Post "MAGA"

[TonK]

Donald Trump inflicted a lot of pain upon this country. I voted for him in 2016 because I really thought this guy was going to get in office and do great things. I mean, why would he ruin his reputation the way he did? Then he starts spewing the bullshit about the left not condemning "radical Islam" and all the shit he started at Charlottesville. I started to get worried, but I defended him. Looking back, I don't understand how I posted some of the horrible things I did on social media. I was bootlicking and brainwashed.

This guy manipulated me into thinking people wanting equality and peace were the enemy.

Since opening my eyes, I've cut a lot of people out of my life - not for having a different political opinion, but different morals.

I had my wife's uncles on Facebook calling this pandemic a hoax, all while my sister is volunteering in Chitown.

These maga people are disgusting pieces of shit. If I was a billionaire, I still wouldn't have voted for Trump. The fact so many did scares me.

Has Donald Trumps presidency soured anyone's relationship with friends/family to the point of no coming back?

Are you disappointed in your friends/family for continuing to support conspiracy theories?

This guy damaged my family and my friends. My circle is shrinking and I'm finding solace in speaking with friends I haven't seen in a long time.

Also I only had around 400 Facebook friends - I keep it to people I talk to. But I removed 250 the other day. I just can't deal with this utter stupidity anymore.

You?

 

[SouthtownKid]

The country needs to heal. That was never going to happen while Trump was in office, but now that he's on the way out, hopefully Biden can start taking steps to bring the sides back together. But it's never going to happen as long as people are recreationally antagonizing, belittling, or ignoring the "other side".

When I was a kid, we still had the expression that the two things you don't talk about at parties or family gatherings are politics and religion. I always used to think that was stupid, but seeing the extreme polarization that only seems to grow and grow, it makes a lot more sense now. If you have family members or friends who believe stupid shit, the way to bring them over to the enlightened side isn't to lecture them, make them feel stupid, or cut them out of your life.

If you're actually interested in making a positive change and affecting the way people think or vote, and not just looking to make yourself feel smarter or morally superior, you're going to have to take a more patient long-game approach. And part of that is going to require you to engage people you disagree with vehemently in a patient and compassionate way.

 

[LoneSage]

And part of that is going to require you to engage people you disagree with vehemently in a patient and compassionate way.

lmbo

Someone fill in The Kid what it's like having a conversation with a MAGA Man.

 

[SouthtownKid]

lmbo

Someone fill in The Kid what it's like having a conversation with a MAGA Man.

It's going to require you to be the bigger person. Take a break from smug superiority, even if it's justified. It's also going to take you accepting responsibility for your part in widening the rift. Right now, everybody on both sides acts like their shit don't stink. Like the masks thing becoming politicized, which was fucking asinine. It's easy to point at the right for them being gullible morons, but the left is equally responsible for allowing that to happen with the way they handled those morons.

 

[Yamazaki]

I would feel uncomfortable arguing with these kind of ppl....

 

[LoneSage]

It's going to require you to be the bigger person. Take a break from smug superiority, even if it's justified. It's also going to take you accepting responsibility for your part in widening the rift. Right now, everybody on both sides acts like their shit don't stink. Like the masks thing becoming politicized, which was fucking asinine. It's easy to point at the right for them being gullible morons, but the left is equally responsible for allowing that to happen with the way they handled those morons.

Trying to equate 'both sides' has left the room long, long ago. This is a group of people who don't care about the truth or reason. You are welcome to try but I don't believe it's right to put the onus on one group of people to convince another group of people that black people getting murdered by police needs to stop, for instance.

edit: fwiw I'm a non-confrontational person who has almost achieved Buddha-hood in the art of not caring. So I don't argue when people say something ridiculous, I just nod my head and say 'OK'. Let them talk and talk. I don't add much to the conversation. So I don't divide people in real life anyway.

 

[neo_mao]

I’ve only removed 2 people from my Facebook account - one whom I used to work with and started posting a ton of anti-black, immigrant and Muslim stuff. He seemed fine when I worked with him years ago, but became totally unhinged in recent years.

I also removed some guy named Dynamite Rice because in a moment of confusion I forgot who that was. When I realized who it was I felt bad about it but was too embarrassed to send him another request.

I regret it to this day...

 

[smokehouse]

I have no idea how any "healing" will ever be accomplished.

Do you think that Democrats would be calling for "healing" had they lost the presidency? Yeah...me neither.

Politicians have successfully turned the far extremities of their groups to near religious levels. To many, their political party is synonymous with a religion. It is based on feelings and faith based beliefs rather than facts and like other religious people, they not only think they're the "righteous" ones, the feel the other side is evil...and their enemy. This is dangerous ground. Worst of all, they've all villainized people with more moderate or centrist views, they want to to choose a side.

The tolerant left has been calling Republicans racists, radicals, bigots, etc for 4 years straight. The Republicans have replied with the same towards them. On one side you have ANTIFA, the other Proud Boys.

I hope I'm wrong...but I do not see this getting any better.



...as for FB, about the only people I've shed are the ones that just won't stop with the political bitching...it gets old. I don't care if I agree with you or not, someone bitching 24/7 about politics wears on you.

 

[Ajax]

Biden wasn't my first choice, and I'm not going to champion him like the right did chump, by any means, but I do believe he is interested in at least trying to extend good will to the other side. I'm skeptical that actual healing will take place too, but having a leader who is at least willing to try to not be a complete fuckboy all the time is a great start, don't you think? Don't you agree that having a leader who is willing to not actively perpetuate division is a good place to try to start over? If chump hadn't been such an utter piece of shit who actively demonized American citizens and legal immigrants (not to mention every other subset of people who didn't kiss the ring) to the point of some of us feeling literally unsafe, I don't think we would be in this situation.

Also, to conservatives, it probably seems like Antifa is the antithesis to the Proud Virgins, but you're off on that, and it's a pretty big miss to equivocate the two. There is a direct link between the Proud Virgins and chump, period. They made shirts with his dogwhistle on them, for fuck's sake. The driving force behind Antifa is the desire to snuff out fascism in the US, nothing more, and I promise you they hate mainstream democrats more than you ever will. The meaning of the term fascism is completely lost on the right of recent times, so it doesn't surprise me that it would be lost on you too. It's hilarious in a depressing way, really. All these "patriots" who have no issue with the actual fascism occurring on US streets. All these "patriots" who see no issue with refusing to accept the results of the democratic process because their fascist candidate didn't win (but the other elections down the ballot which they did win, those are fine). All these "patriots" who somehow overlook the fascist things that orange jackass says and does. But yeah, they're embarrassingly flying the flag from their lifted trucks, so they must be the real deal, right?

 

[smokehouse]

*SNIP

I must say that I completely disagree with you on ANTIFA...they are a violent walking contradiction. So they're not pushing race, religion, and nationalism like some right wing groups, ok. What they are doing is using threats, intimidation, and violence to stamp out any voice or opinion they do not agree with. They are anything by open minded and have no problem pushing their hive mentality through force.

I also disagree that Trump is the beginning of this problem we're in...he's nothing more of yet another escalation of force in a long chain of events. This has been going on for decades with each step being more violent than the next.

 

[Burning Fight!!]

Instead of gracefully giving the throne to uncle Biden he decided to act like a total loser and do the presidential equivalent of "I'M NOT OWNED! I'M NOT OWNED!!!!!", which is ridiculous for anyone with half a brain cell... but basically set up irrational seething from his more radical voter base that will go on for a long time to come.

'Stop the count' will be their Elders of Zion. Good luck reasoning with hardcore trumptards.

That being said I can still see a large portion of his voter base healing after Trump moves away from the political sphere.

 

[Lagduf]

Trump will step down on Jan 20. If he doesn’t well...best of luck to him.

When the votes are certified in the coming weeks and the electors cast their ballots it will be done.

Trump is bucking tradition of letting the power structure transition when a winner has been projected. In a technical sense the election has not been decided yet and that’s what Trump will say. He will say he is following the letter of the law.

I’m sure he wants the Biden presidency off to a poor start.

 

[Ajax]

I don't think you'll find anywhere in my post where I said these problems start and end with chump. There were an awful lot of hillbilly white folk upset that a black man was elected president though, and make no mistake - chump did capitalize on that anger. I think you'll have a hell of a time trying to disprove that. So yeah, it stands - if chump hadn't been such a literal fuckboy, we may not be in quite the mess we are now. Admittedly, I didn't live in the US for the majority of the Obama administration. I was here for the last 7 or so months of it though, and the change was immediate and very apparent.

What they are doing is using threats, intimidation, and violence to stamp out any voice or opinion they do not agree with.

So you're saying that Antifa does to the Proud Virgins what the Proud Virgins did to non-white voters on election day, except every day?

 

[smokehouse]

Instead of gracefully giving the throne to uncle Biden he decided to act like a total loser and do the presidential equivalent of "I'M NOT OWNED! I'M NOT OWNED!!!!!", which is ridiculous for anyone with half a brain cell... but basically set up irrational seething from his more radical voter base that will go on for a long time to come.

'Stop the count' will be their Elders of Zion. Good luck reasoning with hardcore trumptards.

That being said I can still see a large portion of his voter base healing after Trump moves away from the political sphere.

I honestly don't think that anyone is surprised by Trump being a sore loser. It's part of his DNA, he's a bad winner and a worse loser.

People are only going to "heal" when the insults stop. Keep accusing people of all kinds of heinous things and there will never be peace.

Here...if you have 11 min to spare, watch this:



I don't expect everyone to agree with all that is said in that, I don't...but there's a ton of great points made. Trump is what happens when you piss off millions of people...pissed off people are rarely rational.

 

[Tripredacus]

Someone fill in The Kid what it's like having a conversation with a MAGA Man.

There is no real difference between a "MAGA Man" and anyone else who is aligned to a specific ideology. Rarely do you run into one that thinks for themselves or tries to understand how things work. You can always tell that they are just parroting something they are told. The strange thing is that while you can get them to understand the particulars of what they are saying, immediately after the conversation is over they will go back about their lives doing what they were doing. It seems most difficult in getting people to think for themselves for more than five minutes. Once in a while, you can get people to rethink their life.

 

[smokehouse]

I don't think you'll find anywhere in my post where I said these problems start and end with chump. There were an awful lot of hillbilly white folk upset that a black man was elected president though, and make no mistake - chump did capitalize on that anger. I think you'll have a hell of a time trying to disprove that. So yeah, it stands - if chump hadn't been such a literal fuckboy, we may not be in quite the mess we are now. Admittedly, I didn't live in the US for the majority of the Obama administration. I was here for the last 7 or so months of it though, and the change was immediate and very apparent.



So you're saying that Antifa does to the Proud Virgins what the Proud Virgins did to non-white voters on election day, except every day?

I'm not going to address a "so you're saying" remark...I've said it again and again. I say what I say, don't apply more to it that that. I place ANTIFA in the same shit-pot as the proud boys.

Second...you may want to think about who said what and when. Saying something like this:


"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Wasn't the best idea. I'm not saying that he wasn't partially correct...but it was the way he said it and what his "followers" did with comments of that nature is what led us to 2016. I will never deny that there were Americans who simply did not want a black president...but those #s are FAR less than people like you love to claim. It got to the point where most people who weren't a fan of Obama and his policies were immediately labeled racist. Before 2008, I had never been called a racist...not once, by anyone. Since then? I've lost count at the times I've been accused of it. Do I blame that on Obama? Hell no, not at all, he often asked for unity and more understanding...but most Democrats didn't listen. I blame it on the left wing loonies that are currently fanning the flames of the modern day witch hunt.

I also think that people want to erase how nasty Clinton was during the 2016 race. Again...make nasty comments about a large group of people and see where they go. Right into the arms of someone like Trump.

I'm not claiming that white people are victims...but insult them long enough and you get what you get.

 

[SML]

The president is disputing the outcome of the election with the same empiricism he's based every policy decision of his presidency on. It's not personal.

 

[smokehouse]

There is no real difference between a "MAGA Man" and anyone else who is aligned to a specific ideology. Rarely do you run into one that thinks for themselves or tries to understand how things work. You can always tell that they are just parroting something they are told. The strange thing is that while you can get them to understand the particulars of what they are saying, immediately after the conversation is over they will go back about their lives doing what they were doing. It seems most difficult in getting people to think for themselves for more than five minutes. Once in a while, you can get people to rethink their life.

I denounced religion a long time ago. In my real life, I've had countless discussions with theist people, mostly "Christian". While I've had many reasonable, logical conversations, some of them have ended in fire. In the end, there's really no logic for religion...just faith and feelings.

Politics seem to be on the same path. I love discussing politics, especially social construct and laws. some people will have a reasonable conversation but as time passes, more and more sound like they're discussing religion. Show someone facts, data, numbers, and they resort to emotions and simply how they "feel" about it vs "think" about it. Identity politics and politics as religion is becoming a huge issue.

 

[Tripredacus]

What do you expect when actual religion is not important? Something has to fill that void.

 

[smokehouse]

What do you expect when actual religion is not important? Something has to fill that void.

Oh, I agree completely. The problem is that with religion, comes fanatics and those people aren't to be fucked with.

How many people have done horrific things in the name of their religion? If large numbers of people start doing this here in the name of their political party...we're all in deep trouble.

 

[ChopstickSamurai]

Hopefully in a few years we can all wear red caps again without assuming it’s a MAGA one. I work with a guy who has a red TOMMY hat and it’s hilarious how everyone assumes it’s a MAGA one.

 

[smokehouse]

Hopefully in a few years we can all wear red caps again without assuming it’s a MAGA one. I work with a guy who has a red TOMMY hat and it’s hilarious how everyone assumes it’s a MAGA one.

Honestly...America shouldn't be a place where anyone is afraid to wear any hat. It doesn't matter how one feels about it, its a fucking hat.

I could walk right into the local ma-pa grocery store in our pissant little midwest town sporting a Biden hat and no one would say a thing. If I went over to Peoria in a MAGA hat...I can't be so sure.

Freedom of speech doesn't protect those you agree with yet so many get that twisted. We've confused speech with actual actions.

 

[LoneSage]

I could walk right into the local ma-pa grocery store in our pissant little midwest town sporting a Biden hat and no one would say a thing. If I went over to Peoria in a MAGA hat...I can't be so sure.

It's almost as if openly supporting someone who has divided Americans for the past four years and has made the country a laughingstock on the international stage will get you shit on.

 

[smokehouse]

It's almost as if openly supporting someone who has divided Americans for the past four years and has made the country a laughingstock on the international stage will get you shit on.

And they can make all the snide remarks they like...but harassing them or even worse, assaulting them is completely unacceptable. We should all be better than this...

 

[norton9478]

I must say that I completely disagree with you on ANTIFA...they are a violent walking contradiction. So they're not pushing race, religion, and nationalism like some right wing groups, ok. What they are doing is using threats, intimidation, and violence to stamp out any voice or opinion they do not agree with.

Wrong. Antifa is anti fascist. That's it. There is a wide diversity of political thought within the ANTIFA realm. What unites them in that they understand the threat posed by fascism and it's offshoots and are willing to go toe to toe.