In September 2025, Bloomberg News obtained 18,000 emails from Epstein's personal account.
On November 12, 2025, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released three emails that had been subpoenaed from the Epstein estate:
...
Epstein said Trump was the "dog that hasn’t barked" because Trump had "spent hours at my house" with a victim. The victim's name was redacted from public view. Epstein added: "he has never once been mentioned. police chief. etc. im 75% there". Maxwell replied: "I have been thinking about that..."
I guess the visit by Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa, who was on the terrorist list just days before, and is suspected of being involved in the 9/11 attacks as a member of Al Qaida.
If the illegal immigrants are being handled to their satisfaction and those other problems persist then I guess the illegals weren’t the problem, were they?
That right there is a wedge that can be opened. (Not be someone who comes across as being left-wing, who they'll likely reject out of hand, mind).
The seed of doubt has been sown, and now it remains to be asked just how kidnapping brown people (phrasing it that way won't work but I'm not currently trying to convince anyone...) benefits them, personally. It's an opportunity to examine the disconnect between things they feel are connected - "everything is shit and I don't have enough money" and "there's too many foreigners and brown people".
"They took our jerbs!"
"You lost your job to an immgrant?"
"Well, no, but..."
"Who do you know that has lost their job to an immigrant?"
"Well, personally no one, but that's not the point!"
"..."
That’s when you find out it’s not about belief, it’s about tribalism. It’s essentially a religion (or a cult).
Their friends are idiots. The people they look up to are idiots. It’s extremely difficult to separate someone from their “tribe” because that’s where they feel safest.
You can use logic and reality with them only until they run back to is their faith.
Americanism is a new religion. Good luck reasoning with it.
You can't rehabilitate these people. What you can do is make them feel betrayed so they point in the right direction, then later shame them back into keeping their racist bullshit buried deep down
They're never going to fully accept that ethnic cleansing is wrong, or even that it wouldn't accomplish their goals, but they can be made to understand it's not socially acceptable to share those opinions
And doing that makes them even think about it less. But deep down, people who cheer these camps and ICE raids will always be deeply racist and lacking in compassion. This isn't ignorance, this is naked desire for an enthnostate.
That degree of racism will always be there, and must always be kept under the surface by social pressure
Some people are like that, but some aren't. Some people are convinced to hate a group because of lies, propaganda and confirmation bias. When the lies start to be exposed, it can also start to unravel the hatred.
It can be difficult to expose lies in a way that is convincing, especially nowadays when media is so polarised, so people from another camp are likely to think you are lying if you challenge their existing beliefs. But this is obviously an example of people starting to realise they've been lied to nevertheless.
You assume that the things that informed you of trump's lies were heard and found convincing by all the magas. Here's living proof that people are capable of understanding, eventually.
Not American, but news here have been focusing heavily and specifically on immigrants instances of crime for years, pushing often the same talking points Fox News uses; it affects people's perception of reality, they feel threatened and they are given no perspective on how prevalent it actually is or the systemic reasons why.
Now that doesn't justify the hate they display, but many could be led to reason if the outside pressure leveraging their ignorance stopped.
Imagine looking at the secret police rounding people up and sending them to camps and thinking "Yeah, more of that please." Absolutely fucking horrifying to see that people like that exist and aren't so deeply mired in shame for being the way that they are that they're comfortable expressing those opinions aloud.
Headlines linking Black people and SNAP decrease white support for SNAP even amongst white people who use SNAP.
At a certain point, white Americans get the country they deserve. When the same trick has worked continuously since Bacon's rebellion, you all need to figure out what is wrong with your communities.
You misunderstand. They don't think racism doesnt exist. They simply approve of racism. You're trying to think about this from a point of view where things have to make sense.
I'm actually shocked neither of them brought up queer people.
But yeah "I'm pleased with ICE", what a ghoul. Even if you support their goals, surely what they're doing can be viewed at as best a necessary evil. I certainly don't find the videos pleasant to watch at all.
What has the Trump admin done to queer people? They talk a big game, but I'm pretty sure that nonsense happens at the state level. Then again, there's been a firehose of nonsense at the fed level that I probably missed something.
Among many other things, they're not issuing correct passports, purged queer people from the military and federal government, banned all federal research relating to queer health, banned Medicare or Medicaid from covering transition care...
What's "ISIS in White House" in reference to? I don't think there's even any Muslims in the Trump cabinet, are there? I'm sure he's made some sort of racist connection but it's so tenuous I can't even tell what it's supposed to be.
Thanks for that, though not for also obfuscating that it’s the President of Syria you’re talking about. It’s a very different story when you miss that part out, isn’t it?
Um that's a wee bit much IMO, but how refreshing that we're allowed to speak so boldly here without getting banned, unlike cough reddit cough where everyone gets banned for breathing.
There was always going to be a point where "hurting other people" would finally take a backseat to "staying the fuck alive yourself". This appears to be this point. For some at least.
Cool, Trump lost me in the 2016 primaries. That was the first election I voted third party, and 2020 was the first election I voted Democrat, and I largely voted Republican before then (McCain and Romney) because I thought they cared about small, responsible and privacy-respecting government.
The warning signs were there from the start. He's a narcissist and easily manipulated by shiny things and flattery. That type of person isn't interested in making things better for you, only better for themselves, and someone in Trump's position cares more about making headlines than people actually liking them.
The only thing I like about Trump is be pissed off conservatives. Everything else is a net negative including the tax cuts that actually kind of benefit me.
I was a kid, what kind of research do you expect me to do? My parents and most friends were registered GOP, so defaulting to trusting them makes sense.
I considered myself a "kid" up until I had my own kid. So more a maturity designation than an age one. It took some election cycles to understand what the actual priorities are.
I grew up in a Democrat-majority state, so I naturally blamed the stupid policy choices on Democrats, and I was pissed even when a popular Republican initially won but lost after a recount "found" thousands of extra votes.
Then I moved to a Republican majority state and it had the same problems with stupid policy choices (different problems with different policies), and I realized the problem isn't with ether party, but the two party system that essentially guarantees you'll have poor representation.
That's when I found libertarianism, and now I look less at party affiliation and instead try to find the least insane option. My state will elect the GOP candidate, so there's no such thing as strategic voting on my ballot, I simply express who's the least insane.
I considered myself a “kid” up until I had my own kid.
This arbitrary milestone that is only meaningful for you doesn't really translate well in conversation no?
More than that, it feels like it hints at, but does not fully confirm a sort of "I didn't care till it affected me personally" angle to it.
That’s when I found libertarianism, and now I look less at party affiliation and instead try to find the least insane option.
Ok, here I was not jumping to conclusions and then you end with libertarianism... the self defeating ideology that really translates to "Don't tread on me, but fuck everyone else" and when asked how things will still run responds with a shrug.
This arbitrary milestone that is only meaningful for you doesn’t really translate well in conversation no?
"Kid" is an imprecise term that just means someone who is young and inexperienced, and what it means changes with context. When I went to middle school/junior high, "kid" was anyone still in elementary school. When I went to college, "kid" was anyone still in K-12. When I got my first real job after college, "kid" included most undergrads. And so on.
Here's the first dictionary definition I found:
1
: a young person
hung out with the other kids in high school
especially : child
a married couple with two kids
—often used as a generalized reference to one especially younger or less experienced
the kid on the pro golf tour
you poor kid
Yeah, it's ambiguous, that's kinda how language goes. It can mean anything from a baby to an old person, given context. I would hope the context here (voted multiple times) would be enough to show I wasn't referring to an elementary school kid, but a young adult.
"I didn’t care till it affected me personally” angle to it.
Nah, it still didn't impact me personally when I switched my mindset. I've had a pretty privileged life, I grew up middle class and my first job after college provided a middle class lifestyle. Not having to worry too much about housing or food meant much of government policy didn't really impact me. Today, the most impactful policy is immigration since my SO's family are immigrants and we've only been able to help with my SO's parents.
I'm not saying I was out of touch or anything. I had friends across the income spectrum from relatively rich (dad owned a car dealership) to very poor (living off welfare), and I certainly didn't favor the wants of the first group over the second.
I was mostly interested in efficiency. For example, I wrote an essay in high school about privatizing social security (i.e. defined contribution like an IRA rather than defined benefit like a pension) because I was interested in stocks and saw stocks had much higher returns than Social Security payouts. Local politics was very inefficient, and I blamed that on the dominant party. I grew up near Seattle, and as a kid, there were a ton of cancelled rail and monorail projects, mostly in the Seattle area, and any of them would've helped alleviate traffic. They spent millions on these projects before killing them, and meanwhile traffic on the highways continued to get worse and investment outside Seattle continued to languish. And then when they finally built some rail lines, it didn't really solve traffic (made getting to the Mariners stadium easier...) and they had a separate line for the airport that didn't connect to the commuter line, making it only narrowly useful. Around that time, I had family in Utah and they could take the train to the airport, downtown for shopping, and to the local university, and that was across three lines with many transfers between them.
Young me saw Democrats as inefficient and eager to spend, and Republicans as stubborn but efficient. The reality is that both parties suck when they have a massive majority, and they don't really work well together if there's a shot one could have a majority in the next election. In Utah, they've talked about a light rail extension for well over a decade that would increase daily ridership by almost 50% and give an alternative to a congested area, and in that time they built a short rail segment to a relatively wealthy area (~1/10 the daily ridership of the other propsal) and will build a short extension before reconsidering it. That's not left/right thing since they prioritized a liberal area over a conservative one.
end with libertarianism…
Then your understanding of libertarianism is misguided. It's a big tent, with everything from socialists who adore Marx to the far right who want a Mad Max style free-for-all, and you seem to be talking about the second group.
I'm personally somewhere in the middle, and certainly left of the Libertarian Party in the US. I was attracted by the idea of the NAP guiding decisions, and I think people are generally better off with more freedom rather than less. Here are some policies I support:
Negative Income Tax - like UBI, but only for people under a certain income; goal would be to get everyone above the poverty line, and it wouldn't be super expensive (this guy claims $168B); I'd prefer to repurpose Social Security for this, but that's an uphill battle
end qualified immunity and hold law enforcement, representatives, and the President accountable
more pigouvian taxes rather than regulations, such as a tax on alcohol to fund rehab, carbon taxes to clean up the air, etc; anything not covered should largely come from property taxes rather than income
expand school choice by replacing school buses with city buses in metro areas, and encourage schools to specialize
eliminate federal student loans, expand Pell grants, and replace most other functions of the Department of Education with an independent group that assesses school performance across states
mandatory balanced budget
And so on. I want better, more efficient services, and I think the libertarian perspective is the right way to find that balance.
“Kid” is an imprecise term that just means someone who is young and inexperienced
I think most people assume it means under 18.
Yeah, it’s ambiguous, that’s kinda how language goes. It can mean anything from a baby to an old person, given context.
Sure, but this context was about voting age people. That was the whole context.
I would hope the context here (voted multiple times) would be enough to show I wasn’t referring to an elementary school kid, but a young adult.
You were still using it as an excuse for not paying attention though.
Today, the most impactful policy is immigration since my SO’s family are immigrants and we’ve only been able to help with my SO’s parents.
This sounds directly like it impacts you.
The reality is that both parties suck when they have a massive majority
This type of bothsiderism indicates that you still don't pay attention when you refuse to see nuance past this.
That’s not left/right thing since they prioritized a liberal area over a conservative one.
Providing better things to richer people isnt a left/right thing??? You basically choose to stick your head in the sand is what it sounds like.
Then your understanding of libertarianism is misguided.
I highly doubt this.
It’s a big tent, with everything from socialists
Nope.
Here are some policies I support:
Almost none of these policies are actually supported by any libertarian politicians.
expand school choice by replacing school buses with city buses in metro areas, and encourage schools to specialize
This sounds dangerously close to privatizing schools, especially where we're talking about basic education necessary for life (K-12)
eliminate federal student loans, expand Pell grants, and replace most other functions of the Department of Education with an independent group that assesses school performance across states
Sounds dangerous and vague, once again, almost like privatizing education by replacing a government agency.
mandatory balanced budget
This sounds pipe dream like. Everyone dreams of such a thing, and itll happen right after the US switches to a proportional representation system.
Really, Im getting the impression, that like many conservatives (including the ones who call themselves libertarians), you're presenting a prettied up, as clean as possible sounding list of policies that with a little bit of digging reveals that its all headed towards the classic libertarian problems where these ideas only work if everyone is assumed to act in good faith, and somehow privatization is more efficient than a government doing things.
Linda at the bottom there "I am pleased with the extralegal concentration camps, mass deportations, and arrest/abduction of citizens who just aren't white enough. The jackbooted thugs with no legal oversight or accountability are great. But what else has he done for me lately?"
Fucking fascist ghoul
That was my favorite part too.
“I haven’t noticed any real difference!” What… were you expecting?
Hopefully her kids are embarrassed of her already and her legacy is “clueless dumbfuck”
“Clueless” is being generous. It’s more like “hateful dumbfuck”.
The trouble is that, despite noticing that everything else is a lie, they still believe that ICE is only deporting people who 'deserve it', rather than paying any attention to the constant reports of ICE throwing people who are legally in the USA in vans and disappearing them.
I missed the ANTIFA riots. I guess Evan and I don’t get our news from the same sources.
It’s amazing that this administration is so spectacularly bad that even its propaganda machine can’t hide it.
Worse, the antifa riots rethoric is held against them. It looks like people start to wonder why these riots were allowed to start under the current administration.
And who spells it in all caps? What does each letter stand for, Evan? Is it an acronym, or a portmanteau of anti-fascism? Evan is losing me, to be honest 😒
Did you not see the dancing dinosaurs, grannies, naked cyclists, and the chicken man viciously intimidating Kristi Nome?
It’s awful out there. Truly terrifying.
Not to mention the frogs. Oh god the frogs!!
Krusty Gnome? :D
Indeed
Propublica just had an article where they dived into just fox news' coverage of portland and apparently they spice up their footage with pictures of the 2020 riots every time they mention portland.
To the point where it may be possible the city of portland could probably sue fox for defamation.
Conspiracy theories paint fraudulent reality of Jan. 6 riot
Pretty sure they were referring to the protests in LA, Portland, etc. which conservative propaganda has successfully painted as "riots."
Jan 6 was almost 6 years ago, and these people are talking about the current regime.
"I am pleased with the results on the border."
How are these people calling themselves Christians?
This is where unlucky asylum seekers have to stay between 2 days to more than half a year. People entering as legally.
You can't bring any items like a book inside and you can't leave except for food time in cafetaria like some prison with no yard-time. Just sit still and sleep until we process your papers in 4 months.
Ours had walls instead of cage thankfully but toilet was inside with no door. This was the conditions in 2018.
"Pleased" said the love-thy-neighbor Christian, "satisfied."
It starts with portraying Jesus as a white dude...
Anyone familiar with the history of the church can answer this.
Where did they call themselves Christians?
IMO, it takes a special type of double-think to believe that what ICE is doing is loving our neighbors. I sincerely hope they are not actually Christian.
Maybe not these people specifically, but most of the GOP base identifies as Christian.
Most may be stretching it:
I would say that's most.
66% is most.
A lot of those areas are under 60%. If you exclude the two top categories (evangelical Protestant and Mormon), it's much closer to 50/50.
The real problem IMO is the evangelicals Protestants. Those are much more based around influential individuals (megachurches/TV preachers) rather than community or religious tenants.
The infographic makes no claim about the size of each group, just the left/right split within each group. You cannot draw such a conclusion from that data alone. This is a common misunderstanding in statistics when dealing with conditional probability.
Here is an infographic showing the inverse, religious affiliation given party affiliation.
This indicates both parties are majority Christian, the Republican party overwhelmingly so.
Thanks, that is a much better infographic.
Any idea why Jewish people are more predominantly Democrat than Republican?
Self-proclaimed religiousness is one of the main things for conservatives no?
Can someone link me to the ANTIFA-riots? (I don't trust Evans words for it, I'm just not a "trust me, bro"-kind of guy..)
What are you for one moment insinuating that a conservative on Facebook might have less than reputable sources for their information?
I mean, he could be a russian bot or an absolute braindead idiot, who knows?
There are none. Right wing propaganda media made the baseless claims that the No Kings protests were antifa riots.
I think he's kidding.
I hope.
God fuck this timeline, I can't tell either now.
(I totally am. Of course "Evan" is just an idiot. Or russian.)
No, hes not kidding.
Let me find that article on the Dunning-Kruger Times...
Not really trying to hide the racism anymore, are they?
I mean I've been paying attention to politics for the last 20-25 years now and I've known all along the Republican party had a racism problem, but the current boldness of it, almost flaunting of it, is still catching me by surprise.
I could have never imagined seeing the world's wealthiest man fire off two seig heils on stage at a Presidential Inauguration (with literally nothing coming of it), back during GWB's administration.
Nope.
The goalposts have moved completely off the field at this point. It's clear that conservatives cannot be trusted and should never, under any circumstances, be allowed to aggregate power.
I can only hope it's all so extreme that in the long run it helps bury this traitorous party and confine them to the shitpile of history.
I feel like we figured this out in 1945, and the 1911 .45 still works very well.
Faux news absolutely lost their fucking minds when Obama tossed a salute at a jarhead while gasp holding a coffee. Wave a sign of respect to one of your guards while being black…they scream for weeks.
Actively salute a North Korean officer while being orange or seig heil while white and rich…totally patriotic and cool what’s he gonna do tomorrow.
This shit is making me lose sanity
I find it horrific that people can say this ugly shit out loud "pleased with ICE"... how does "being happy" with dehumanizing other people make you happy ?
I need to throw up and have a long shower.
I bet if I sent this to either one of my parents, they'd be like, "yeah? me too."
I am super glad even as I came from white cis parents into a white cis town, I rolled homo and got the minority perspective because otherwise I'd be one of them. My mom really believes "democrats buy off blacks with welfare so they keep voting for them" and other such mind-bogglers I can't anymore.
Not always true, I'm white, cis, and straight born to conservative Christian parents but fell out of that line of thinking by my teenage years. A lot of it really was just learning and understanding history and politics. Making friends with black kids early on might have helped as well.
As long as you are intelligent you likely would have figured it out on your own.
I know I was figuring it out myself even before I had any idea I was queer. This was back in 2018 or 19 when the big outrage was Ukraine aid being held hostage. It took until the second term for me to no longer be civil with anybody who did support Trump. Figuring out that I was queer just put another nail in the coffin that was already sealed shut
This is the problem with people who don't understand social control. Welfare is not a handout from Democrats, it is a mechanism of social control the government uses.
People are so brainwashed they don't understand the issues anymore. I wonder why Fox News doesn't tell the the truth.
Is that a real question? Do you want to stare into the abyss on that one¹?
¹it's really stupid.
Notice he said that they are "losing" him, not already lost.
Still fine enough with everything so far. I'm always wondering what it would take to actually turn people like this.
One bad thing happening directly to them. They have no empathy. Being "pleased" with how ICE is doing is proof positive of that.
The "ICE took my wife" guy still loves trump. For most of these people losing their job or their house is basically the only path to changing their politics
Direct, negative consequences. They're upset as they watch their lives slowly get worse, and they see inaction on that from the administration.
But if that administration says "we will be taking $5,000 in taxes from your paycheck" or "we are going to forcibly house a military member in your home because fuck the constitution", that is when they actually make the mental connection between politician they support and bad consequences that have only now directly harmed them.
Otherwise, they just see it as "damn, I guess politicians really are just kinda annoying and don't like doing much to help me. Oh well!" and not "This politician just hurt me", even if a politician never improving your life as it endlessly gets worse is still a measurable harm.
lol "the antisemitism crackdowns" risks losing him XD
What does he mean by this? 🤔
Zios are commiting a genocide.
Some people protested. They were violently attacked and labelled "anti-semites."
The state started making laws against "anti-semitism" in order to attack anti-genocide activists.
Actual anti-semites like this guy get mad even though they would never be targeted for their actual anti-semitism.
he hates the JOOOOOZZZZZ
"I'm beginning to think the guy is not gonna come back with the drugs we paid for. We gave him the right amount, didn't we? Maybe something happened to him, maybe the cops got him."
It’s almost as though state violence against people you have an abstract hatred of doesn’t actually help you in any way.
How do I get in on these Antifa riots?
You have to apply, like all paid jobs. They only accept minorities, not white ones. They bring face paint and other props so acting like you've been tear gassed looks realistic. You have know the director to get a brick to throw during the police encounter. All of this is /s FYI
/s for secret, of course.
The fuck's wrong with Chinese students?
Their hidden backdoors.
I wouldn't mind having some Chinese students expose me to their backdoor, unless they're too young of course.
That's the best part tho.
Unless you're talking about computer security. 🤔
They are from China! Lol
These people are entirely motivated by hate. I knew that, but it's kinda wild to see them admit it like this.
Hey, that's not fair! They're also motivated by fear, disgust, and selfishness.
Don't forget greed, apathy, and general stupidity.
Okay like of course this perspective is vile. I would never defend it. The people I refer to below are not the same people represented in this tweet.
But the right's justification for anti immigration makes sense to people. Its the oldest trick in the book! Artificial scarcity? Housing crisis? Employment crisis? Some of us have a rigorous class analysis that can neatly disprove these lies, part of why red scares are such a fundamental component of the right's culture war (a component many progressive liberals accept unquestioningly.)
But for the average person who doesnt think about stuff that way, the working/middle class swing voter who is simultaneously directly affected by economic and political oppression but deeply confused about the underlying causes, how do we convince them? The pendulum has flipped and Trumps policies are deeply unpopular, but what is the convincing explanation that the whole basis of their logic is flawed? How do we prove that immigrants aren't the problem?
Its like in avengers, thanos says he will kill half of all people in order to end scarcity in the universe. And none of the heroes even questions his logic. The attitude is like, he's a bad guy but it would still work. And, no it wouldn't, scarcity in advanced society is driven by class, not population. Malthus was thoroughly disproved like 150 years ago and yet this myth persists (like the myth of immigration and race-based scarcity).
Because as long as our political strategy amounts to "shame anyone who demonstrates an affective affinity with the right, and vote" we won't be able to resist the creeping threat of fascism. In 5-10 years it will be full on Nazi shit and I dont want to die in a concentration camp please and thank you
I think you're trying really fucking hard to pretend that there are people there worth saving and it eats at me that your perspective is not only popular, but common.
These people are irredeemable. Their primary goals are to hurt others for their inalienable traits.
You don't need these people. When the common opinion was such that they had to hide their shitty opinions, everyone was better off for it.
What you need, is people who don't pay attention to pay attention. Stop focusing on the magas. You can never find compromise with them, nor convince them with reason, because all of the arguments they give are fundementally based on "I hate that person because they are the out group".
That trumps literally everything else to them, as you are clearly seeing here. They are not outliers. Thats the common maga mentality.
You doing mental gymnastics to pretend that the common person just has to be good is a coping strategy that is killing you.
When has that been anyones political strategy. Thats what the right says it is (instead its trying to sell people on a DNC lead democrat party that fundementally does not want to offer noteworthy change).
Firstly, we should shame them, because the right wing is demonstrably awful, and pretending it has merit does no favours. That is what the DNC wants to do, and has done for the past.... very long time.
So shame is not the solution, but its also not the problem.
Instead, the problem is that an average person here's 2 people put up some arguments, doesnt think about it further, thinks "ah well both sides" and then stops thinking.
Left leaning people often don't help this as they screech more loudly about the party closest to actually being moldable into something positive than they do the party doing harm, which helps keep precisely the group they need to convince the most in that valley of "both people are shouting, both sides I guess" and then that person stops caring.
Also,
Creeping threat??? You're currently trying to fight your way out and you call it a creeping threat. Just part of the problems.
My opinion on the world is that 50% of people don't really care all that much about anything and have an extremely mild positive bias, 30% of people are just awful, and focus more on hurting others than making things better, and then 20% are the inverse of the 30%.
Your "solution" involves somehow convincing that 30% instead of figuring out whats stopping that 50% from figuring out how this will personally affect them, and to snap out of they're "both sides" voter apathy/general apathy delusion.
Part of the problem is that their position is self defeating. They think nothing works, everything is corrupt, and so there is no point doing anything, and that entrenches all of those problems, making them even worse.
Thats the real struggle; getting them both to see the personal threat to themselves (as they don't care about the larger picture) and then getting them to see that they do in fact have none bloody death alternatives to that.
All of this just emphasizes how disastrous it was that the democrats folded and didn't let people see the consequences of their actions with the government shutdown.
One thing alone would help shift the Overton Window MASSIVELY in a country like the USA - mandatory voting. If everyone who had the right to vote actually voted, Republicans would never hold federal government ever again and would only be able to hold onto a couple of states and a few dozen local governments across the nation.
Without mandatory voting, Republicans can become more and more egregious in seeking to rally voters while simultaneously painting the whole establishment as broken which essentially disenfranchises the non-voting centre. With it, they’d have to seriously moderate their platforms to have any hope of forming government ever again. It would likely cause a party split that would then coalesce again into a two-party coalition on the right, starting the efforts to break down the two-party system.
If you introduce ranked choice voting as well, that’ll speed up the dismantling of the two-party system, but just mandatory voting alone would prevent Trump and his ilk from ever being in power again.
The problem with "solutions" like this (and I actually don't even think this would fix things vs any number of other solutions in a similar vein), is that these aren't solutions. These are vague wishlist goals, and very much so have all the hard parts of getting there removed.
Like I think every country having proportional representation would improve the quality of their politicians and government massively, but good luck getting the establishment politicians who benefit from the old system to give that up.
Im always super shocked at why anyone likes ranked choice voting. It doesnt actually solve the 2 party system at all.
Proportional voting is what solves that. Ranked choice just means that 2 party system has a slightly higher chance of changing who the 2 parties are.
This is the part that always gets me laughing. At the level of effort that would be necessary to actually get voting reform, we might as well just overthrow the government. That is how difficult it would be, it would require a nationwide coordinated mass movement hitherto unseen in the United States, and it would only really solve one of our problems.
I think it would actually solve a huge swath of problems, but absolutely yes its ridiculous to state as a solution just as we both agree.
As for the overthrowing the government part, I think that given they're both at the same levels of difficulty, Id probably opt for the one that also accomplishes the practical goals and doesnt end up in half of us being bloody pulp on the ground.
it really doesn't. It would start the process of fixing the problems, but you then still need to take money out of politics, curb the right-wing misinformation machine, introduce and pass widespread economic, education, and equality reform, all the while billionaires will continue to do everything in their power to bribe the multitude of parties to halt progress.
If they're both the same level of difficulty, I'd rather fix all the problems at once, rather than take step one of a hundred.
Neither fixes all the problems at once. People keep holding onto the ideas of some hail mary that wins the "game" and it aint coming.
Proportional representation would break 2 party and be one of many steps. People would be able to vote for one of many parties and no0 longer would throwing away your vote with a third party be a thing.
Many steps is the only way to eventually fix things. Your basically faced with a highly liable to fail, bloody fictional solution you wont do, and the long, diet and exercise you swear wont work.
Wow you're really cheesed. Like I said in my first sentence, I don't support those views or people with those views. Ive worked with people who are do try to reach over and convince the MAGAs and frankly they're the worst. I'm not one of them I'm asking a question about the middle, the exact folks you are talking about.
But to someone who genuinely thinks that immigration threatens their jobs, their logic based in the education they received, the news they consume, the ambient culture.
My question is how do you do that? How do you reach the people in the middle who are most affected, fearful, worried, and hence easy to manipulate ideologically?
Explain to me, a regular person just trying to get by, how immigration doesnt affect me. Convince me.
What "solution" did I even offer? I asked a fucking question. This is legit the most bad faith response ive ever received.
Is this how you engage in political discourse? You just blow up at whoever you're talking to? Assume they are evil and stupid? Let me ask you, who are you recruiting to the cause? What real work are you doing to help people and resist fascism? Are you just getting mad at people you made up in your head? Im pretty sure you aren't doing shit, because people who are doing the work dont act like this. Fucking relax.
Jumping to trolling with the comment equivalent to "u mad bro?" while pretending to care about civility is wild.
This right here is straight projection, especially given clearly some others thought my comment fit perfectly/was a reasonable interpretation of yours.
You are clearly suggesting that not shaming the fascists is part of the solution here and now you're feigning ignorance to having said that.
and
Yeah, nah. Now, with the rest of the comment as context this seems more like an effort to sealion than a real question, especially with you saying:
Which completely changes who you're portraying yourself to be and asks me to waste my time with a right wing talking point that is now suddenly the focus, as if the uncaring people think this is a major point anyways.
I probably spent to much effort responding to this comment that is clearly actually in bad faith.
I mean look at this shit:
Pure right wing, 4chan style ragebait trolling.
DEMS LITERALLY JUST LEAKED ANOTHER BATCH OF EMAILS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Epstein_client_list
WE HAVE THE CLIENT LISTS. THE FLIGHT LOGS. THE BIRTHDAY BOOK. WE. HAVE. THE. DOCUMENTS.
STOP SAYING THERE'S NO EPSTEIN FILES.
FFS.
Wow, released today! Source:
Unrelated:
What does that even mean?
I guess the visit by Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa, who was on the terrorist list just days before, and is suspected of being involved in the 9/11 attacks as a member of Al Qaida.
Sure, but Al Qaeda hates ISIS, they're direct rivals.
Yeah but the idiot in the post doesn't know that and doesn't care. He'd probably label any Syrian citizen as an ISIS agent for no reason at all.
Your guess is as good as mine.
If the illegal immigrants are being handled to their satisfaction and those other problems persist then I guess the illegals weren’t the problem, were they?
That right there is a wedge that can be opened. (Not be someone who comes across as being left-wing, who they'll likely reject out of hand, mind).
The seed of doubt has been sown, and now it remains to be asked just how kidnapping brown people (phrasing it that way won't work but I'm not currently trying to convince anyone...) benefits them, personally. It's an opportunity to examine the disconnect between things they feel are connected - "everything is shit and I don't have enough money" and "there's too many foreigners and brown people".
I've been trying something similar for years:
"They took our jerbs!" "You lost your job to an immgrant?" "Well, no, but..." "Who do you know that has lost their job to an immigrant?" "Well, personally no one, but that's not the point!" "..."
I lost my job to overseas Indians and I don't blame them one lick. Blame the capitalists sending those jobs overseas.
That’s when you find out it’s not about belief, it’s about tribalism. It’s essentially a religion (or a cult).
Their friends are idiots. The people they look up to are idiots. It’s extremely difficult to separate someone from their “tribe” because that’s where they feel safest.
You can use logic and reality with them only until they run back to is their faith.
Americanism is a new religion. Good luck reasoning with it.
Appropriately enough the phrase "seed of doubt" is often used in religious contexts :)
You can't rehabilitate these people. What you can do is make them feel betrayed so they point in the right direction, then later shame them back into keeping their racist bullshit buried deep down
They're never going to fully accept that ethnic cleansing is wrong, or even that it wouldn't accomplish their goals, but they can be made to understand it's not socially acceptable to share those opinions
And doing that makes them even think about it less. But deep down, people who cheer these camps and ICE raids will always be deeply racist and lacking in compassion. This isn't ignorance, this is naked desire for an enthnostate.
That degree of racism will always be there, and must always be kept under the surface by social pressure
Some people are like that, but some aren't. Some people are convinced to hate a group because of lies, propaganda and confirmation bias. When the lies start to be exposed, it can also start to unravel the hatred.
It can be difficult to expose lies in a way that is convincing, especially nowadays when media is so polarised, so people from another camp are likely to think you are lying if you challenge their existing beliefs. But this is obviously an example of people starting to realise they've been lied to nevertheless.
If this were the case with MAGA, they would have stopped supporting Trump years ago.
These people are in a cult. Simply pointing out lies isn't enough.
You assume that the things that informed you of trump's lies were heard and found convincing by all the magas. Here's living proof that people are capable of understanding, eventually.
Did you even read what they said, they're still fucking fascists.
It's a mixed bag, as the other commenter said.
Not American, but news here have been focusing heavily and specifically on immigrants instances of crime for years, pushing often the same talking points Fox News uses; it affects people's perception of reality, they feel threatened and they are given no perspective on how prevalent it actually is or the systemic reasons why.
Now that doesn't justify the hate they display, but many could be led to reason if the outside pressure leveraging their ignorance stopped.
It is a mixed bag, but the people who can be saved don't think these things are related - they think ICE are going after criminals
They don't think ethnic cleansing is the answer, they just think this is about crime
Imagine looking at the secret police rounding people up and sending them to camps and thinking "Yeah, more of that please." Absolutely fucking horrifying to see that people like that exist and aren't so deeply mired in shame for being the way that they are that they're comfortable expressing those opinions aloud.
Headlines linking Black people and SNAP decrease white support for SNAP even amongst white people who use SNAP.
At a certain point, white Americans get the country they deserve. When the same trick has worked continuously since Bacon's rebellion, you all need to figure out what is wrong with your communities.
Room temp IQs, both of them.
In winter with the door open?
How'd you know?
Its those mothers' fault for not having leverage on the regime.
You misunderstand. They don't think racism doesnt exist. They simply approve of racism. You're trying to think about this from a point of view where things have to make sense.
I just love that fitness bro Evan and 55 year old Edna can hang out and converse over their shared hatred of brown people
I'm actually shocked neither of them brought up queer people.
But yeah "I'm pleased with ICE", what a ghoul. Even if you support their goals, surely what they're doing can be viewed at as best a necessary evil. I certainly don't find the videos pleasant to watch at all.
What has the Trump admin done to queer people? They talk a big game, but I'm pretty sure that nonsense happens at the state level. Then again, there's been a firehose of nonsense at the fed level that I probably missed something.
Among many other things, they're not issuing correct passports, purged queer people from the military and federal government, banned all federal research relating to queer health, banned Medicare or Medicaid from covering transition care...
What's "ISIS in White House" in reference to? I don't think there's even any Muslims in the Trump cabinet, are there? I'm sure he's made some sort of racist connection but it's so tenuous I can't even tell what it's supposed to be.
Nah, this week an ex al qaeda member/leader visited trump in the white house. Lots of smiles and handshakes.
Thanks for that, though not for also obfuscating that it’s the President of Syria you’re talking about. It’s a very different story when you miss that part out, isn’t it?
None of this makes sense:
Basically, the Syrian President worked with an al Qaeda affiliated group to take down Assad and fight against ISIS.
I'm guessing they don't know anything about ISIS or al Qaeda and probably think Iraq was somehow involved in 9/11.
Might mean the US government warming up to the new leadership in Syria. The new president was seen as a terrorist until last year.
Sure, but he was directly opposing ISIS, so he cannot be part of ISIS. It makes no sense.
At least they got the border…
Yeah the border a thousand miles inland and away from the actual border.
Like 2k us citizens arrested unlawfully.
I hope both of these people die in a fire.
Um that's a wee bit much IMO, but how refreshing that we're allowed to speak so boldly here without getting banned, unlike cough reddit cough where everyone gets banned for breathing.
There was always going to be a point where "hurting other people" would finally take a backseat to "staying the fuck alive yourself". This appears to be this point. For some at least.
But it isn't Op's point. He is "losing him" but had not "lost" him.
Not sure what else it's going to take
In other words, tell me you're a racist without using the word racist. Just wow...
Oh no ANTIFA, the mightiest terrorist organization on the planet very scary
If you're not supporting ANTIFA, you're FA
Cool, Trump lost me in the 2016 primaries. That was the first election I voted third party, and 2020 was the first election I voted Democrat, and I largely voted Republican before then (McCain and Romney) because I thought they cared about small, responsible and privacy-respecting government.
The warning signs were there from the start. He's a narcissist and easily manipulated by shiny things and flattery. That type of person isn't interested in making things better for you, only better for themselves, and someone in Trump's position cares more about making headlines than people actually liking them.
The only thing I like about Trump is be pissed off conservatives. Everything else is a net negative including the tax cuts that actually kind of benefit me.
Sooooo you did no research whatsoever??
I was a kid, what kind of research do you expect me to do? My parents and most friends were registered GOP, so defaulting to trusting them makes sense.
Kids cant vote tho, and you indicated that you voted that way for multiple prior elections.
I considered myself a "kid" up until I had my own kid. So more a maturity designation than an age one. It took some election cycles to understand what the actual priorities are.
I grew up in a Democrat-majority state, so I naturally blamed the stupid policy choices on Democrats, and I was pissed even when a popular Republican initially won but lost after a recount "found" thousands of extra votes.
Then I moved to a Republican majority state and it had the same problems with stupid policy choices (different problems with different policies), and I realized the problem isn't with ether party, but the two party system that essentially guarantees you'll have poor representation.
That's when I found libertarianism, and now I look less at party affiliation and instead try to find the least insane option. My state will elect the GOP candidate, so there's no such thing as strategic voting on my ballot, I simply express who's the least insane.
This arbitrary milestone that is only meaningful for you doesn't really translate well in conversation no?
More than that, it feels like it hints at, but does not fully confirm a sort of "I didn't care till it affected me personally" angle to it.
Ok, here I was not jumping to conclusions and then you end with libertarianism... the self defeating ideology that really translates to "Don't tread on me, but fuck everyone else" and when asked how things will still run responds with a shrug.
"Kid" is an imprecise term that just means someone who is young and inexperienced, and what it means changes with context. When I went to middle school/junior high, "kid" was anyone still in elementary school. When I went to college, "kid" was anyone still in K-12. When I got my first real job after college, "kid" included most undergrads. And so on.
Here's the first dictionary definition I found:
Yeah, it's ambiguous, that's kinda how language goes. It can mean anything from a baby to an old person, given context. I would hope the context here (voted multiple times) would be enough to show I wasn't referring to an elementary school kid, but a young adult.
Nah, it still didn't impact me personally when I switched my mindset. I've had a pretty privileged life, I grew up middle class and my first job after college provided a middle class lifestyle. Not having to worry too much about housing or food meant much of government policy didn't really impact me. Today, the most impactful policy is immigration since my SO's family are immigrants and we've only been able to help with my SO's parents.
I'm not saying I was out of touch or anything. I had friends across the income spectrum from relatively rich (dad owned a car dealership) to very poor (living off welfare), and I certainly didn't favor the wants of the first group over the second.
I was mostly interested in efficiency. For example, I wrote an essay in high school about privatizing social security (i.e. defined contribution like an IRA rather than defined benefit like a pension) because I was interested in stocks and saw stocks had much higher returns than Social Security payouts. Local politics was very inefficient, and I blamed that on the dominant party. I grew up near Seattle, and as a kid, there were a ton of cancelled rail and monorail projects, mostly in the Seattle area, and any of them would've helped alleviate traffic. They spent millions on these projects before killing them, and meanwhile traffic on the highways continued to get worse and investment outside Seattle continued to languish. And then when they finally built some rail lines, it didn't really solve traffic (made getting to the Mariners stadium easier...) and they had a separate line for the airport that didn't connect to the commuter line, making it only narrowly useful. Around that time, I had family in Utah and they could take the train to the airport, downtown for shopping, and to the local university, and that was across three lines with many transfers between them.
Young me saw Democrats as inefficient and eager to spend, and Republicans as stubborn but efficient. The reality is that both parties suck when they have a massive majority, and they don't really work well together if there's a shot one could have a majority in the next election. In Utah, they've talked about a light rail extension for well over a decade that would increase daily ridership by almost 50% and give an alternative to a congested area, and in that time they built a short rail segment to a relatively wealthy area (~1/10 the daily ridership of the other propsal) and will build a short extension before reconsidering it. That's not left/right thing since they prioritized a liberal area over a conservative one.
Then your understanding of libertarianism is misguided. It's a big tent, with everything from socialists who adore Marx to the far right who want a Mad Max style free-for-all, and you seem to be talking about the second group.
I'm personally somewhere in the middle, and certainly left of the Libertarian Party in the US. I was attracted by the idea of the NAP guiding decisions, and I think people are generally better off with more freedom rather than less. Here are some policies I support:
And so on. I want better, more efficient services, and I think the libertarian perspective is the right way to find that balance.
I think most people assume it means under 18.
Sure, but this context was about voting age people. That was the whole context.
You were still using it as an excuse for not paying attention though.
This sounds directly like it impacts you.
This type of bothsiderism indicates that you still don't pay attention when you refuse to see nuance past this.
Providing better things to richer people isnt a left/right thing??? You basically choose to stick your head in the sand is what it sounds like.
I highly doubt this.
Nope.
Almost none of these policies are actually supported by any libertarian politicians.
This sounds dangerously close to privatizing schools, especially where we're talking about basic education necessary for life (K-12)
Sounds dangerous and vague, once again, almost like privatizing education by replacing a government agency.
This sounds pipe dream like. Everyone dreams of such a thing, and itll happen right after the US switches to a proportional representation system.
Really, Im getting the impression, that like many conservatives (including the ones who call themselves libertarians), you're presenting a prettied up, as clean as possible sounding list of policies that with a little bit of digging reveals that its all headed towards the classic libertarian problems where these ideas only work if everyone is assumed to act in good faith, and somehow privatization is more efficient than a government doing things.
They're not tweeting their best
Dude is scoring below 50% on a basic reality check.
"Thank god we have ICE otherwise it would be a total embarrassment"
That is all that is needed for MAGA to vote.
Southern strategy 2.0
Racism is a powerful drug unfortunately
How strange to find this on a fascist propaganda network
Let's be honest, that's the only reason they're actually on the train to begin with.