“What was he convicted of?” someone asked.

“He had tattoos on his body,” she replied triumphantly.

“Hey, smartass!” shouted a woman in her sixties, jumping to her feet. “You want to see my tattoo?”

“Lady,” the Trump supporter said. “You don’t know what a tattoo is.”

“Yes I do, I’ve got one!” the woman shouted, tapping her chest.

The Trump supporter dismissed her with a wave of one hand. “I’ve had enough of you Democrats,” she said.

    • @[email protected]
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      62 months ago

      Every day you hear someone say the stupidest shit you’ve ever heard in your life. And then the next day someone says something even dumber. It’s absolute hell on earth but the plus side is my mortgage is cheap as dirt I guess.

    • @[email protected]
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      212 months ago

      It’s fucking insane here. I live in a city where people’s opinions seem relatively reality-based, but if you get out into the rural areas, the effects of brain drain and media balkanization are on full display.

      I don’t suggest actually doing this, but you would be absolutely fucking shocked by the overwhelming ignorance of the general population if you were to, say, stop at a bar in rural Iowa.

  • IninewCrow
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    2 months ago

    I thought that was their only form of communication

    And I feel like this would be a great area for David Attenborough to do a nature documentary on

    • @[email protected]
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      2 months ago

      Hire the folks that did the Russian cope cages in Ukraine parody from a few years ago. That was particularly impressive.

    • @[email protected]
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      2 months ago

      Yeah and has been since Trump laughed off stage in 2015

      Edit: I guess people knew what I meant. I meant since he wasnt laughed off stage in 2015

    • @[email protected]
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      62 months ago

      Yup.

      Even if Trump ceases to exist tomorrow, we’re still fucked. He’s opened the door for copycat politicians for the rest of our lives. Our electoral system is comically corrupt and non-representative. Our entire political system is comically corrupt with way fewer safeguards than we all assumed. Our justice system is incapable of enforcing the law on the wealthy. And there are simply too many stupids in this country.

      No party will ever have the massive majority required to make the fundamental changes required to fix all this. Only one party is even somewhat interested in doing so. Short of a revolution and complete wipe and reset of our government and how it functions, the only way this country is going is down.

      • Queen HawlSera
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        22 months ago

        He’s opened the door for copycat politicians for the rest of our lives.

        I don’t think so, I think Trump will be often replicated but never duplicated.

        • @[email protected]
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          22 months ago

          Take someone not as allegedly wealthy, insert Putin cash, we fucked then?

          PLEASE let you be right please

      • @[email protected]
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        62 months ago

        Tbh the people are not educated properly, too enslaved to debt service and bills, and so brain conditioned to individual greed that forming a cohesive army to restore democracy is a laugh.

        Not to mention tbe 50%+ casuality rate from heart attacks if a civil war broke out.

        • @[email protected]
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          62 months ago

          Tbh the people are not educated properly, too enslaved to debt service and bills, and so brain conditioned to individual greed that forming a cohesive army to restore democracy is a laugh.

          That’s very true. Our problems don’t only exist at the top. We have fundamental, critical problems at every strata: top, bottom, and middle.

  • @[email protected]
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    332 months ago

    Someone needs to bring these people a holocaust surviver to show them their tattoo and explain why fascism should never rise again

    • @[email protected]
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      282 months ago

      Ok, hear me out.
      David Beckham has tattoos on his body AND is an immigrant. Therefore he must be a part of the ms13 gang and should be deported. It’s the only thing that makes sense!!!

      I’ve also heard Dolly Parton has tattoos…

  • @[email protected]
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    232 months ago

    I don’t feel bad for anyone that voted for trump. Nothing he is doing is a surprise. So far it has been everything he said he wanted to do. Fucking morons got exactly what they voted for.

    • @[email protected]
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      162 months ago

      I want them to see the error of their ways. No forgiveness without change, but there is no change without the possibility of forgiveness.

  • @[email protected]
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    432 months ago

    I hope they rip each other apart trying to justify their own ignorance and his madness.

    • @[email protected]
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      2 months ago

      Unfortunately their disproportionately overvalued federal representation and votes due to the electoral college they are dragging the rest of us down with them

  • @[email protected]
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    192 months ago

    I’m trying to fathom this being an actual conversation and not some horribly, awfully scripted sitcom. How the hell is it this bad good lord.

    • @[email protected]
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      32 months ago

      I like to think it’s because our education has gone really downhill, but I realize some of these people are so old it’s questionable how much they really know and understand. I’m genuinely baffled we don’t have a simple doctor’s check to see if people in retirement are still cognizant enough to vote responsibly- it’s the same issue with driving.

  • @[email protected]
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    42 months ago

    i found some of the quotes interesting with regards to the pieces that people in different areas pick up on, what they care about and what they think is happening. Like the farmer guy who is being harmed by the tariffs but thinks Trump must be “asking for a lot to hopefully get half”

    i don’t think these people are stupid, just propagandized and situated in cultural echochambers just like libs are (all of us are). They (we) all have blind spots and denial. how do we reach them? if it’s possible at all, the only way is through genuine authentic connection with people who may very well hold ideas we find abhorrent.

    i had a really interesting experience this weekend. i stopped at a Diner in Queens on my way home from the airport and overheard a conversation about Trump and the tariffs between two older gentlemen. I think they were both white but one might not have been idk. It was clear they frequent this place and are neighborly acquaintances. The one guy came over and started out saying “you know l don’t like to talk about politics” (honestly i doubt that lol)

    it was not clear to me the whole time which “side” either of them were on. when the first guy got up to leave, i caught eyes with the one still sitting and he started to apologize for the subject matter and i said i appreciated their conversation bc i feel like the biggest problem in this country is we don’t talk to each other and that’s why everything is so out of whack.

    they both appreciated that and we briefly talked about how “They” want us divided etc. I said i thought we all had a lot more in common than we would think, and they both agreed.

    After the first guy left, i continued to chat with the seated man who was a 75yo Jewish man who grew up in that neighborhood and taught political science for his career. He identified as a centrist, taking things from Republicans and Democrats, and gets his news from a variety of sources mostly mainstream tv but also newspapers and magazines- he was reading the economist and said it was a conservative magazine but they don’t agree with trump on the tarriffs.

    we had a really amazing conversation because i was very polite and phrased my disagreements carefully, he was not agitated at all by anything i said, he was calm and confident in his knowledge.

    he had some seriously wrong information.

    whenever i tried to push back on something he said, i would generally say that i can never tell what to trust anymore but that the information I’ve seen said xyz. i acknowledged living in an echo chamber because i can’t read or listen to republican news, and i was vulnerable about how upset i am all the time and we transitioned out of politics talk and into hobbies and maintaining mental health.

    honestly, i can’t stop thinking about the experience and want to go back there and talk with him more. it was a hugely positive experience for me and I would love to have more of those. Perhaps he was a rare bird able to talk without getting upset, that’s why i was able to remain emotionally regulated (i did almost start to cry lmao just acknowledging how upset I am generally, I’m just a hair trigger these days)

  • madjo
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    802 months ago

    Imagine believing that the best days of the US are ahead of you…

    I’m sure improvements will be made, but the United States is dying, thanks in large part due to the cancer that’s rightwing propaganda networks

    • @[email protected]
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      462 months ago

      Honestly, I don’t want the United states to be a thing anymore. It is time for the nation to break up, so that people can choose what sort of government they want to live in. In my case, I would like something modeled after European socialism. I am sick of Fascist America dragging down my state with its evil and stupidity.

      • @[email protected]
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        72 months ago

        Not sure what you mean by European socialism, but you do NOT want the socialism that was attempted in eastern European countries.

        • @[email protected]
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          172 months ago

          my brother in christ, all western european countries are socialist welfare states with a capitalistic market. Media wants you to believe that, what we have is communism, but socialism is so far off Marxism / Communism, as Turbo-capitalism is off of socialism. Beat the red scare and don’t carry on their dumb talking points. Socialism is the way to go

          • @[email protected]
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            2 months ago

            While I agree that socialism is a good ideology, we are definitely far away from actual socialism in Europe. We have social welfare states, yes. They have socialist elements, and many other elements that contradict it. They are not socialist. Whats the point in pretending they already are?

            My point was, when you say things like “European Socialism”, that would be interpreted as what countries like Romania, Poland, Czechoslowakia or East Germany were like until around 1990. It was catastrophic.

            • @[email protected]
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              32 months ago

              what do all of these countries you just listed have in common? They were all under the rule of the Soviet Union. This was not european socialism, this was soviet socialism, european socialism means a mixture of both socialist welfare and capitalistic markets, aka social-democracies

        • @[email protected]
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          42 months ago

          That about sums it up. There are no obviously good options for the situation, so we are all left to gamble on a guess and a prayer that things work out.

      • socsa
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        192 months ago

        The problem with that plan is that you get an outwardly fascist neighbor with no guardrails at all. Yes it will burn itself out eventually but before that it’s going to be just as much of a problem as when it was states.

        • Suite404
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          42 months ago

          Feels like the guardrails are falling off regardless.

        • @[email protected]
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          142 months ago

          Better to fight an enemy that is outside, rather than a foe within. We also don’t have sturdy guardrails - just ask federal employees, and the American citizens who have been trafficked to Honduras.

          • @[email protected]
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            62 months ago

            But the foes would always be within. This isn’t just red vs blue, it’s rural vs urban. Oregon goes Blue every time, but you drive 30 minutes out of the city and it’s Trump Central.

      • @[email protected]
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        52 months ago

        European Socialism? Come on, we are supposed to be better than “socialism is when health care”.

        I know what you want to say, but last time I checked, every EU country had millionaires and beggars, a market economy, most companies were in the hand of private citizens or shareholders, and guaranteed private property (with the usual legal exceptions).

        Don’t be like the populists. Words have meanings and meanings matter. It is social market economy at most.