Serious answers only. For over a year I was told that trump “doesn’t have anything to do with that”.
I honestly need to know from an actual Republican who believed trumps words and is now witnessing p2025 almost hit 50% completion with the department of education getting dismantled.
And with that; how do these people feel that public schools, daycare centers and tech schools all going to cost 3-6x as much as it does now for tuition?
Really, already 50%!?
Closer than you might think. 41%
Republicans lie. As any fascist party, they don’t have any consistent ideology beyond hurting people. They’ll invent whatever reasoning and justification they need to justify their bullying, and they’ll immediately abandon that reason for another convenient excuse when necessary.
Republicans lie. They knew damn well what Project 2025 was, and they were in favor of all of it. When they said Trump had nothing to do with it, they were lying. Republicans ultimately don’t care what happens to society, or even themselves personally. They would gladly vote to lower the quality of their own lives, as long as the undesirables were hurt in equal measure.
Just for some perspective: in 2009 I was a Christian nationalist and I thought Obama was going to use FEMA to imprison conservative dissenters and would turn the US into a communist dictatorship. I hoped and prayed for an explicitly Christian government and an end to most federal programs. If I had the same worldview now, I would be orgasmically happy with the way things are going.
Pray tell what changed your view?
I’m going to test the character limit for a Lemmy comment.
My views on religion and politics have evolved a lot over the years. I hope I remain open enough to continue to change and grow. I can think of several touchstone moments, people, events, podcasts, and books that have influenced my departure from religious fundamentalism and political conservatism. There was a book I read as a child, a skeptical professor in college, a compassionate neighbor, a contrarian friend, a challenging podcast, an insistent and feisty little girl, spiritual slavery, and a God who didn’t listen to a community in pain. It’s a story of exposure to new ideas.
I was brought up to be a fundamentalist baptist. I was faithful to the only baptist creed: “Don’t drink, don’t smoke, I’m don’t chew, and don’t run with those who do.” Well, I suppose there were additional “don’ts “ like dancing, swearing, listening to worldly music, and watching rated R movies, but those items don’t fit into a nice little rhyme. Anyway, when I was a kid, one of my relatives had a book called The Handbook of Denominations. I found it and spent an afternoon looking at it, having my mind blown. To that point, it had never really occurred to me that there were Christians who were not baptists. This primed me to pursue relationships in middle school and high school with people who believed differently from me. I thought the heathen kids were wrong and disobeying God’s word, but they were interesting. I had friends who were LDS, Catholic, Charismatic, even atheists. I enjoyed a wide exposure to ideas while my church mates were cloistered.
In college, I took Biblical Hebrew. The professor was a secular Jew. His breakdown of the wild poetic imagery in Genesis 1 exploded my fundamentalist idea that it was literal history. Throughout the class, we were to visit synagogues and report on our observations. This exposure to a different way of worship impacted me deeply. I saw people earnestly believing and praying in a way different from me, yet with the same sincerity and conviction.
When my wife and I started our family, we had an elderly neighbors who were life-long Roman Catholics. Throughout my life, the Catholics I had met only went to church on Christmas and Easter, drank, cursed, and fornicated, and were generally indistinguishable from the heathen around me. I saw them as not-serious idol worshippers, doomed to eternal hellfire. My neighbors were different. They were the kindest, most generous people I had ever met. Even now, years later, I tear-up thinking about their sweetness toward us, a struggling young family. It was like living across the street from Jesus Himself. They brought us meals, helped with home repairs, watched our kids, bought clothes and toys, and so much more I can’t remember. Their love turned the tables on the Protestant reformation for me. I didn’t convert, but I started to realize in every group there can be shitty people, ordinary people, and beautiful people.
During Obama’s first term, as I mentioned above, I was a Christian nationalist. AS far as I can remember, one single comment from a trusted friend and mentor upset my political apple cart. After a Bible study, I asked my friend if he had seen some story about the President on Fox News. He said, “I don’t watch that crap. He’s my brother in Christ, and I don’t appreciate a bunch of talking heads telling me to hate my brother.” That was a watershed moment. My friend was politically conservative and religiously extreme. I respected him and that put a lot of weight behind his words.
Another trusted friend recommended a podcast for entertainment’s sake where the hosts talked about their shared experiences in a fundamentalist religious upbringing and current-day divergence while getting drunk. I saw how two people can keep a close friendship despite holding different views; in this case, Catholicism and agnosticism. They also spoke favorably about Obama and when 2016 rolled around, they were huge fans of Bernie Sanders. I strongly related to their experiences and their left-leaning political views were challenging at first, then contagious. In 2016, for the first time, I did not vote straight republican down the ballot.
In my adult life, I have been a member or regular attender of five different Christian denominations. Some of these changes were quite significant and involved catechism and re-baptism. I’m always searching for answers.
Once upon a time, I was an Eastern Orthodox Christian. For many years. This is a culturally conservative and religiously fundamentalist expression of Christianity. The church has strict gender roles, especially within its rituals. Women are permitted to teach the children and perform domestic duties. In some Orthodox denominations, women may serve as cantors and choir directors. Women are prohibited from serving at the altar. They cannot even enter the sacred space surrounding the altar. After services one day, a few groups of people lingered, talking. They were mostly parents, as there was to be a short altar server class. When the priest announced it was time for altar server class to begin and for all the boys to meet him at the front of the church, a girl, maybe seven years old, declared excitedly, “can I go? I want to be an altar server!” The priest, caught off-guard answered “no, I’m sorry.” “Why not?” “We can talk about it when you’re older,” the priest replied nervously, looking at her dad for backup. This little exchange stuck with me. It seemed inappropriate that a child’s enthusiasm for wanting to feel helpful and important was squashed simply because she had the wrong biological equipment. This was the beginning of the end of my religious fundamentalism.
I had exercised my rights as a male in the Orthodox Christian denomination and performed vital roles in services for many years. I’m going to be brief here because the community is small and I am protective of my anonymity online. I was pressured to serve the church and be available for every service (at minimum three per week) on a volunteer basis. Although I became exhausted and frustrated, to entertain thoughts of quitting was considered spiritual weakness. This was an especially damaging time for my spiritual life.
While I was involved with this church, a tragic incident occurred in a nearby rural community. A mother was home with her four-year-old son and put him down for an afternoon nap. She also fell asleep on the couch. When she awoke, her son was nowhere to be found. She searched the house and property, called neighbors, and eventually called law enforcement for help. By the evening, dozens of friends, family, and neighbors were out looking for the boy. It was spring and the nights were still dangerously cool for a boy in pajamas. Word spread on social media and churches prayed earnestly for the boy and his family. I was especially touched because I had young children. The boy was found two days later, dead from exposure, lying in a ditch just 100 yards from the house. Many people had probably walked right past him. I hated God for that. This was a catalyst for my investigation into whether I believed in a personal God who actively intervened in his creation.
TL;DR: My faith and politics changed over a period of 10-15 years from Christian Nationalist and religious fundamentalist to progressive agnostic through exposure to new ideas, often introduced to me by people I trusted.
Reality
I’d also be interested in hearing about how you changed your views.
I wrote a novel in reply to HarkMahlberg above.
Not even trying to be mean but probably themself or someone they know personally got hurt.
Yep. That crowd never changes until they are directly impacted somehow.
You do see that quite a bit in “ex” subreddits. Personal experience can shake anyone’s views, not just “that crowd.” Spiritual abuse played a role in pushing me away from religious fundamentalism, but there were other factors that laid the groundwork. The process took years and key elements involved a mind-expanding book, two compassionate friends, a podcast, and a local news story that showed me God was quite a bit different than I thought he was. I’ll write the book about it under another comment.
Not necessarily. In my case, psychedelics played a huge role in finally making everything click.
Oh, hey. That whole mind expanding thing really isn’t a joke. I look back, sometimes, on who I used to be.
This is very common, but was not the reason for my worldview change.
How in the name of sweet baby imaginary white Jesus did you get out of that mindset!?
Not the person you replied to but I also used to be a hardcore Christian convertitive.
Honestly just talking to people with different viewpoints than me. Back when Reddit was decent I would troll with conservative BS to get a rise out of commenters, but occasionally people would reply with points I couldn’t refute. Making IRL friends helped a lot too. I realized people actually have nuance in their opinions and there’s a lot more gray area than I realized. Leaving relgion was the last step for me. Once my identity was no longer my beliefs I was able to change them.
Its part of what scares me about the internet now, we all get locked in little echo chambers. Nobody’s viewpoints get challanged and there’s no honest debate any more. Defederated social media will only make it worse as there will be 10,000 different Lemmys, each one for an exactly specific set of beliefs that will never be questioned.
What denomination, primarily, were you? Did you manage to get anyone out with you? (I was unable.)
Religious conservatives love project 2025. Most Republicans are Religious, so they love it.
Religious conservatives love project 2025. Most Republicans are
Religiousbrainwashed Christofascists, so they love it.I approve of this edit
I still don’t see them as Trump’s actual plan.
I’m like one of three conservatives here, do you really expect a response?
i was hoping for a response yes. and really hoping for an actual intellectual as well.
so what makes you think it isn’t trumps plan? even though you can follow the progress online of p2025 and trump is checking off each objective.
what do you see p2025 as? and do you think it will make america “awesome again”
I see Trump’s plan as Trump’s plan. P25 holds some similarities, some things are just that obvious, like illegal immigrants should be deported, but it’s not Trump’s plan. P2025 is it’s own thing, some wishlist created by some think tank that got picked up by the news because it’s so stereotypical.
I think that Trump’s plan is an attempt to put America back on the right track economically.
Protective tariffs for instance, are a pretty standard way of protecting domestic industry. It’s expensive to comply with OSHA and labor laws, it’s a lot cheaper to make stuff in China and ship it over here. Tariffs make it so that it’s no longer cheaper. Bernie Sanders agrees, even if can’t directly agree with Trump. https://www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/sanders-statement-on-trump-tariffs/
Does p25 have anything on tariffs? No, they don’t.
P25 does have stuff on things like racial discrimination, which no politician in their right mind would support.
Tariffs are one way to protect domestic industry.
They are completely useless when that industry does not exist already. When an industry doesn’t exist and you want to build it, you need subsidies, not tariffs.
Do you believe the US has sufficient industry to protect? Or that we should instead be focused on growing more?
Yes I do. We have chip fabs, car factories, steel mills, all sorts of things. But they’ve been hurt by the likes of China for a very long time.
Did you know Gary Indiana used to have a Steel Mill? And it was when it closed that Gary went to shit?
And we can do both. We already are subsidizing lots of things.
We are not subsidizing recreating those factories that are gone. Which is a shame.
What you’re saying makes sense if we were putting tariffs an those specific industries that we have factories for, but not other industries. Are we doing that?
P25 literally does have stuff on tariffs and it’s exactly what is happening right now.
It starts on page 765. https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf Like literally the entire section from page 765-783 are just about tariffs and how high to increase them.
And an article discussing it https://seekingalpha.com/article/4769053-what-project-2025-tells-us-about-what-will-happen-tariffs-april-2
Tbh, I only ever read the cliff notes. I never read the hundreds of pages, I had better things to do with my time.
I also haven’t read the hundreds of pages, but it was a simple search away (either a search engine or literally just typing ‘tariff’ into the PDF). You said something that wasn’t true and didn’t bother to check if it was accurate before hand, and it was kind of the base “fact” of your entire post.
I do appreciate that you’re willing to come in here and actually discuss your viewpoint, which is why I tried to react quite neutrally. I would appreciate continuing the conversation because I do wonder if that revelation has changed your view that trump has no ties to P25.
Republicans already passed the removal of DEIA in the workforce. Idk how you feel about that but that can be seen as racial discrimination which a lot of Republicans have shown don’t give a shit about. A lot are pro white power, women are baby makers. i also can’t see how someone would think p2025 or “trumps plan” as a good thing. I see no benefits to destroying government agencies with no though or plan before hand. How many times has he fired a department only for him to go “woops . We actually needed those people” and then rehire them? 3?.. 4?. Like what’s the point? A lot of Republicans say “we are finding the fraud, so much winning”. How do you feel saying that or hearing it knowing that trump is convicted of 34 felonies? Was on tape gloating how he walked on in naked 15 year old girls and is an actual fraud to the country?
How do you feel about our administration literally editing the Internet and leaves of history to remove anyone of color or nationality other than white?
How do you feel about doge finding “wasted tax payer money” but trump plays golf with tax payer money? I’m sorry I just don’t understand and no one has ever answered these questions they just deflect. Like you can’t deny trump is a fucking scum bag monster pedophile
so what makes you think it isn’t trumps plan?
They’re an idiot, duh
Their name is eerily close to a reference to a famously horrible and Nazi-infested (like, actually) instance, especially given their previously discussed viewpoint, so they’re probably also a Nazi openly lying about their beliefs
Reddthat isn’t a Nazi instance, wtf.
Never claimed it was, work on your reading comprehension
Maybe I didn’t understand what you meant. Can you explain the connection you see between Nazis and the instance name?
Exploding heads was (I think it’s gone for good now) an extreme Nazi instance full of people trying their damndest to be the worst people they could be
The guys name is Kaboom and regularly posts the same kind of talking points they did, I don’t think it’s a coincidence, personally
The fuck are you talking about?
Thanks for being honest. What is Trumps actual plan?
Trump’s plan is an attempt at putting America’s economy back on track. Protective tariffs, less “aid” to foreign nations, deporting illegal immigrants, not acting like the world’s police when it’s Europe that will be affected most, that sort of thing.
First of all, the economy was doing fine under Biden.
How is banning the words “female”, “women” and “bias” in research papers getting the economy back on track?
How is taking away the passports of trans people and changing their gender getting the economy back on track?
Was it really do well, or was it doing well for the rich? Because all I ever heard on Lemmy was that they were broke and oppressed by the system.
And the whole dei shit was a badly worded EO compounded by bad actors upset with the EO. You should actually read the EO if you’re curious, it’s not long. He did not ban any of those words.
How is that something to mention? It sounds so minor, I doubt he knew of it. And getting advice from a variety of people is a good thing and probably helped. Why are you against it?
They are not taking away passports. If you read the damn article, one transman had trouble renewing his, and the bureaucracy was taking it’s time figuring it out. I ran into the same damn thing when I renewed mine two years ago, and I’m cis. Not every single issue is because of your identity. Sometimes shit happens.
Contributions to global organisations is what is known as “soft power” - for example, the only time NATO article 5 has been invoked is by the USA after 9/11
And guess what - every other country stood up and came to America’s defence. In the grand scheme of things, it’s a pretty good deal to spend a few million for the billions you get back in cooperative agreements with the rest of the world.
So tell me, how does funding a musical in Ireland help with that?
Honestly, if we’re taking the stance of "lets run the government like a business*,
It’s just good marketing.
It makes people in other countries that little bit more likely to buy something made in the USA, or to visit as tourists or to volunteer to help during a natural disaster.
The example you’re referring to isn’t even in the millions - it was around $70K! Ireland spent $163 Billion on Amercian services because of a good, long standing relationship between the two countries.
By making America seem like a good neighbor. Would you lend a hand to someone who doesn’t treat you decently?
Treaties, military aid, investment, all of them requires the feeling that things will turn out alright if you get involved. A dickhead like Trump makes it clear that he would shank you and fuck your mother, just because he feels likes it. To say the least, no reasonable or good person would want to associate with a Trumpian nation.
Nations within and without, are built on relationships.
How do you rectify the idea of not being world police with:
"I have signed a declaration to use emergency authorities to expedite the delivery of approximately $4 billion in military assistance to Israel. "?
Or is that somehow different?
I’ve been trying to crack this and it seems impossible. It’s a black box. You can dismantle every policy by looking at it from a certain standpoint and trying to apply your subjective logic to it. But when Zionist Israel is on the table, all logic goes out the window.
We can take the presidents one by one:
Obama - change - doesn’t change anything about relations and policies with Israel
Biden - staunch defender of Israel. Doesn’t matter what they do, he condemns anything and everything bad, but Israel commits genocide and he doesn’t even acknowledge it.
Harris - polls showed that she could have gained massive voter support, had she expressed anything in favour of Palestine and acknowledge genocide, but she decided to lose instead for some reason. Proof of what would win her the election wasn’t enough. She could have lost the Zionist campaign funding and still come out ahead.
Trump - you’d assume he doesn’t care about money because he already has it, doesn’t care about power because he’s literally the president of the most powerful nation. He’s immune to prosecution, so Israel can’t even have something as stupid on him as being a serial child rapist, he’d shrug it off. That stupid Gaza beach resort video. Still doesn’t make sense from fiscal standpoint. He also breaks tradition and protocol on everything.
There could be better allies in the region, and there have been. But it has to be Israel for some reason, in its current apartheid and genocidal state. My only explanation would be that the Zionist government of Israel and the US government are one and the same on some level, somehow, somewhere.
I think the reasoning is very simple: Israel is extremely important in the Bible. Many conservatives like the Bible so supporting it seems good to them. Especially if it’s against Islam which is associated with immigrants and terror.
Because Israel is literally the only liberal country in the middle east, relatively speaking. If they can expand their influence, less women will be oppressed, less gay people will get thrown off buildings, and Jewish people won’t be massacred until there’s none left in the middle east.
And why are siding with Hamas and Hezbollah? Do you hate LGBT people? Do you just hate women? Do you just want to see the aggressors win?
I bet you didn’t even know that they’ve been attacking this entire time. Just yesterday, Hamas fired 3 rockets in an attempt to kill more civilians. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm2dr7jd7mno Or maybe you do know and you like killing civilians?
So you’re saying it’s ok if we’re policing the world as long as it’s for liberal countries?
To some extent. We need a good ally in the middle east. I’d say that Germany should be the one footing the bill, but they’re not a particularly reliable ally when it comes to military funding.
Israel is a pretty unique case, and they’re surrounded by those who have done harm and wish to do more harm to us. It’s not a great position, but it’s the one they’re in.
Ok. So we fund countries that are battling other countries that have done us harm. Proxy fights, if you will. So Israel and Ukraine. And cut the rest of the funding for wars.
That seems reasonable. Is that what we’re doing?
Like it’s their third rail of blow and their homie just picked up another ounce.
They don’t think Trump and Musk are doing anything wrong. When quizzed they’ll ask you to name anything they’ve done wrong.
Everything Trump and Musk are doing is guised in Libertarian and Conservative values.So nothing wrong has been done on their eyes.
If you go places like r/JordanPeterson (to ask) and r/Conservative to observe the media landscape - you’ll see that “The Woke” are wrong and have turned violent against Tesla. You’ll see Trump and Musk are thought of as doing great things.
That’s how they think. They’re not in the same media landscape as everyone else is.
That’s how they think. They’re not in the same media landscape as everyone else is.
This is literally the cause of all our issues. Fucking propagandists creating an alternate “reality” for Magoos to exist within where they are the good guys fighting the evil evil communist far left scum.
I can blame a Magoo for being so susceptible to hate filled ppropaganda, but I really REALLY fucking despise the propagandists with every fiber of my being. If there were ever a group of people that deserved a firing squad it would be those like Sean Hannity who know exactly what they’re doing…
But they also think you’re in an alternative reality because of “leftist reactionaries” over blowing things in the media. Some of them would probably go as far to say that “We need anti-propaganda laws against the left wing media”…
…the problem for the left is, the right wing “alternative facts, alternative media landscape” is unfortunately MORE REAL in a legal sense because they own SCOTUS, and SCOTUS want to institute Unitary Executive theory… Which is what they’re doing.
It’s a very clean sounding bunch of words for a kind of fascism.
When quizzed they’ll ask you to name anything they’ve done wrong.
Why is this a thing? I’ve seen that so many times. “Oh yeah, well name Trump’s indictments” as if they got a trump card.
And, well… uhh there’s a summary right here. What do they expect? Secret knowledge? As if pretending nobody knows that they are gives them leverage? I don’t understand.
They’ll say a mix of “He’s clearly not guilty because nothing stuck! Teflon Don!” and “You shouldn’t go after politicians personal lives” and “Sucks for you he’s President now! You’re just a sore loser.”
…that might make you mad, which they enjoy.
I asked my MAGA coworker whether he thought Trump broke the law in the hush money case, and his response was “she should have kept her trap shut”.
I think it’s so funny that Republicans have found this magical loophole to excuse just about any action by just saying it’s woke. The second anything is called woke, it instantly must be destroyed and there’s no disputing it because it is just simply too woke. Shit at this point I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Trump said that zelensky and Ukraine has gone woke and they will send military aid to Russia to stop them
This administration is woke …
Fuck, that didn’t work.
Tell them research into women’s medical conditions (like endometrial cancer) is no longer allowed. I’d love to know how they’d spin that one as positive.
The problem is their spin isn’t designed to be positive or have mass appeal. It’s designed to create fervent followers who are desperate for something different and a sense they’re winning.
In your example I believe the response for them would be something along the lines of “Good, women shouldn’t be getting special treatment anyways - END DEI !!!”
Even though this means men are getting special treatment. Because research into prostrate cancer, for example, hasn’t been banned.
Yeah it’s crazy. What’s that line: To the privileged any attempt at equality is going to look like a loss of privilege.
Something like that. I’m pretty sure they just want to harm come to groups they’re prejudiced against. Even more insulting is I’m pretty sure the Trump administration has a lot of drink and drug related parties, Trump spent his youth in nightclubs, Musk is addicted to ketamine and Grimes mentioned them tripping on acod together.
So it’s debauchery at the top, austerity for everyone else. It’s a real let them eat cake they’re doing. Not serious or good people at all. Very little in the way of mprals or ethics, it’s all about power, privilege, politics, and personal gain.
Oh no, the lying liar who is best known for lying about literally everything lied and gullible people believed it (or conveniently ignored it, or didn’t care or thought it was just peachy because they thought it wouldn’t apply to them and were perfectly fine with it applying to other people)? Who could possibly have predicted that? Oh wait, I think literally every left wing person in the US predicted that.
YouGov has good data
I don’t see any drastic changes on Trump’s approval, but there’s unfavorablity across the board otherwise
https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/explore/public_figure/Donald_Trump
This is a cool website. Thank you.
Most are fine with it. Remember the people that died of covid denying it existed the whole time? That’s the type. They’re dumb af.
People who have never experienced oppression just thinking it’s business as usual.
Wearing a mask ain’t oppression either 😂
That’s part of the problem, a lot of people don’t realize they are the oppressors
The other part is the ones that do.
i forgot about that haha.
Not quite about just project 2025 but Nate Silver from what used to be 538 has Trump aggregated disapproval rating at 49.8% as of 03/20/25. That up from 40% in 2 months.
Source: https://www.natesilver.net/p/trump-approval-ratings-nate-silver-bulletin
Nate silver showed he was full of shit in 2016. Idk why anyone still listens to him.
And all of those people who had family die from covid and still thought masks were a form of thought control
What do we call the Herman cain award now?
Ask the guy who had his wife deported and is still supporting Trump.
I’d prefer to never have to interact with someone that hateful and stupid.
The person i was talking to about it said that he doesn’t want Project 2025 put in place, but also voted Trump and (as you said) said Trump “doesn’t have anything to do with that”.
When I went to talk to them again after the election, he had either deleted his account or blocked me after I ask about Trump appointing many involved with Project 2025.
i am guessing this would the case on an average. thanks though
However they’re told to feel
Do you think that Project 2025 isn’t what a bunch of conservatives want? It didn’t just come from one person. A bunch of people wanted to vote for this.
Serious answers only.
The worlds too dark to take anything too seriously right now.
I just meant like no “Kamala Harris genocide derrererre” comments or someone changing the subject because libs
You’re not gonna get an answer here. Try asking on a random Instagram APNews thread. Most of the answers you’ll get are from bots, but Republicans are taught to parrot whatever they say, so it’s basically the same thing
You’re not gonna get an answer here.
*scrolls up. scrolls back down*
I see a whole bunch of answers?
I meant from a Republican. They don’t use Lemmy
