Living in a southern state that is solid red - it’s just difficult to exist. Much more than half of the people I interact with would not view me as a human being if I weren’t stealth about my transness - if I didn’t pass. These people voted against my rights and safety. I’m surrounded by people who think people like me are subhuman.
And I’ll bet that every one of them calls themself a Christian. Fucking joke religion that doesn’t even follow its own tenets.
The big realisation, for me, was during Covid. I haven’t recovered since. My view of people, in general, has changed forever.
The best advice I can give to anyone regarding MAGAts is to take advantage of them.
They’re letting us know how stupid they are. They’re marking themselves.
So take advantage of them. Run some scams on them. They’ll fall for it. Don’t let Daddy Trump be the only one robbing them blind.
I thought about running a far-right merch store selling shirts and stickers with all of their shitty little half-brained slogans on them and donating all the profits to left-leaning organizations. Make them indirectly fund the people they’re trying to harm.
My baby insanity wolf self already does a variation of this.
When my conservative family and acquaintances give me gifts, I donate the gifts to charities or political groups that I know those folks would hate to support. Uncle Ben gives me a debit gift card? That’s going to Bernie Sanders and the ACLU. Cousin Jen gave me a digital photo frame? That’s getting sold and the money’s going to Planned Parenthood.
The fact that I repeatedly tell these people not to give me any gifts and yet they still do is the icing on the cake.
If you see pop-up shops selling Trump merch, they’re often run by immigrants. Money is money.
If I didn’t have scruples and lived in the States I’d be all over that.
I was thinking about writing something for one of those alt right self publishing companies.
Not just one of the worst but arguably the worst.
One day Trump wont be president but his supporters will continue to be around after him. They’ll continue to make up 31% of the voter eligible population.
I already knew that there were plenty of awful people in the US since I studied the civil rights movement in school. Watching white people use fire hoses against Black people and white people being ok with that was a clue. For me the worst part has been watching my friends and family be brainwashed by the MAGA movement. People who I know to be otherwise wonderful people.
For me it’s the answer to the zombie question. Do zombies have some part of their former personality still inside? The answer is definitely yes, and not some part, but 100% of their former selves.
I’ll be talking to my Mom and she’ll be her old self again for a whole conversation. Like the last decade never happened. Then something political will come up and she’ll be gone again. And I’m stuck arguing with this zombie.
Fox News has taken multiple family members and I’m sure many more friends. Unlike zombies there was no attack or infection. The brainwashing happened through radio, television, and social media. And unlike zombies there is hope, because people do get out of cults.
My neighbour is a totally pleasant lady, but she believes the craziest shit. Like that Joe Biden was replaced by an actor, or that the autodoc (like from the movie Elysium) is real. Also just goes on about how beautiful the weather in Russia must be.
We’re not even American ffs. She’s getting got by second hand, like, collateral propaganda.
Honestly there could be really simple autodocs like the ones from the OG The Fallouts but if they do exist they are extremely simple prototypes that can probably stitch up a wound real good at best. Something I’ve noticed about conspiracy types be them creationists, Alien nuts, or maybe big foot enthusiasts is that they will take the plausible and make it implausible.
Though some of them do accidentally break the programing because they either gain the requisite knowledge that starts to disprove the conspiracy element or because they are shown enough evidence to the contrary. A good example is Lore Lodge who used to be all in on bigfoot years ago but now think that it’s just wildmen, hermits, or crackheads.
A good example is Lore Lodge who used to be all in on bigfoot years ago but now think that it’s just wildmen, hermits, or crackheads.
I guess that’s bound to happen if you’re genuinely seeking knowledge.
It’s also amazing just how incredibly tacky the MAGA movement is.
The Nazis were evil, but at least they wore clothing designed by Hugo Boss. At least they borrowed from impressive looking Roman-style banners and eagles. They understood how to use colour, light and so-on to project strength. Even if you acknowledge that the Nazis were evil, at least you can sort of understand why the German people were drawn in.
But the MAGA movement is so weak, so tacky. Even if I were somehow 100% aligned with their beliefs, I wouldn’t want to associate with them in public because their whole aesthetic is so embarrassing. I can’t understand how anybody can look at Trump and see competence, intelligence and strength. I also can’t understand how anybody can look at a typical MAGA rally and see anything other than a design scheme that would make even Wal*Mart cringe.
Oh, I’m so glad you pointed it out. I thought I was going nuts thinking they were gaudy and in poor taste and I wasn’t reading anyone saying it. 😂
The Mar-a-Lago face alone, and the gaudy golden shoes, statues, chandeliers and shit. Yuck lol
I wouldn’t know how to look it up, but I really wonder what the average German or Italian who didn’t support the fascist governments thought about them. Did they see the governments as strong, organized and competent, but didn’t support them because they trampled on people’s rights, etc? Or were Mussolini and Hitler seen as clowns and their supporters as tacky idiots?
As someone who wasn’t alive back then, and who doesn’t know anybody who was (at least not in those countries), it seems like they were probably seen as competent, powerful and organized. But, I really hope everyone knows that outside of the MAGA movement, they’re seen as tacky, incompetent, weak, stupid and embarrassing. I would hate for a historian in 2100 (assuming humanity survives long enough for that) to be writing about MAGA saying that their aesthetic was powerful and intimidating, when it’s much more reminiscent of a circus.
In the UK a fascist movement took off at the same time as Nazism. It failed because their bullying tactics didn’t wash with Brits, especially with what was going on in Germany. They were seen as the thugs they were, basically. Antifascists halted an attempted parade through the largely Jewish east end of London, “the Battle of Cable Street”. After that the govt banned paramilitary uniforms etc. Once the war started of course that was it - the party was proscribed and most fascists were interned for the duration.
Meanwhile… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_American_Bund
I bet their paramilitary uniforms were better looking than the flag-pants and facepaint the MAGA groups prefer.
They had propagandists that used actual skilled artisans and people actually the “best” in their fields. Not drunk Uncle Jim and AI slop.
In modern day America, it seems like 99% of artists are anti-Trump. That isn’t really surprising because fascism is about conformity and falling in line, whereas art tends to be about self-expression and challenging norms. So, it seems like in the modern world, very few artists or other creative people are willing to work with the Trump admin. I wonder if back in Hitler and Mussolini’s time that wasn’t the case.
I like to look at it this way: There are not many bad people but weak people who fall for propaganda. The real bad people are just a few but those are the ones manipulating the weak.
Glad you started this conversation. Allow me to just add: if we are to repair our republic and restore our constitution, we are going to have to find a common ground where these feeble minded followers can see that the world they reject is one that benefits them more than the dystopia they embrace.
This is going to require restraint and tolerance on our part.
You don’t have to be stupid to follow an authoritarian. In fact, your characterization is a huge driving force in their radicalization. People with legitimate grievances watched globalization leave them in the dust in pursuit of a multicultural, pluralistic society. This left them vulnerable to narratives that espoused their “historical” superiority amongst other groups and their subsequent entitlement to world primacy. It’s more a function of a lack of diverse perspectives as a result of continued divestment from public services and goods, as well as geographical concentration of wealth and resources and other confounding variables.
I agree that the world before Trump was marginally better for these voters than the alternative they’ve elected, but your heirarchical paradigm is condescending, reductive, simplistif, obnoxious, short-sighted, and exemplifies why so many people swung that way to begin with.
Also, I can’t underestimate how incredibly dumb and dense you have to be to consider that the previous paradigm was good for anyone outside of the West who was not already someone of considerable financial means.
Looks like one of us already has that common ground I was talking about in abundance. Thanks for leading the way.
I know a lot of people who are pissed off and struggling yet don’t blame minorities for their troubles while actively voting against their best interests at every possible turn. I also know people who, even if it took some time, realized that conservatism is actually fucking awful. I even know some conservatives who are just really stupid or bad at economic policy but who are genuinely good people(so long as he can see you or even just hear that you’re a friend of someone he knows my dad will give you his shirt, and he doesn’t have ill-intentions towards minorities, for example).
Trump people are just fucking terrible. Their entire “ideology” is so rooted in being terrible that even if they were just weak morons sweat away by the propaganda I still cannot fathom how they weren’t tipped off by any of the thousands of moments which gave them the opportunity to reflect.
You nailed it though. They lack the ability for introspection and self reflection
All this is not new. It started with Reagan and I’m confident you will soon have it worst than Trump, given that your country managed to fall lower 3 times already.
I want to respond to this but it sounds so disconnected from what I said I think the best way to do so is to ask: Did you reply to the wrong person?
Too weak to have any morals? I doubt it. They are just given permission to let their inner racism out.
That’s too easy and excuses us from the work needed to rescue these people, content in our own moral superiority.
Nah, a lot of people are cunts.
Tetraethyl Lead has a lot to answer for, but yes, a lot of people are just selfish arseholes.
Yup, and the pandemic showed us how stupid and ignorant they are, too.
Leftists were hesitant with good reason and could be educated. These folks had no chance out of their own volition.
They were always here.
I escaped from the south to the coasts, but I always tried to warn people how vile the worst of us were.
Nobody coukd believe it, but remember, Hitler wrote about the south as the model for Germany in mein kampf, and the nazis copied the Nuremberg Laws from Jim crow almost verbatim.
They also took inspiration from the Catholic Church and the inquisition. The Church did ethnic cleansing long before the Nazis.
The also took inspiration from the Catholic Church
Not just inspiration but also direct material support.
The pope at that time looked the other way.
Depends on which pope you are talking about. One of them got allied planes in his sights to get shot down.
Nazi legal theorists saw the U.S. as a “pioneer” in racist legislation.
James Q. Whitman, in his book “Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law”,
I believe they got some of their ideas from American eugenicists.
Wherever there is a state, there is fascism.
It’s not just the south.
I’ve lived in much of the country, and I’m not white.
There is racism everywhere.
But the South is like going from Lebanon to the deepest reaches of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
They’re monsters, and proud of it.
Cool islamophobic analogy,
That’s not Islamophobic, the Taliban literally are misogynist, homophobic monsters.
To PHR’s knowledge, no other régime in the world has methodically and violently forced half of its population into virtual house arrest, prohibiting them on pain of physical punishment.[238] — Physicians for Human Rights, 1998
The Taliban have committed a cultural genocide against the Afghan people by destroying their historical and cultural texts, artifacts and sculptures.[89]
The Taliban are about as Islamic as the Nazis are Christian.
Monsters are just monsters.
Imagine equivocating the Taliban and Muslims in general.
Without a doubt this is the worst part. It was an immediate and irreversible swing from being an optimist who believes in the good of people to the complete opposite. I now believe humanity is fundamentally flawed and will destroy itself.
Watched too much Star Trek as a kid I guess.
I used to think similarly. The outright hatred, apathy, hostility… its sickening.
But I stand by Mr. Rogers’ message. Look for the helpers.
Humanity has always grappled with its angels and demons. No fictional evil could ever compare to the cruelty and apathy of real humans being real shit. But despite all that, humans keep trying, and have always kept trying.
This isn’t the worst it’s ever been. This isn’t even the worst it’s been here. This isn’t even the worst it’s been, here, in living memory.
If you know someone over the age of 60, you know someone older than the civil rights act.
Even in a life where discrimination wasn’t possible so much as it was fundamental in society, John Lewis and MLK Jr. still had faith in humanity. They still believed in its potential. They still had faith in the face of all of that hatred and ignorance. Faith that a better nation and a better future could be forged in their lifetimes.
And you know what? They were right.
Even today, with all of these threats to return to a time when America was “great”… even now, this is still a better nation than the America of 1963. That is undeniable truth, and it is in large part thanks to heroes like them.
If they could believe in the potential of humanity, I think it’s arrogant of us to disagree.
I really do appreciate the words and the sentiment. I would normally agree but right now my faith is still shattered. I think there are good and amazing people, who have done magical and wonderful things. I just think that small and petty tyrants are more common and more indicative of humanity as a whole. That the righteous have to look up from underneath the bootheel of those who deserve to be crushed under one themselves. Instead, those type get to run the show, and obviously always have.
This weekend has been bad mentally. I hope I can find some optimism again. I’m just so tired of expecting the worst and being proven right.
“John Lewis and MLK Jr. still had faith in humanity”
Those guys were under the boot heel, and had no direction but up. I’d be more optimistic for the future of humanity if they were white dudes with everything to lose, agitating for an oppressed minority.
That’s the entire point. They were under the boot heel, but still looked up.
To suggest that a bunch of agitated white people would be more inspiring than those historical heroes is… it’s beyond words. It really is.
Please reconsider… everything.
You completely missed my point. I wasn’t minimizing your heroes, and I’m not American. We don’t all think like Americans. Please expand your world view…
How exactly did I miss your point? Was it the part where I linked a list of agitated white people with something to lose, who were fighting for an oppressed minority? Was there some other point that I missed?
Did you read about the agitated white people who were shot and killed defending oppressed minorities? Did that give you more faith in humanity, than stories of Martin Luther King Jr., and John Lewis?
I really cannot stress this enough: please reconsider everything. For someone who doesn’t think like an American, you sure are talking like one.
My entire point was that if people who were “crushed under the boot heel” could still be optimistic about the future of humanity - could still successfully improve the future of humanity - then you can too.
But you, instead, want to hear about white people.
I once proudly said “when the internet is cheap and easy, everyone will have full access to all information and it will be effortlessly easy for people to stop believing falsehoods and it’ll start a swing towards reason!”
I just want to hug teenage me.
30-yo me was just as naive. Jesus, what have we done.
To tie star trek into an admittedly foolish level of hope: I believe there was a catastrophic war and social failing that, eventually, led to their pseudo-utopic future… right?
Well it was WW3. Which started there in 2026. Sooo… good news?
Wow, that’s kinda on the nose, isnt it?
Disgusting
She’s damn sure old enough to know better. 😡
She was probably doing it the first time too.
loves Nazis and Hitler
also among the first to be killed had she been living in Nazi Germany
deleted by creator
The hell of living as such a shitty person is far worse than anything anybody could do to her.
I doubt that.
I’ll never recover, personally. The way my world-view was shattered by how many not just nameless strangers, but people I actually know and interact with, are the worst sort of hateful monsters.
My world is a different place now, and I don’t think I’ll ever feel the same.
And then they wonder why I try to escape from the reality.
I know. I have flat Werther’s in my family. Real life people who think the earth is flat in 2025. Like did anyone think this is where we would be growing up.
Tell me more about these flat Werther’s, I’ve only had the Werther’s Original so far.
It’s not too different from the original, just about 6000 years old.
So, like the ones you find in pockets of pants you haven’t worn since last year?
It’s stupidity and immaturity more than maliciousness, at least in the case of the US lumpen. The results might be more or less the same but the reframing helps with living in this world and believing in people’s ‘well-meaning nature’.
I appreciate this, and it does help turn the ire into pity a bit, but I do worry that unfortunately the effect sort of remains the same regardless
Not as malicious but covid opened my eyes up
You just know that guy on the left has a swastika tattoo somewhere on him.
Yeah, it’s right there on his throat. It’s just the v2.
