Even in 2016 it was clear he was a con artist. He literally said in one of the debates that he wouldn’t accept the results of the election if he lost.
Cue 2020: shocked Pikachu face
or the “russia, if you’re listening…”
He didn’t respect the results when he won. He saw that he lost the popular vote and cried about it for ages.
I think everyone expected him to cry fowl when he lost in 2020. I think being a little surprised that he’d go so far as to stage a violent coup is probably understandable.
If you cry fowl you probably need to see a doctor to get your tear ducts checked out.
tear *ducks. Fixed that for you
I can’t believe I missed it.
*Tear ducks
Or get busy making the next pollos hermanos
Figuratively, though. It wouldn’t be difficult to imagine Trump squawking like a chicken and flapping his arms while turning in a tight circle when something truly upsetting to him occurred.
Why are we acting like Jan 6th was the only logical reason to be against him by that point?
Have we just forgotten his presidency? There was already no excuses going into 2020, especially with the COVID deaths.
I can say that it was not the only reason. (After all, he did lose the 2020 election) In 2016, I voted for Trump. This was because my friends did too. I thought he was going to drain the swamp so to speak. He had very good slogans and populist policies that appealed to the masses. He made you feel seen.
This changed when he kept on with his attempted Muslim ban, rhetoric to lock people up, and name calling throughout the first three years. There were some bright spots, such as better finding to CBP and policy changes to alleviate our court system (still not perfect as one needs more resources in the court system too) The Trump administration actually engaged over in Central Asia which had a noticeable impact over there. My dad had pointed out that the Government was doing some good work not quite making it to the mainstream media. I noticed Britain leave the EU for questionable reasons because of the same forces. I read the Mueller Report on Russian interference in the 2016 election (and barely remember it four years later)
I thought that it was likely that the Russians colluded with the Republicans, but it could not be proven. And it could have remained that way if not for Trump’s first impeachment. Trump withheld aid to Ukraine in return for finding dirt on his political rival Joe Biden as well as trying to pin the election interference on Ukraine. This impeachment had a man I highly respect break from his own party and vote to convict for abuse of power. But he was the only one who would stand against the tide.
Three years in, I could be counted as a swing voter, favoring neither party. I had seen the Republican party pay lip service to Christian values and yet fail to have integrity. I had a mild dislike of Trump and was starting to think his policies were not implemented correctly. Then Covid happened
I lost my job, was chronically online, and listened to a lot of podcasts. Trump had a really bad messaging problem then. I thought he needed to throw his phone in the toilet and stay off of Twitter. He recommended hydroxycloroquine as a treatment which was kind of dumb. He didn’t support his governors when they would lock down states for public health and instead would berate my own governor for trying to save lives. The more extreme Michigan Republicans would compare her to Hitler (Godwin’s law at work) and Trump would engage with that. This mostly made me appreciate Governor Whitmer more as she was making good policy decisions.
A couple months go by and George Floyd was killed by police officers in Minneapolis. This was murder. People would be protesting the police brutality that pervades police departments everywhere. The police unions that let problematic officers go from one police department to another and spread their often racist policies. There were protests everywhere from DC to Seattle. While many conservatives will focus on the shit show that was CHAZ, I saw the one in DC. Especially on one morning when security services cleared the park for Donald J Trump to go across the street for a photo op. This photo op was front of a church where he held a Bible upside down. And in that moment, I saw the Trump presidency as a fake Christian presidency. It didn’t matter how pro-life he was or how many pastors endorsed him anymore. That ruined it forever for me.
The following months would only serve to cement that opinion as I saw him lay the groundwork for denying the election by discrediting mail in voting, especially as there was much more need of it than previous elections. I thought this was a stupid move as he would be undermining Democratic legitimacy. Little did I know, that was the point. We all know what happens next though. The election happens, Trump is defeated, launches over 50 lawsuits, wins one, and changes zero districts. He incites a riot at the Capitol. He spreads conspiracy theories. He blackmails a secretary of state. He gets impeached again and gets acquitted again.
But you know that part of the story
Most Trump supporters just believe every negative story about him is a government conspiracy created to try to keep him out of power.
The lawsuits, the criminal charges, the COVID deaths… They think they’re all lies of the liberal media.
How do you fight that?
Offer them something better. They support Trump because he makes them feel:
- Smart for cutting through all the lies to get to the truth.
- Part of something bigger than themselves.
- Victimized/marginalized (few things are more empowering than being wronged).
The opposition has to overcome these powerful emotions. Currently, they are kinda banking on a decisive victory in court. That might be enough to dispel some of the enchanted, but will only encourage the most fervent. Worse, if it doesn’t get him locked up or disqualify him from running, it’s going to increase his power.
The best way to fight it is with a candidate that can beat him. I hope Biden is capable of pulling it off a second time.
Besides Trump himself, there are systemic issues that we should be fighting over. The electoral collage system is a huge problem that isn’t going away. 2000 and 2016 elections won by candidates with fewer votes.
Gerrymandering is also a big reason why he has as much support as he enjoys. Honestly, I might not care as much if he were president if Congress and State legislatures weren’t so out of wack with our population distributions. Representative government my ass. Land is straight up voting and it should piss us all off way more.
The best way to fight it is with a candidate that can beat him.
In 2016 that candidate was Bernie
True
If only Biden backed out, their win would be guaranteed
Having a functioning brain?
If there was a grand government conspiracy to keep Trump from power, why didn’t they keep him from power the first time? And why has this conspiracy been so ineffective at disappearing or otherwise fast-tracking a baseless trial against him to convict and imprison him? Why hasn’t the CIA or FBI simply taken him out, given their historic track record of taking out foreign or domestic politically problematic persons?
What conspiracy could be so ineffective as to permit him to not only rise to power, but to attain it for a time, and to try to reclaim it?
It’s difficult to trust anything when you firmly believe the source of the well is tainted. There’s a religiosity to it.
Trump is openly saying that he’s going to be a dictator. Trump is the Republican election pick. If you vote Republican, you vote for Trump, you’re a shit bag faschie voting for fascism. Full stop.
Well if Trump tries the dictator thing we can always try out that 2nd Amendment thing.
I have long said the KKK traded their white hoods for red caps. Fuck the GOP.
I actually threw away my red Nike hat just to avoid the confusion. Fuck trump.
I as a Canadian just don’t get the appeal. He’s not handsome by any stretch so there’s no ascetic attraction.
He’s not nearly as wealthy as he claims he is so it can’t be admiration for his success.
He’s got zero charisma so it can’t be his charm.
He’s as dumb as a pile of rocks so it can’t be they admire his intelligence.
He’s got the athletic prowess of a half dead goldfish and the skin tone of one so it can’t be his physical ability.
I honestly just can’t fathom the appeal.
He appeals to the hateful, and the stupid. He wants to hurt the people they want hurt. It’s that simple.
I imagine if you were also as dumb as a pile of rocks you’d think he was perfectly smart.
There is no appeal, they’re just too stupid to understand his flaws.
We are talking about Americans here. They aren’t the brightest people. So to most of these points they think the opposite.
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Because legacy, independent, and basement medias are constantly beaming images of Trump at them, and when they’re given no other option of ideas that’s the only one they know. That’s why I find it hard to believe that Trump is a Russian asset, then it would mean the media is also owned by Russians, but they’re not, they’re owned by Western billionaires. Trump has been engineered by the ruling class, and so has his popularity.
You think that Donald Trump won because too many people saw his picture on TV?
I’m going to say he won because he said the quiet part out loud and a good chunk of Americans are just dumb bigoted fucks. Especially now.
Ding!! The ruling class used Trump to weaponize bigotry.
Whats fucked up is as I’ve watched all of this unfold, I can’t help but briefly entertain the idea that those fuckers all decided to do their own version of Richmond Valentine’s Plan from Kingsman:
When you get a virus, you get a fever. That’s the human body raising its core temperature to kill the virus. Planet Earth works the same way: global warming is the fever, mankind is the virus. We’re making our planet sick. A cull is our only hope. If we don’t reduce our population ourselves, there’s only one or two ways this can go: the host kills the virus, or the virus kills the host. Either way…
I think that when a person with a relatively normal level of intelligence hears the word salad that Trump routinely strings together, their response is usually along the lines of: “What the hell is that idiot saying now?”
But when a MAGAT hears him speak, they think: “Well shit. I can’t understand what he’s saying, and I think I’m pretty smart, so he must be a genius!”
A lot of people have explanations based on rational reasoning, like if they see the same facts that we do, but reach different conclusions. But these explanations always come off feeling a bit, I dunno, wobbly. What if it’s not rational at all? What if it’s a form of brainwashing, or something like hypnosis?
What Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orbán Understand About Your Brain
A big part of it that few are willing to look at is the that it is a reaction to the rapid, forceful acceptance of transgender issues in our society and i totally get it. Im not willing to support fascism though just cause i want things to change… im also not willing to argue about this with anyone cause people on both sides of this issue are as closed minded as it gets. edit: i’ve indulged this more than i planned on. i’m now done responding. I’d be happy to explain myself further, even arguing, but the LGBTQ agenda has taken over the internet and anything i have to say that goes against it gets removed because i’m “being a bigot.”… this is fascism guys. MAGA is fascist, LGBTQ is fascist… go ahead and take my words down now. Have a nice day.
rapid, forceful acceptance of transgender issues in our society
Oh! How terrible for you! How can you possibly manage to live your life now that you’re aware of other people’s hardships? This is totally unfair for you!
you’re projecting… have a nice day.
It’s less about trans people existing, and more about catering our society around a tiny subsection of people taking drugs to modify their appearance.
It’s controversial to say men have penises these days because people are immediately jumping down our throat saying that’s not the case.
What part of our society is catering to them? The part where we decide it’s wrong to attack them because they are transgender? The part where we think it’s okay for them to have the same rights as everyone else? Please tell.
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Not to take away from your message, but what you’ve called out is under the umbrella of ‘intersex’ and genetic disorders, not necessarily trans. There can be large overlap between the two, but they are separate things.
Why is it any time there’s the smallest opposition to anything trans it immediately swings to the extreme?
I never mentioned anything about denying their safety or talking about limiting rights.
It’s legal in America, they can already do what they want. Which is far better than a majority of the world, where you can’t even be gay.
People are pushing back on the rewriting of deeply entrenched societal norms. Latinx and all that other bullshit.
Be trans, don’t force us to participate in your delusion with you.
I’m actually not trans, but I’ve never felt like anyone was “forcing me to participate” in trans culture or society. On the other hand, I have often felt like religious people were pressuring me into their system of beliefs, so if we’re worrying about that sort of pressure, then we should start there.
You know you sound like a nazi and yet you keep repeating the same nazi propaganda.
Do you complain about accommodation for anyone else? 🤔 All you have to do is literally not say something offensive to a trans person. That’s it. You don’t have to like trans people, you don’t have to like gay people. Hell, you don’t even have to like black people if you’re a racist. BUT YOU HAVE TO LEAVE THEM ALONE. That is literally all you’re required to do. If leaving people alone is a problem I’m afraid it’s a you problem.
This shit right here
You’re blurring the line between actual extremists who seek to physically harm and completely erase trans people, and moderate people with mild criticisms.
Because we don’t want exactly what you want, we’re Nazi’s.
You’re welcome to delude yourselves, you are allotted that freedom. Don’t call us transphobes because we don’t want to date you. Don’t call us transphobes because we don’t want to remove all form of gender from language (Latinx). Don’t call us transphobes because we misgendered you on account of your massive fucking adams apple and deep voice.
I’ve been nice to every trans person I’ve come across in my life, and don’t voice my opinions to them.
I’m not the problem. Go after the radicals who seek to erase freedoms.
Zero specifics, just platitudes, very cool. Classic right wing 😎
I’m on the left, but okay.
I feel like your last sentence should inspire some introspection for you haha
I didn’t say im not willing to change my mind, i said im not willing to argue about it… with people on the internet
“…im also not willing to argue about this…cause closed minded as it gets”
I didn’t say im not willing to change my mind, i said im not willing to argue about it… with people on the internet
Hate to tell you but I’m non binary. I’m 49 and knew in 1978 that I was the wrong gender.
I’m also neurodivergent and there is compelling evidence that there is a connection between gender dysphoria and neurodivergant disorders like adhd and autism.
Maybe accepting trans people is simply learning to accept that people are built different and that something that is part of a person’s disability should be accepted because people with disabilities should be accepted.
You’re welcome to believe whatever you want to believe but i don’t believe you and i’m not going to argue about it. Have a nice day.
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This is a belief that people have, i do not share their belief but i still hope they have a nice day. take it or leave it, im not going to explain any further.
What belief? You think transgender people are just making it up?
That’s an interesting way to say “I’m a bigot.”
label me however you want, it doesn’t mean you’re right… have a nice day
I love how you transphobes think that you know some stranger’s internal life much better than they know it themselves. So fucking arrogant.
As a trans person, I absolutely disagree with you on that topic. But I do agree that a lot of the people supporting trump are single-issue voters, whether it be LGBT rights, abortion, immigration, etc.
Have you tried just minding your own business?
You know, just placing “being a bigot” in quotation marks doesn’t make you not a bigot. You are very much a bigot. Like, the very definition of one. So if you’ve got a problem with that, I suggest you take it up with Merriam-Webster.
All of his supporters in 2016 were also bad people. They saw the “grab them by the pussy” tape, they saw him make fun of a disabled person, and thought he was still a worthy candidate for their vote.
Whenever I brought this up to my Trump-supporting aunt (who lives in the UK) she would just wave it off and say, “Oh that’s fake news.” I genuinely think they’re incapable of even entertaining those facts, let alone seeing them and supporting them as you say. It’s an absurd level of brainwashing.
Oh, I got sick of Trump so quickly that around a year after he got in office I was just catering discussions with “Why would you support a known and admitted rapist?” Doesn’t advance the conversation with those fools, but it certainly ends it.
Belief is social. People struggle to believe things that clash with their in group. They’ll go to great lengths to avoid it.
When I actually talk with Trump supporters, it’s very clear to me that many don’t actually support trump. Or, at least, not the trump we see. It’s usually a case of leading a busy life and making the mistake of trusting a news org to tell you the truth of the matter when you have five minutes to catch up. And if you pick one that supports trump …well you see where this goes. It is admittedly clear that people don’t understand the gravity of the situation—but as a result, the ‘crime’ is usually ignorance, not maliciousness. As always, the fact that this is a ‘political’ topic muddies the water, and no one understands what the other side actually wants. We do agree on most things, it’s just silly tribalism that makes us call a large portion of the population a “piece of shit”.
There are always those outliers that are genuinely evil, but I do believe they’re outliers.
“Be careful to attribute malice to actions taken by ignorance”.
Something like that, I don’t remember the quote correctly.I’d say as a small counter-argument though, the amount of ignorance required to still support Trump is not something simply to hand wave away.
Hanlon’s razor – “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity”
I am sure they are out there, but I haven’t actually met an open Trump supporter who isn’t an unhinged lunatic. In a few cases, we have gone a lifetime without their awful politics coming out, until Trump comes up and then they are actually unashamed fascists, Christian nationalists, and conspiracy guzzling assholes.
Personally I don’t care to characterize em as lunatics, because that word really only serves to categorize them into an entirely different realm of brain function, and I feel like that’s counterproductive and misrepresents how fascism works. It’s not that millions of people lose their minds and frothingly support fascism, it’s that fascism is capable of presenting itself as something else, or necessary, to an otherwise normal in-group base using a number of psychological weak points, many of which have been exacerbated in the Internet age with little popular understanding.
To name one example, I think of some folks I knew in my hometown, brilliant engineers, electricians, people with extreme talent in one specific thing, living in places where diversity has been historically squashed so they’ve only known a snow globe’s worth of the world. And, especially among the older generation, they’re simultaneously not very social media savvy but also way too online… Once they’re given a nebulous external force to fear, the final stop of that train should be a surprise to no one.
I don’t say this to absolve fascists of personal blame, because well and truly fuck 'em, they are responsible nonetheless. But fantasizing that their brains are just broken and don’t function like ours is missing the point. Everyone’s susceptible to a grift, social media bubble, or wishful thinking of some kind. And when you factor in trauma as a politically neutral psychological force, human behavior suddenly becomes a lot less “stupid” and a lot more… frustrating. Pretending we’re not weak to analogues of many of the same things is doing ourselves a disservice. We need a better standard than just doing what they do when they talk about trans people like we’re space aliens incapable of reason.
To be fair, that’s likely because the more reasonable ones are smart enough to know it’s stupid to openly proclaim support of trump. It’s likely that outlier group I mentioned that are ‘open trump supporters’
Yeah there’s a huge mistake in assuming everyone is some politically engaged online person, most people live their lives and experience politics though media. They saw the media and people freaking out over Trump from the start, yet they experienced little to nothing during his Presidency that negatively impacted their lives in contrast.
It would seemingly require intentionally being ignorant. And if you’re that ignorant, whether by choice or not, and then go and vote for the guy then that makes you a piece of shit.
Great way to rephrase my point, a lot more concise XD Sometimes I ramble.
Yess! You are so right and people should hear it!
Also I feel like social media and modern news networks have hugely reinforced this “tribalism”. Unfortunately, negative news always does better than positive news so I can’t see news/social media platforms turning around and trying to slow down this effect.
Glenn Greenwald actually talked about how Trump supporters are famously distrustful of (a) the Security State and (b) corporate media, and so there’s only like two news sources that they show positive numbers for trust in - Fox and Newsmax.
What doesn’t help is that they do lie about Trump, and make him out to be a literal insurrectionist… Think what you want about him in terms of his politics being colored by racism and Islamophobia (his Muslim ban was pretty nuts), but you can’t call the guy an insurrectionist unless you greatly modify what an insurrection is and what it means to insight one. Things like this plus upgrading frivolous financial misdemeanors that megacorporations routinely violate to federal crimes in an effort to remove him from the ballot have a radicalizing effect…
But yeah, IDK, I’d vote for Trump over Biden because he is antiestablishment and his foreign policy is better in the long run.
But yeah, IDK, I’d vote for Trump over Biden
Then that makes you a shit human being.
because he is antiestablishment and his foreign policy is better in the long run.
He is literally pro-establishment. Where the fuck are you getting your information?
Where do you get your definition of insurrection? I’d have thought that attempting to overthrow a democratically elected government to install yourself as dictator meets just about any definition.
That’s a mere interpretation of what happened that would never stand up in a court of law, hence why no formal charges have been brought. It’s completely speculative.
Which is exactly why we can’t remove him from ballots or refer to it as an insurrection.
Remember the Iraq War? We referred to the opposition after Hussein fell as terrorists (not very accurate, very lame Zioconservative take), or as insurgents, which is accurate.
Insurgency implies some long term armed resistance. It can’t refer to some impromptu riot on the police lines.
You didn’t answer my question - where do you get your definition of insurrection?
Trump has already been found to have incited insurrection in court, and was disqualified from the ballot in Colorado for just that reason.
The stacking of the senate, failure of democracy and abandonment of the rule of law makes bringing federal charges pointless (see his multiple impeachments). This is a strange standard to try (and fail) to apply under the circumstances.
I suppose my definition is the one from the Oxford dictionary:
an organized attempt by a group of people to defeat their government and take control of their country, usually by violence:
J6 cannot meet such a burden since it was not an organized attempt and it certainly wasn’t violent in the way that a real move to overthrow the government would be, only violent in the sense that any disorganized protest can be.
… And while some people can toss around the word insurrection, you notice that there is no serious charge against Trump on this, because there can be no charge, since he said nothing nor does any other evidence exists which show he incited anyone to any illegal act, let alone an attempt to overthrow the government. This is only possible through assumption & interpretation of what happened that it was even an ‘insurrection.’
An organised attempt by a group of people
✅ Pre-planned by several groups - remember the criticism Pelosi was facing because it was well known ahead of time that this attack was planned? Several organisations were involved - Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, NSC-131, Qanon… Yep.
to defeat their government and take control of their country
✅ A transparent attempt to seize the capitol by force and overturn the election after loudly and consistently rejecting the results, coercing electors, posing as fake electors - not to mention decades of gerrymandering and voter suppression, but that’s straying from insurrection into rigging elections… Yep.
usually by violence
✅ Aside from using force to achieve what they did, don’t forget that there were caches of weapons and that Trump was trying to have the mag detectors removed. The insurrectionists were calling to hang members of parliament while forcing their way on to the floor, ransacking congressional offices, injuring cops… Yep.
What part of your definition do you think hasn’t been met, again?
Trump hasn’t been charged with insurrection because the Democrats are cowards and the Republicans and their appointed judges are corrupt. I’ll rely on the dictionary for my definitions over relying on liberal cowardice and conservative corruption, thanks.
This is what’s called “cherry picking”. It was an insurrection, even Fox News calls it that. Bro…
Nah, an insurrection is what was happening in Iraq after the 2003 invasion (and happening rightfully so).
If what occurred on J6 was an insurrection, it would have been explicitly violent or had a real organized plan for the literal overthrow of the government.
Even the ridiculous plan organized by the Proud Boys was not really an insurrection even though it involved demanding a re-vote (or a re-vote after a recount) because it ultimately wanted to preserve democratic norms, and the fools who came up with it sincerely believed that democracy was completely undermined by the last election… Which, arguably, it was.
Employing non-lethal means to occupy a place as a protest seems reasonable, doesn’t it? This is what people did after the killing of George Floyd.
From what I see, Trump is indicative of a growing trend, generally by conservatives to bring religion and their beliefs into government.
Trump is more absolutist and authoritarian than many other political candidates that I have seen.
To my best understanding of the current climate of the people who support him, they want more authoritarian control over what other people do. Partly in an effort to make themselves more comfortable in their own social interactions with others. So their assumptions of things like, women have curves, and men wear pants and have beards, and men like women and women like men, etc, are always correct, despite the fact that reality disagrees with them.
They’re always on the lookout for any way for them to improve their socio-economic standing as well, with the basic concept of more for me, less for everyone else.
I believe that to them, Trump is a means to an end. Less for everyone else, more for them. More of their rules, and values, imposed on others, whether others want it or not.
Take for example, gay marriage. IMO, it’s just marriage, eg. Two people who love eachother pledging their intention to continue to love and support eachother. My view is starkly contrasted by their view of “marriage is between a man and a woman before God!” (Or similar). Something something, the sanctity of marriage… Blah blah. Nobody seems to care about divorce rates though the writings they’re imposing on others pretty clearly state that marriage before God is a joining of souls in permanent matrimony and cannot and will not be broken. Ever. But I digress. Since they’re opposed to gay marriage, they don’t want it to be allowed, though it’s clearly discrimination. Arguing about “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve” and whatnot. The authoritarian, bull headed, my way out the highway mindset of someone like Trump, can actually achieve such goals. He’s absolutist. Whether he believes in the prohibition of gay marriage or not.
On a personal note, I hope all the LGBTQ+ people get all the same rights to be as happy or as miserable as the cis/straight people. You’re all fabulous and I love you all as brothers/sisters/siblings (for the gender ambiguous). I personally will continue to support you and fight along side all of you for equality.
Circling back to the point, this viewpoint can be copied and pasted on a number of issues that the right may not feel that they are properly represented on. Another good example is abortion; but that has mostly played out with the whole roe v. Wade thing, so I won’t go into more detail there, despite the fact that I have a lot of things to say about it.
I think that demonstrates the point. They don’t value him for what/who he is, they value him more for what he can do for them… To accomplish their goals and impose their ideals on everyone else. His ethical deficiencies and disregard for anyone’s opinion, well-being, and opinion, are desirable features for them.
They’re pushing for oppression of anyone who is different from them, trying to move up their capitalist ladder of success. Trump is just the latest tool that they’re trying to use to accomplish that goal.
Meanwhile the supreme court is hearing a case that may make it impossible for the feds to regulate anything. The Koch brothers (America’s oligarchs) are behind it. They are still mad about the regulations on oil drilling waste.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/26/charles-koch-us-government-rightwing-supreme-court
I’m still confused why some of the right wing people do some things. This is a good example of something I cannot make sense of. I can only guess it’s in the same vein as absolute freedom, which is a core philosophy for some people, not necessarily just right wing people.
IMO, government regulations can, and often do, help the country as a whole. Absolute freedom borders on anarchy too closely for me.
“marriage is between a man and a woman before God!
Ummm… but what about all the men in the bible with many wives. There was no one man one wife thing in almost the entire Bible. Almost all of the people who are touted to be amazing examples of God’s peopel… were polygamists… and since that wasn’t enough, they would have the concubines on the side. Point that out and they run away.
Ummm… but what about all the men in the bible with many wives. There was no one man one wife thing in almost the entire Bible. Almost all of the people who are touted to be amazing examples of God’s peopel… were polygamists… and since that wasn’t enough, they would have the concubines on the side. Point that out and they run away.
There’s several points in the Gospel where Christ points at a departure from this though, right, like in Matthew 19 and Matthew 22, but the most poignant passage is 1 Corinthians 7:
2 But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband. 3 The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4 The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. 5 Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. 6 I say this as a concession, not as a command. 7 I wish that all of you were as I am. But each of you has your own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that.
8 Now to the unmarried[a] and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do. 9 But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
The purpose of getting married is the relief of sexual lust - and since we are talking about just relieving it, the idea of having multiple wives or concubines on the side is a perversion of this. We can even look at the story of King David and Bathsheba as an example of why you shouldn’t covet moaaarr wamen. It has been pointed out before that, like, adultery and lust are so powerful and pertinent that 2 of the 10 commandments are about it…
So i would say that one of the clarifications that exist, and one of the new usherings in of Christianity, is strict monogamy, and also praise for monasticism…
I think it’s simpler than that. Conservatism, at its core, has always been a purely reactionary opposition to liberal and progressive politics. In the modern era, it has felt the need to wrap itself in something resembling a positive ideology which presents thinly falsifiable policy positions, regardless of how narrow and mutable those ideological boundaries might be. Because until recently, abject, reactionary nihilism has been seen as a losing position.
Trump has freed conservatives from that burden. No longer do they need to create and defend any flimsy intellectual basis for their reactionary stances - Trump has presented a completely liturgical basis for conservative nihilism, and in doing so, he has freed millions of anti-intellectual CHUDS from the burden of thinking, and they love him for it.
Conservatism, at its core, has always been a purely reactionary opposition to liberal and progressive politics. In the modern era, it has felt the need to wrap itself in something resembling a positive ideology which presents thinly falsifiable policy positions, regardless of how narrow and mutable those ideological boundaries might be.
Well, there’s two major divides within conservatism as it plays out today, right?
Classical liberalism, we can call one, and then populist conservatism…
Classical liberal Republicans/Libertarians are highly principled and highly progressive with very positive, engaging values - think about these old guys like Paul Findley who were fundamentally isolationist, anti-war, pro-Palestine conservatives, that truly believed in Hayek’s Constitution of Liberty and that the key to bettering humans is through decentralization of power, minimal government, and human freedom.
And then there is conservatism that goes back to, like, tradition or populism.
Of course, these things often combine, but I think you need to treat conservatism with a lot of nuance because otherwise you are just dismantling a strawman.
Because until recently, abject, reactionary nihilism has been seen as a losing position.
Revolutionary nihilism is how radical liberalism was portrayed by Dostoevsky in the Devils - a great book - and it does make sense, because we see at its root that some of these radical movements actually were about reinventing all of society around totally new principles and annihilating what has hitherto been normalized in Western civilization…
Yes, there is like the Nietzschean reactionaries who want to build the New Man, but yeah, it’s still a losing position. I do not even think that guys like BAP are even on that level - like some of the hardcore neopagan LARP squad certainly envisions a completely new basis to muh Western civilization. But it’s not like Varg Vikernes is a viable option - in spite of how wildly popular Black Metal became after hipsters getting into blackgaze and shit after ironic Pitchfork album reviews, not even one of the most seminal figures in the genre can be anything much more than a joke for having these beliefs.
I think one of the problems we have is the paranoia about this stuff - you act as if the right is really some monster that is rising to swallow the country in a wave of Fascism, but it’s not the right who are anywhere near successfully removing their opponents from ballots.
Hahaha “Trump is indicative of a grown trend to bring religion in to government” Forst speech of Biden as candidet is in a church, his peach is to say Trumo = nazi. Lol
I’m not sure I understand what you’ve said. There seems to be a language barrier.
I think it’s simpler than that–life was just better before Biden and after Obama.
I mean, unless you were one of the several hundred thousand people who died or lost loved ones to COVID for entirely preventable reasons. Or someone who’s not a complete shit human being who actually cares about their country being a democracy. But yeah. If you are a shit human being and you believe that COVID was caused by 5G networks or something, then sure. Trump was a great president.
You mean to say that at the end of his term, a deadly virus hit the whole world and he couldn’t get a vaccine created in time to save everyone? Come on man, what could anyone have done in that timeframe? Does he get credit for the vaccine that Joe Biden and Democrats said they would NOT take because Trump recommended it? But when Biden took office was recommending it all day every day.
Secondly, our country is a republic, not a democracy–please lookup the Pledge of Allegiance.
Are you saying saying the Jan6 fiasco–where no one died (by the rioters), Democrats refused Trump’s requests for National Guard, and no one was convicted of treason or insurrection–was worse than the summer of love–where cops were murdered, businesses and government buildings destroyed, all in the name of George Floyd, who died from a drug overdose?
Come on man!
I’m going to respond to this first, because I think it’s the most succinct example of the point I’m about to make:
Secondly, our country is a republic, not a democracy–please lookup the Pledge of Allegiance.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I think it’s very unlikely that you know what either a republic or a democracy is. Because you seem to think that they’re mutually exclusive, when in fact they are very much not. America, my slow friend, is a democratic republic. A republic is a political system in which a representative is given executive authority for a particular period of time. The “particular period of time” bit is what differentiates it from, say, a monarchy. Presidents in the US are elected every 4 years. This makes it a republic.
A democracy is a political system in which the populace as a whole is invested with the authority to vote on things. This can, and often does include representatives, such as a president.
So you see, America is both a Democracy AND a Republic, and the two are not mutually exclusive. There. Now that you’ve had the most basic of civics lessons that you as a potentially functional adult SHOULD HAVE ALREADY FUCKING KNOWN… let’s get to the meat of what you replied with.
You mean to say that at the end of his term, a deadly virus hit the whole world and he couldn’t get a vaccine created in time to save everyone?
No. That would be stupid. Trump had no control over the virus any more than anybody else in the world did. And yet, he was the figurehead of the nation, and wielded executive authority that allowed him to take steps to mitigate its impact. This is the same for every other head of state in the world. So one has to ask why America did so poorly in its response to the virus compared to most of the rest of the world.
For starters, it’s probably not a good thing that he routinely poo-pooed life saving measures, such as social distancing and masking. And it’s also not a good thing that he promoted things like hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug that has zero proven benefits in relation to COVID. Additionally, I would argue that it was a bad thing that members of his administration sought to divert life-saving medical equipment such as ventilators from blue states.
The truth is, at every turn, Trump did the dumbest, most harmful thing possible. Remember that time he speculated openly on the mic about whether you could inject bleach or shove a light bulb up your ass to kill COVID? Good times. Or that time when he caught COVID, was rushed to Walter Reed where he received treatments not available to the rest of the public, and then he ordered his secret service guys to drive him around (while not masked) to show the world that “hey - COVID’s no big deal!”
I could go on with more, but I doubt you’re going to read anything I’ve written anyway. Your last paragraph is somehow dumber than the ones before it, which is impressive. You have shown yourself to have very little in the way of critical thinking skills, which means you’ll believe even the dumbest lies out there. Like your idiotic belief that the Democrats refused the National guard when there is video of Nancy Pelosi urgently requesting National Guard support. Or your even more idiotic belief that George Floyd died of a drug overdose only after being choked for 9 minutes.
I mean, my god man. How stupid can you possibly be? Have you never been taught how to examine things critically? Just, for the love of fuck, pull your head out of your ass and look at the real world around you once in a while. You have been repeatedly lied to by the people you’re defending, and you’re too dumb to see it.
I know what both are, but if we are to define what our government is, it would surely be a republic over a democracy. For example, if I said I ate an orange apple, I’m eating an apple, not an orange, even if it has some characteristics of an orange. Same could be said for democratic republic. Does it has democratic characteristics, yes, but it is a republic.
I don’t luke how Trump handled the virus in every way, I’ll give you that one. Depends on the study, but hydroxychloroquine has been effective for some, with all the variants and specific combinations of factors, it won’t work for all, just like Tylenol or Motrin isn’t a one stop fix for a headache.
With hundreds being put in jail for non-insurrection charges while Left media also claiming it was an insurrection for years, you can’t belive that at all. Even before that the Russia election interference.
Critically think about it, do you really think Trump is the only one to do anything sketchy in politics? It’s all a media and government circle jerk to make him unlikeable and ruin his name.
The good thing is that It’s really is backfiring in a big way too because folks who can think critically see it’s the Democrats so scared of corrupt, vile Trump they need to talk about him even when Biden won. They sure can’t talk about Biden’s efforts on immigration, economy, or war efforts, or even just walking and talking.
There is no confidence in our nation as soon as Trump left office. Stock markets plunged, inflation went up, used up our oil reserves, botched Afghan exit, wars popping up all over. I understand d you can be critical of both sides, and I do see Trumps flaws, but it is undeniable life during during Trump’s presidency was better than now.
I know what both are, but if we are to define what our government is, it would surely be a republic over a democracy.
Bro. It’s both. It’s literally just both. It is a republic AND a democracy. They don’t cancel each other out or anything. Dying on this hill is really not helping your case that you’re not an idiot.
I don’t luke how Trump handled the virus in every way, I’ll give you that one.
Right. Nor does anybody with a shred of common sense who didn’t want hundreds of thousands of Americans to die for no good reason.
With hundreds being put in jail for non-insurrection charges
They stormed the capitol, assaulted police officers, and tried to stop the transfer of power of the government. They are all traitors, every single one of them. Stop defending them.
If I’m a district attorney, and I have someone on assault and treason, and assault is easier to prove, then I’m going to charge them with assault. Especially when there’s hundreds of cases to process. That’s just common fucking sense, something you apparently lack.
Critically think about it, do you really think Trump is the only one to do anything sketchy in politics?
He’s the only president we’ve had who was an actual traitor. So that’s notable.
It’s all a media and government circle jerk to make him unlikeable and ruin his name.
Yes, those pesky media and their recording devices that accurately record the things he says and does. It’s their fault he’s unlikable and his name is ruined.
The good thing is that It’s really is backfiring in a big way too because folks who can think critically see it’s the Democrats so scared of corrupt, vile Trump they need to talk about him even when Biden won.
He’s a fucking traitor, you idiot. And he’s the front-runner for the Republican party. He could be president again. It’s fucking terrifying. Of course people are talking about him. If you motherfuckers had any sense of civic pride or patriotism, Trump would have zero chance of ever coming near any position of authority again for the rest of whatever remains of his life. But, of course, the Republican party is a hive of scum and villainy, and you would rather elect an actual traitor who has systematically grifted you for years than someone who thinks that trans people and gay people deserve civil rights.
Stock markets plunged, inflation went up,
Yes. That was definitely Joe Biden’s doing, and not the global fucking pandemic that lasted for several years and caused enormous financial impacts on every country in the world. You fucking idiot.
I understand d you can be critical of both sides
Do you? Because I don’t think you do. You seem totally cool with having a woefully unqualified, incompetent con artist who has already committed treason against the United States becoming president again. Seems to me like you wouldn’t know critical thinking if it walked up and shoved its fist up your asshole.
The worst part is that it’s not only Americans who are Trumpists. We’re Swedish and my mother looks up to that prick. How and why, I don’t know.
She wants to talk about immigration in your country, but can’t.
We’ve discussed it before, it’s not that. It’s the anti-vax, illuminati-believing “secret hand sign” crowd that she’s part of…
Fascism spreads exclusively through emotional manipulation. It doesn’t have to make sense. That’s half the problem.
I figure that Americans are used to arguing with relatives about American politics, but I genuinely don’t know how I will ever manage to get through to my mother.
Honestly? Vicious mockery and external support structures.
If you support trump now… You are a Natzi … Full stop.
Hahahhahahah calling nazi anybody I dont like hahha
If you’re just going to mindlessly spam far-right talking points, you should at least copy and paste them from someone capable of basic spelling and grammar.
After all, you wouldn’t want anybody to think that only the dumbest of dumb fucks support far-right reactionaries.
Dont be a nazi! You bad!!
all i can do is look at our country and let out a big sigh. what will it take for the US to better itself?
Almost all of my coworkers are Trumpers, can confirm, they are all shit people.
Trump is charismatic because he’s a narcissist. Not in spite of it, but because there’s a direct causal link.
This plays into a host of factors for the afflicted, including poor self esteem, familiarity with (and abuse from) other narcissists, and a whole lot more. This is very, very bad news because it suggests that a huge swath of the country is coping with some degree of mental health problems. The current system is pretty good at handling full-blown disorders, but anything less gets a pass or maybe is held at bay with minimal intervention. The bad part is that folks are predisposed to overt manipulation like we’ve seen in the last two presidential elections, because of it.
Upside is that enough people are self-aware and this search text auto-completed for me. But good grief are there a lot of results: https://www.google.com/search?q=why+do+i+find+narcissists+attractive
Edit: Usually I like posting things like this along with a solution, rather than just alarming people. In this case, I feel the need to post the core problem at hand, so that maybe people can see what they’re actually up against, and focus their efforts in the right place. Unfortunately, I have no idea what the right answer is here, but I’m willing to talk to anyone about it. Thanks for reading.
I’d like to remind everyone that some of us are shit people but haven’t and still don’t support Trump.
“Look, I might be a shit person, but even I have standards.”
People like Trump for the fascism. So yeah, they’re all assholes and always have been.
I don’t think one could make that argument in 2020, though. The man led an insurrection attempt. All questions were answered.
In 2021.
I mean, the writing was on the wall. Even before the election, he was saying things like: “Oh, they’re gonna rig the election against me, folks”, and his rhetoric was so toxic that at Republican debates, the moderators were asking him things like: “If you lose the election, will you abide by the peaceful transfer of power?” Which, of course, he didn’t agree to.
I mean, yes, he hadn’t actually incited people to try to overthrow the government at that point, but he very much was on record saying that that was his intention.
I could make that argument in 2016
