There is no more consensus about anything between MAGA people than there is among the left. People are individuals and they have different values. Voting for a party/candidate doesn’t mean they agree on everything. There’s likely greater differences in views and values within the groups than between them.
the left
Quick reminder: America has no left. The Dems are centre-right vs GoP far-right (and counting).
This is very true.
Here in Missouri, for instance, voters went red but also passed a $15 minimum wage, required paid sick leave, and voted down an abortion ban. It’s ironic, considering Democrats always insist that if they just get more
conservativecentrist they’ll win elections.
I’m going to go on a less extreme take. They’ve been told from childhood they live in the land of opportunity, yet they work in dead end jobs or working fields.
They see money flying away every paycheck they live week to week on while being pumped propaganda (that people in suburbs and urban areas don’t see) that shows people who look different from them getting gov’t housing and getting programs funded with their tax dollars.
The same party they now demonize supports ridiculous looking gay parades that show a mentality they don’t understand, so they begin to hate. They wake up morning after morning in the same place with no change, and they stew and stew and stew.
So now they basically give up and see a hyper-masculine wannabe saying all the things against those who are different, and the long encrusted anger starts spewing out.
Most of the comments here are ignorant and hate filled against the wrong people. It’s not the MAGA supporters that did this, it’s the system. We need to stop polarizing ourselves with hatred and point the finger at those truly responsible. Not the poor (literallly) voters who are so dejected and living in decay that they just don’t give a rats ass anymore.
The more you hate the other side, the less you see the truth. The goal is to make you hate them. The goal is to make them hate you. You can’t define an entire person in a paragraph.
I think MAGA represents to Republicans what progressives like Bernie and AOC represent to Democrats. Republicans were able to reimagine their party into a form that isn’t just going to follow the status quo that, like you said, has led to a stagnant existence for average Americans over the last 50+ years. And stagnant is probably a nice way of putting it, since buying power has essentially disappeared, on top of wages barely moving.
So Trump comes in, he says drain the swamp, and you hear that to mean the whole machine, everyone who, for the last 50 years (and some folks have been involved in that government for a good chunk of that 50 years, just perpetuating that status quo) has allowed the rich to get richer at the expense of the working middle class.
And so you toss on your blinders. You’re not necessarily a bigot, but you believe social issues are a distraction from actual problems (i.e., ones that affect you directly), and you vote in a way that you hope will better your life. It’s hard to blame someone, especially someone just exhausted from grinding through their shitty life, for thinking about themselves. It’s not the right way to think, but I get it.
And so you toss on your blinders. You’re not necessarily a bigot, but you believe social issues are a distraction from actual problems
Tbf, identity politics are 100% used as a smokescreen
You won’t hear me disagree.
This is pretty much it, in my view.
Americans need to watch the Estonian-Georgian movie Tangerines before demonizing “the other side”. Besides an anti-war movie, it’s also about a movie about how two sworn enemies realize the other is also human.
A good clip to watch if you’re not interested in watching the entire (relatively short) film
“Look in his eyes, it’s all lies. The stars after v be stripes have been swiped, washed out and wiped and replaced with his own face”
It was written about W but I think it applies again
MAGA doesn’t know.
They’re fearful, hateful, instinctive idiots who are more afraid of being proven wrong than anything. The definition of ride or die.
The cruelty is the point.
Aren’t you cute? Did you come up with that all on your own? Or are you simply, and mindlessly, repeating an easy little slogan? Any idea of the origin of that, context, anything at all? No?
I didn’t leave reddit to come here and see children repeat slogans for upvotes.
If you’re hard-right, might as well join Truth Social
What’s your problem?
What a shitty way to respond to an innocuous comment.
How could we forget? We’re all here to please you because you ditched Reddit. Congrats on that by the way, see ya around! 👋
They say it all the time. You just have to hear, and more important, listen to them
About 70% of reps think the government deficit is too high. About 45% of Dems think the same. Both have been, interestingly, increasing yearly.
Widespread, 60% of voting age adults in USA think the government spends too much “on shit nobody cares about”. My quote.
Because people want the spending on medical care, education, science, social security, helping the needed and so on. Polling shows it.
But this has to come at a cost.
Dems want a bigger state apparatus behind all this.
Reps want an efficient, smaller one behind this.
Interesting as well , a lot of people, like 40%, want more spend in security forces.
… no one believes trump will deliver a smaller government. If they do they haven’t been paying attention.
This use to just be a libertarian thing, too. So, you can say they are united in this cause but could I really ask any MAGA person and this is what they will tell me?
if you’re going to make that point you need to mention the pattern of unfunded tax cuts over the last couple decades.
Yes the deficit is way too high, but also yes funding is too low on important things like safety nets, human services, infrastructure, long term societal advance. Most importantly, yes the unfunded tax cuts focusing on the wealthy and corporation of the last few decades is the real issue
Some migrants got harassed, they can pretend they set our allies “straight”, dei got "dismantled, funding cut to orgs they don’t like, pardons for j6 fed collaborators, security removed from political enemies…
As what Trump actually did for them as voting block, they are selfless, they need nothing as long as libs destroyed by daddy for the loolz
I assume it’s “Sending all the foreigners back to where they came from” (even if they came from the US). Anyone who doesn’t look, think, act or speak like them have to go so they can live in the utopia they think it will be once they’ve all gone.
I’ve talked to friends that were very excited Trump won. Recently tried having an open conversation with someone that left my community afterwards over the conversations because I didn’t come to his side.
They just believe it’ll be better. What better? They don’t know. They can’t verbalize, because they’re told it’s terrible now and will be better.
They believe Trump isn’t a criminal, didn’t incite violence on Jan 6, the woke people are out to get them, etc. I’ve literally asked people to define “woke” for me when they use it that way. They can’t. They don’t know. They’re not bad people, they’re brainwashed at this point.
I agree. I’ve heard people say that they willingly voted for a criminal rapist huckster and I don’t believe that. They thought he was something different. They are fucking dumb, not evil.
The way it is playing out in my family has led me to have to totally reevaluate my perception of my own father.
He is a generally kind man. He stayed with my mom for two decades as she declined with Parkinson’s. He took good care of her when so many people might have ghosted.
But based on his inability to see the danger here to things he himself values, I can no longer think of him as a good man. He has always valued knowledge and reason yet he swallowed the cat-eating crap out of Ohio in spite of the clear bullshit of it.
He is Mormon and very faithful. So I don’t know what he gets out of this all, except that it has required me to grieve him before his passing.
He is not actually a good person I am afraid, but he is very obedient. Learning that distinction is very painful. He does not possess the moral clarity to know the difference between what is legal/popular and what is right.
I always idolized my dad as a child because he was in so many ways a good father. We will probably never speak again.
“ He is not actually a good person I am afraid, but he is very obedient.”
Sadly this is the legacy of the LDS faith.
You guys should watch Heretic.
Which one? I see three in the last 12 years. I’m guessing it’s the 2024 one?
Yeah that’s the new one. Hugh Grant’s best performance.
Don’t forget the cliqueiness. I’ve been the victim of the mormon cliques more than once.
The first LDS family I knew were all rabid aggressive assholes. It’s funny that in hindsight these might be the most real and honest LDS followers I have met.
I shared with my mother, only yesterday, that I consider her somewhat of a bad person for voting for orange for a second term. I said that she could be forgiven for not perceiving what he is the first time (though it was obvious to anyone with limited understanding of the world), but after seeing him in action and voting for him again, she should be ashamed of herself. I don’t expect the relationship to ever fully recover, as I will not forgive her for endangering my loved ones and all of us collectively.
I have a brother who leans conservative, but not part of the cult. He is generally a good guy but a combination of being surrounded by conservatives and believing too much of what he reads online.
He’s an engineer at an old time manufacturer and especially condemns DEI hires. I have no way of judging whether they really do hire primarily for reasons other than merit, or if he has a limited perspective informed mostly by his peers, or if it’s really a generational problem as he’s part of the old timers being replaced by upstarts.
It’s probably partly generational. I mean the old guard got pensions and we get wtevs.
People who aren’t in leadership often have no idea how to judge actual merit anyway. Especially among engineers who often develop very myopic views informed by their tech specialties. I am often gob-smacked by the incredibly stupid ideas otherwise brilliant engineers have about how the world works.
So sadly folks like your brother are probably feeling validated for their racist feelings right now.
I’m very grateful that my parents have never lived in the Utah bubble; they saw right through Trump in 2016, and, for the first time in their lives, voted for someone other than a Republican.
Keep in mind that Benson was hard right; he would have thought that John Birchers were leftists. He and his faction may not have led the church for very long, but they had a profound influence on it.
Sorry for your loss.
Religion sucks so much, especially the more dogmatic ones. Mormonism is gross.
One insight I would offer is that categorising people as “good” or “not good” may not be helpful. I suspect that your dad probably invests a lot of effort in being a good man, he’s just unable to acknowledge that his perspective has been corrupted.
We judge ourselves by our intentions but others by their actions.
It’s not wrong to never speak to him again, but maybe this will make the mourning easier.
Thank you.
Yes, I agree black and white categories aren’t the ideal way to describe people.
But there comes a time when nuance is used against the compassionate to normalize reprehensible actions. We are in that time now.
It is for these reasons that I cannot stand listening to NPR anymore. The ineffectual hand wringing and disingenuous ’liberal self-reflection’ is tiresome and we are well past the time for thoughtful think-pieces.
It can hard to see good people do bad things. To learn all that love came with limits
I personally think it’s like a short circuit in the brain’s reward circuit or something. If you can convince people that what they are doing is achieving a greater good, they will do an endless amount of evil in order to achieve it.
Those that wake up from this delusion often end up being horrified at their own actions.
It should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway:
If you are anticipating being enriched by the suffering of others, you are not in the right.
I’ve wondered this exact question. How does any of this evil fascist shit benefit the average Trump voter.
Trade tariffs just make things like durable goods more expensive.
Deporting migrant workers is going to make food more expensive.
Killing all references to Trans people doesn’t do anything but hurt the Trans folks.
Killing all references to climate change is just going to eventually destroy the whole planet (well just our existence on it… the planet will be fine eventually).
Killing the Dept of Education is just going to make us all dumber.
DOGE is just a meme dept whose soul purpose seems to be to let Elon enact his revenge.
RFK2 gets in charge of all the countries medicine and vaccines and bans it all just in time for Pandemic 2, Electric Boogaloo.
So basically things get a lot more expensive, the rich get richer, lots of people die, and the world becomes a generally more shitty place. Yay!!! Let’s Go Brandon!!
It’s not like these people are open to reasoned debate. The only answer is there is something broken inside and fuck if I know what.
I normally do not talk politics with people I know, but this one person said they like trump because: “all I know is when he was president, I did good financially”.
I tried to tell him that the government is slow to enact things so he did good because the previous president. He didnt want to hear that and dismissed it.
If that’s all he knows he doesn’t know very much.
My cousin said the exact same thing.
They don’t know shit, but they still vote with such confidence. It’s maddening.
Like most MAGA.
deleted by creator
They want you to suffer. Their lives are miserable, and their media has taught them that it’s YOUR fault. So now they want you to suffer.
Hint: the reason it’s this way is that the elite control the media. If you’re fighting with your financial equals on the other side, then both sides aren’t getting together to fight the rich.
Hint: the reason it’s this way is that the elite control the media. If you’re fighting with your financial equals on the other side, then both sides aren’t getting together to fight the rich.
The focus of this cartoon is, I believe, an Austrailian(?) politician. I think it works though as “generic oligarch” or “Republicans.”
Don’t forget folks:
I believe the Australian is Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox news and The Daily Mail
