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That’s kind of true: you can’t get them to see reason, only spite.
It’s very frustrating.
What I’ve seen when I bring what’s happening up to family members step one is denial “oh he’s not doing that” step 2 is defend “well it’s probably for the best, kids do yern for the mines”.
Nothing is convincing.
It’s also defending the cult leader mentality. Breaking with the cult puts you on the outside, and an enemy of the cult. Breaking free of a cult isn’t easy when the cult’s actions are constantly being reinforced and regurgitated by their leader and his media disinformation networks.
Stages of grief. Most are just getting to denial.
My 90 year old grandma has moved onto bargaining. She’s trying to write a letter to DJT to “warn him about Musk”
Not bad progress, considering I couldn’t get her to budge at all over the past decade.
Stages of grief
Exactly. It doesn’t only apply to grief — any major change of beliefs will need to go through this process… unfortunately.
That’s kind of adorable.
I remember a moment before the election in 2016. A family member was going off on a Trump worshiping rant. I asked them what they thought of all the awful things that come out of his mouth. They responded with, “Oh, he’s just saying that stuff because he likes to get attention.”
I quoted a passage from Luke’s gospel. “The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil; for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.”
What happened next was amazing. They kind of paused and stared at their shoes with this expression that, if I could put words to it, would have said, “Shit. He’s got me there. How do I get around this one?” They then looked up, physically shrugged it off; like water off a ducks back. That stopped the rant but I knew that If they had to choose between Jesus and this particular version of the anti-christ, their choice was already made and it wasn’t Jesus.
I’ve been there friend. It is not a fun experience but it was very enlightening. Someday they may see it but it is terrifying to understand how willingly ignorant some of us choose to be.
I’ve seen multiple news articles/discussion about pastors being told that the Sermon on the Mount is too “woke.”
It’s been like that since Reagan. Carter was open about his faith and really genuine in it. He made the mistake of interviewing with Playboy and saying he had his own struggles with sin - as any believing Christian would admit.
But somehow Reagan became the evangelicals choice. Christian nationalism has always been the latter wearing the former as a fig leaf. The tenets of Christianity - as evidence by the things that they fight for their “first amendment rights” for - are reduced down to opposition to LGBT+ people, abortion, and ultimately women having any form of independence from their fathers or husbands. They have had nothing to do with Jesus or anything that could be said to be his message for a long time.
When Ollie North started giving tours on the evangelical circuit - that should have been a wake up call.
I’m a member of a lot of hiking communities on FB. Prior to Trump second presidency, they would blame any kind of problems related to insufficient budgeting to “ sending all money to Ukraine”. Now that he’s the president, and is BLATANTLY cutting budgets to national parks and forests, I see his supporters say “ it’s too bad we donated so much money to the national parks of Ukraine” or “ if Biden did this, you wouldn’t be complaining”, or some version of “ this is necessary, nothing really changed”.
Wild, would assume a hiking community would lean pretty solidly blue and be livid about cuts to national parks. As the last handful of elections have shown though, there are idiots all over the political spectrum.
I mean, just look at the comment fro the user “Ryan” to a post about a new schedule at the visitor’s center:
If you have trouble opening, I’ll copy and paste.
OP from Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Park:
“NEW VISITOR CENTER HOURS FROM THE Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks official Facebook Account . . .
Schedule update!
The adjusted schedule for visitor centers are as follows:
⛺️ Foothills Visitor Center is open Wednesday – Sunday from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
🌳 Giant Forest Museum is open Friday – Tuesday from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
⛰️ Kings Canyon Visitor Center is open Thursday – Sunday from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.”
This one guy responds: “This sure seems like a lot of cuts given the limited number of job losses that I’ve read about. Is this just a political statement? While I wish the federal government would spend more on parks, I’m questioning my substantial donations at this point if efforts aren’t being made to make the best of the situation.”
To be fair, a lot of the do lean blue and are livid. But there are a lot of angry boomers on FB.
Nothing is convincing.
“The GOP controls all three branches of government. Whatever the situation looks like next election, whether it’s good or bad, it’s entirely the fault of the GOP.”
It doesn’t help that they have literally been programmed by right and far right propaganda that only influences and reinforces that mentality of “unity”.
the media titans know what they’re doing
And Cambridge Analytica
Those are just the easy parts of the equation to blame. The fact is none of it matters as much as wanting to believe what they’re telling you is true. Nobody can fix the hateful parts of those people except themselves. If they don’t then it will express itself in one form or another.
Yes and no. Media gives them all their cues and phrases. Media gives them their weltanschauung.
Social identity. Hardship together. This is no joke.
I just FaceTimed with a MAGA this week as they industriously cooked a weeks worth of food to freeze. This is an individual who traditionally only defrosts processed crap on baking sheets, despises leftovers, and grocery shops every 1-3 days rather than storing food.
Not this week. Now they’re all about unprocessed foods, cooking to save money, and meal planning in advance. A 180 shift from a week ago. In addition, they’re starting a pantry.
That’s the rough part a lot of Americans need to swallow: MAGA is full of disenfranchised people that would otherwise organize in solidarity for the common good of the working class.
There’s just been so many wedges and fences built up from the Cold War that the ruling class has been able to deflect and distract from progressive policy and maintain power.
This is BS.
Every single election we are told that economic hardship is the only thing pay attention to. Sure, many of these rubes will continue to be fooled and are irredeemable. But a shit ton are going to notice and eventually get tired of getting fucked.
I am not saying they will stop voting republicans because they do seem to like the pain, but they would sure as hell eat the current administration
You’re talking about babies who couldn’t wear a mask during COVID. They have no sense of struggle and no toleration for hardship
They also had their god emperor refusing to wear masks, and political leaders openly denying the disease.
They had support for their grievences.
They won’t get that over the economy. Instead, they’re getting “this is necessary” and “you’ll just have to make some sacrifices for the economy”.
“you’ll just have to make some sacrifices for the economy”.
Musk’s new response when asked about hundreds of thousands of starving children directly tied to USAID cuts. It’s a sacrifice he’s willing to happily make.
Their God emperor was wearing a mask and taking vaccine shots behind the scenes. He then tells them the opposite.
I even have trouble believing the people that “converted back”. I just think if things change for them and time passes they’ll go back to being Republicans or MAGA.
100%. The people who have turned away from the Republican party have only done so out of a distaste for Trump, and maybe Elon. They are almost certainly not opposed much of what is being done, just how they are going about it, and who is doing it.
Or, they’ve just had their faces eaten by leopards, and are upset that they’re suffering the consequences of their actions.
You don’t get to be a Republican in 2016 or 2024 without being ok with burning the whole system down, with dreams of it being to your own benefit. They just don’t trust the current would-be monarchs to be the ones to actually give them what they believe they’re due.
There’s two kinds of people in this regard:
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The “I escaped the alt-right pipeline” types, i.e. people realizing there’s a cult and leaving it, and getting to understand more about where they’ve been and how they’ve been manipulated by an entire media ecosystem. They stop hating trans people, abortion, etc., practically changing their whole worldview as if leaving a religion. These I believe are legit because they make an effort to comprehend wtf happened so that it doesn’t happen again, and they likely attempt to pull others out as well.
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The casual types you described who will dodge a bullet here and there because a candidate rubs them the wrong way but they’re still fundamentally the same: concerned only with incoherent grievance politics, and therefore deeply susceptible to the same manipulation tactics.
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They’ll just be told that Democrats, immigrants, and trans people are causing the hardship.
I actually disagree.
There is a tipping point when MAGA followers are forced into situations where they must rely on their neighbour and mutual aid. They’ll be forced out of necessity to interact with people across the aisle who are giving them compassion.
You’re already seeing republicans flipping before that point from the DOGE cuts. Also, the governor of Kentucky is already flipping after their largest purchaser by a long-shot, Canada, took all their booze off the shelves.
MAGA followers are forced into situations where they must rely on their neighbour and mutual aid
That’s the point. Republicans want to get rid of government aid, because they want others to rely on churches or other private charitable organizations - which are able to control and force the normative behavior that conservatives want.
The government can’t say “stop being trans or we’ll cut your section 8 voucher.” But the Salvation Army can say “wear women’s clothes if you don’t want to sleep outside tonight.” Churches can make you sit through their sermon before they feed you.
There’s also the lovely aspect of church finances being a bit more opaque than the governments… sometimes that aid can trickle up…
I think this overlooks how most MAGAs are rural… and when you live rural you already rely on your neighbors. Most of which are also white and the exceptions are ““one of the good ones.”” It’s why they can demonize entire demographics and still feeling like a good person since they’re good neighbors.
They’re not going to stop blaming ‘the others’ for hardships… They’re just going increase complaints about ‘the government’ and how much they pay in taxes.
I grew up in Amish country/farmland and it’s painful to see how stagnant my family has been over the years.
Doubt (x) seeing as he was elected twice, they won’t ever learn it will always be the “other guys” politician’s fault
I really hope that this is what’s gonna happen.
Andy Beshear isn’t a Republican who flipped, he’s always been a Democrat.
The question is, will I have reached a breaking point where I will no longer be willing to help them?
There is a tipping point when MAGA followers are forced into situations where they must rely on their neighbour and mutual aid.
By the time we reach that point, there won’t be an aisle. There won’t be a government.
This is starting to sound a lot like the typical Russian mentality.
Russia’s biggest export atm.
It’s more common.
Believe it or not, there are already MAGA people pissed at him in hard red states/districts.
Yep, and they’ll vote every Republican in again next time regardless.
99/100 of em are lost causes.
Ah yes, the “Pity me, I didn’t get mine” crowd.
Their struggle isn’t shared thou. Trump supporters are not a monolith, they are composed of a diverse number of groups with different and often competing interests.
Yea they all deal with the same rise in prices, the same lack of services from their government… the same treatment from not racist members of society.
Ok sure the corpos and whatnot who put him in place dont share the struggles, but all the civies who voted for him sure do.
Surely, middle income households are not as effected as those earning minimum wage, just like high income households does not face the same challenges as those of middle income. Yes, all things become more expensive, but only some have to worry about basic sustenance.
It is absolutely shared in the sense that any hardship they face is solely because they voted for Donald Trump. We ran into this last night with my MIL. She thought both the employees at Lowe’s and Panda Express were “harassing” her because they somehow knew she was a Trump supporter.
My wife said that people were just having a hard time right now to avoid the conflict and her mom responded that “Oh that must be Trump’s fault too” and stormed out of her husband’s birthday party lmao.
Trailer Park burnt down? Must be someone who hates that they love Trump. Economy crashing? Must be because they just hate Trump.
It’s so fucking annoying.
Sounds like your MIL is in the 2nd stage of grief.
sadf
Isnt that what most of his voter base already is?
asdf
It was kind of both. I see what you mean now though
They aren’t engaged now. Anyone who really looks at politics beyond the talking points that are delivered by the right knows how insane the right is.
Lack of citizen engagement makes it easier to blame immigrants and trans women.
asdf
People in the grave can no longer vote for Trump.
They are trash people who are lost causes
Even more so if it hurts the ones they hate even more. If they lose their job but see five children deported, they probably see it as a win.
I just encountered this last night with hardcore Trumper family members. They believe his tariffs are because the tariffed countries have their military subsidized by the American government and they need to pay their fair share. They think xwe’re going to have to “feel a little pain” for a year or two, then “it” will be better. What is “it”? Who the hell knows. They certainly don’t.
Yanis Varoufakis explains the reasoning
I like Yanis but I really don’t think that’s what Trump is doing.
I’m sorry, but Trump’s “America has been treated very unfairly” is more likely just an extension of his own persecution complex, which in turn is just fascist rhetoric, always with the grievance, eternally playing the victim card (“they humiliated us but we will get our revenge”), so I feel like Yanis is trying to interpret the well-known fascist humiliation fetish into a coherent economic vision… But it just isn’t. Trump’s woefully incompetent, so the only way what Yanis is saying would make sense is if his Heritage goons or oligarch buddies whispered stuff in his ear… although I would be highly doubtful even then that this is the plan, because their priority here seems to be to loot and plunder the state and turn it into a kind of Russian oligarchy with Christofascist characteristics. They’re way too high on power, as can be seen by how much they say and do right in the open, thinking they’re untouchable.
And I didn’t even mention the whole Curtis Yarvin network states tehnofeudalism, which Yanis should know about since he has a whole book called Tehnofeudalism, and I hope he mentions Yarvin and Peter Thiel in there and isn’t just saying how WEF style neoliberalism will eventually usher in tehnofeudalism, right? Right?!
PS: UnHerd is a pretty sus publication with a very TERF-ish bent. While they do sometimes get prominent lefties to write for it, it’s always for articles like this that are useful to them as they don’t really challenge the MAGA worldview (source: a MAGA acquaintance recommended me a recent Yanis interview rehashing this very article, and his takeaway was how smart Trump is). Tread carefully, there’s always an angle with this site.
That’s a great read and makes a ton of sense. Thank you!
I wrote another reply to the person who posted but I don’t like repeating myself, so I’ll just give the cliff notes:
Trump’s “America has been treated very unfairly” rhetoric is more likely just an extension of his own persecution complex, which in turn is just standard fascist rhetoric about how “we were once great, but we’ve allowed ourselves to be humiliated by our adversaries… but now we’ll be great again and take our revenge on all of them”. It’s nothing new. And while I have a high opinion of Yanis, I think he’s just wrong here, and I think that’s exactly why UnHerd (a sussy “alt-left” pro-TERF publication) was happy to publish his article.
Exactly. Their entire aim is malicious.
Honestly, “malicious” doesn’t even begin to describe it. It’s more like demonic at this point.
My dad isn’t a Trump supporter but he sure sounds like one. He’s fine with tariffs because “we won’t be paying them”. The underlying belief is that we shouldn’t import electricity or other goods, we should be producing our own, we should be self sustaining. And these tariffs are speeding up factories to open up in the states and produce US goods. The adjustment period (a few years at most) will be hard but worth it in the end - everything will be US made. Wohoo?
Never mind that our current infrastructure is crumbling and nothing is being done about it. And Trump is siphoning off any resources the us has. Never mind that many people today live paycheck to paycheck and as a result of this self imposed trade war will starve or freeze to death in the interim. Never mind that even if the US government decided to invest in this, it would take many many many decades to make US self sustaining, and once achieved prices will be higher than if we were to import the goods.
And where did they stand on feeling a little pain when egg prices went up during the campaign?
That was Biden’s incompetence! The mental gymnastics astound.
If only they agreed that Social Security, Universal Healthcare and just being nice to each other is better for everyone.
If we try to increase the quality of life for everyone, we’ll have a better world.
Some people can’t be happy unless they’re constantly angry about the people they were told to hate.
We call them gammons over here.
Hardship will just make them blame foreigners
Something about the LiBeRaL dEeP sTaTe keeping him from deporting them fast enough. The “in” group has to be simultaneously strong and helpless, the “out” group weak but somehow paradoxically able to prevent the “strong” leadership from accomplishing anything for the good of the people.
