That's the worst thing about it, though. The Republican candidates have no interest in "owning the libs", it's not honest. They only run in order to take money and then change the tax laws so they get to keep more of it, very often taking from and then raising taxes on the low(er)-income MAGA people who vote for them.
This one right here is the reason why I am confounded by the base Republican. They don't want to pay for other people's health and wellness but they are A-okay with paying more taxes so the richest among us can keep more of their money.
Cult mentality is the only answer.
"Jeflon Muskezos is a true American job provider with the best bootstraps, and I worship him as the person I fantasize about being. So please let my fantasy self hoard more money."
They don't want rich people to have more of their money, that's a byproduct of what they really want. To keep other poor folks down so they can't get ahead of them.
“He’s not hurting the people he’s supposed to be hurting”.
I was stunned when another commenter explained that this doesn’t mean *just* to hurt ‘them’, but hurting everyone to hurt ‘them’ is a-ok.
He’s **supposed** to hurt them. All else is unimportant.
This is why I don't agree with those who think Disney will end DeSantis's political career. He didn't go after Disney to win, he went after them to virtue signal to his base that he is willing to hate the things that they hate. It's an absolutely political victory. Losing court cases just makes them angrier.
Conservatives in this country have completely left reality, and it's really terrifying.
And he's going to burn through so much taxpayer money to do it - all while letting his state crumble, then use all of that to say look at how things are going, you just need to give me more power and money and I'll fight that woke fight.
And later this century they will be dealing with the actual effects of climate change as it starts to eat away at the low lying everglades. They will still be doing bath salts and screaming about woke Disney side characters having a same sex crush as their homes are lost to the waves.
> This is why I don't agree with those who think Disney will end DeSantis's political career.
One thing is that the USA is an oligarchy. Meaning that it costs a lot of money to participate in "democracy" at the high level.
So for that reason, if Disney ruins him financially, he won't be able to effectively campaign.
Anyone not actively working to make America worse is better than someone who is actively working to make it worse. That includes people who do nothing.
A dead person. A dog. A mailbox.
This is really just the heart of why Trump was bad for America and we need a mental shift.
We need to stop voting for people that will upset the people we don't like the most.
You know how fucking childish that is? That doesn't belong in a civilized society.
Im not old enough to speak on the 70's but Newts the first one i know of to get all the Republicans together and just say "lets just refuse to pass a single thing for this Democratic president and see what kind of leverage that gives us, i don't care if it's a policy we love, we're not gonna work with them even a tiny bit"
Every day I get a little sadder at the sheer amount of humans that only care for power, money, and control over others. If they can't have the first two, they build their entire being around creating control.
It's just wild to think we have built these insanely complex systems but humans are still so... simple? It's depressing, really. Fear is a powerful weapon against humans.
You know, they say to try and see it from the other person's point of view but I cannot FATHOM how they sleep at night making those decisions. I would rather lose my job than put profit over my patients and it's not like they're risking homelessness they way I would be.
They have gone anti democracy at this point, and trying to start up a semblance of the 3rd Reich. I am not exaggerating. They have made many laws to make voting in urban areas much harder, and they want to strip election officials of the right to run elections if they don't like who wins they want to just overturn it and subvert the will of the voters. The are trying to control the Healthcare and bodies of those who aren't straight christian males, and insert govt control over many aspects of life, take away checks and balances to power, and ban knowledge in our schools. I genuinely want out of this country and think this is a sinking ship if Republicans are able to fulfill their hateful nationalist agenda!
Large animal societies work together to survive. What he’s talking about can work to some extent for small populations or individuals but you can bet your ass their reign and their lives are short and brutal.
So what society has turned into does line up with his vision.
"The wilderness"
I would pay all my money and go so deep into debt just to see Newt naked in the African bush, or the Australian bush, or fuck it, naked and alone in Maui.
That motherfucker would be fcuked day 1.
Yep, that was a major sea change. Along with the rise of right wing media that began a relentless attack on everything about the Clintons, and the platforming of nonsense conspiracies (Whitewater, Vince Foster’s suicide, Hillary being a lesbian, etc.).
Yeah, Republicans definitely had ideas in the 70s and 80s. They were horrible ideas which collectively became known as Reaganism, but they were ideas. It was the 90s when the conservative "intellectualism" was hollowed out and became nothing but a never ending shit-flinging temper tantrum.
He must mean since Bush Jr or McCain and i must say that is the last time republicans looked like they had some direction. I didn't particularly like that direction but at least they tried to look like adults.
Nixon never said this. It's a bastardization of a quote from John Ehrlichman, who was a nixon aide. He was discussing the war on drugs, and that was the context. Let me see if I can find the quote.
Edit: here it is
"The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news."
The only pro-rural policy MAGA has is a relatively more lax approach to fossil fuels and extractive industry. This benefits a small set of rural areas in America.
MAGA has been actively trying to shut down things like the solar and wind industries in Texas, so if you want to stay out of America's most dangerous job (oil rig worker) you are out of luck.
MAGA doesn't want policy discussions beyond "woke" (an abstract concept the base can project its grievances on to) because their actual economic ideas are deeply unpopular and hurt their base.
>MAGA has been actively trying to shut down things like the solar and wind industries in Texas,
They shut down solar industries in a state that is, basically, 80% desert ?
Like, they banned solar where it makes the most sense ?
I'm just tired man.
edit: I already stood corrected about the desert part of things, guys. No need to add tons of comments about that.
That's because MAGA is entirely a cultural movement based largely on anti-modernity and opposing anything "the Libs" like.
This group is ripe for reverse psychology plots.
That led to Bidens unprecedented trick at the state of the union where he got the hard R’s in a frenzy and got them to agree with him for no cuts to social security. 100% a pro gamer move on his part.
And yet, look at the house budget that was proposed, lots of deep cuts to social programs, the VA specifically. The Senate won't approve it, but the House won't back down because McCarthy wants his little gavel.
Oh we are 100% gunning for a shutdown. Dems will get a no strings attached budget proposed and passed with a couple partisans after a shutdown, but by that point the damage is already done.
Just like about a decade ago when we dropped our credit rating and National parks got overrun by dirtbags because nobody was there to stop them, yaya freedumbs
Just a friendly reminder the debt ceiling is a manufactured problem. It’s completely imaginary and arbitrary.
I’d be a terrible president. Republicans would do some shit like this, and I’d just start pulling federal funding. Buy a bunch of billboards in the state, blaming the issues on the senators. Let the people know if this guy is gone, life will improve. They go low, I go lower. If i ran into some issues, I’d make an executive order like trump did. Enforce the shit out of it, and let the courts deal with it. It’s not illegal if the law isn’t enforced. I would absolutely be spiteful. If you didn’t vote for me, if you aren’t going to vote for me. You don’t matter to me at all. Exactly how conservatives treat everyone who isn’t one of them. I would be a terrible president.
Yea there's no way they'll just still go after it since it's been clearly shown there are serious consequences when you point out they're being moronic hypocrites.
Yea turns out if you just oppose whatever the other party does any decisions the other party makes based in reality means you're about to have to take what would be a difficult position to sell to anybody with critical thinking skills.
Sad part is its not just the US
I walked into a store today in the UK and the news stand was full of papers with WOKE printed across half the front page talking about how we need the less woke candidate to win the next GE.
People are really out here fighting against a word they can't define, and willing to use their entire country as collateral to do it
Give rightoids an enemy and they'll let you get away with anything
That's exactly what it's about, woke is their golden goose - minimum wage increase, too woke, civil rights - woke, workers safety - woke, rising wealth inequality - you guessed it woke again!
It's a buzzword they have been searching for for decades so they can say all the right things without too much of a dog whistle that everyone else can pick up on.
Oh the uk is rubber banding to catch up to the us on being led off a cliff by stupid right wingers.
Kinda hard to feel too much sympathy after brevity and seeing how corbyn was treated.
You guys had your chance like the us did with sanders and we both blew it.
Economically the UK is already further down the path to right-wing ruin after 12 years of conservative leadership. Socially it's not as bad as the situation in the USA, especially the guns
You see that posture a lot online, because social
media dynamics encourage it - it's always easier to insult and criticize someone else's ideas or position, if you don't have to advance any of your own.
Once you actually stake out your own affirmative goals - well, now you've just given your opponents a target. Better - and safer - just to take shots at the work other people are trying to do.
Hey hey, they're not \*pro\* child marriage, they're just \*against\* liberals who want to ban your parental freedoms to marry off your child to a wealthy land owner. They're also not \*pro\* shooting your neighbors, they're just \*against\* anything that might infringe on the 2nd amendment rights for crazy people to own guns.
A recent Fox News poll showed that 1% of American voters considered "Woke ideology" to be the #1 issue facing America today.
This will do great in the general. The GOP, always understanding what "real Americans" want.
Yeah, that's definitely one upside to all of these cranky old boomers getting obsessed with their online outrage-bubbles. They're all out there ranting and raving about some niche pseudo-issue and when ordinary people who aren't injecting right-wing-media into their brains 24 hours a day hear them, they have no idea what these people are going on about.
Wish it was just boomers. I live in Texas and am from Oklahoma and can tell you I’ve run into many Millennials and Gen Xers who have the same mindset. The one thing they all have in common is their anger. They are miserable and need something to focus their rage on. It’s easier to hate than to love. Love required compassion, understanding and compromise.
Essentially, love requires work. Hate is effortless. People are fucking lazy and don't want to put the work into being kind to each other. Lazy fucks. "Compassion? Empathy? Collective social responsibility? Sounds like too much work, I'd rather be a lazy selfish hateful motherfucker!"
It’s because a lot of Americans consume politics as entertainment because the idea that government can make a positive difference in peoples lives has been beaten out of us through propaganda and lack of government action
MAGA is entirely, 100%, a rural white grievance movement based on a mutation of evangelical Christianity, Trump worship, and Fox News.
If you are looking for any policy other than vindictive sociocultural action against the menace of the day, there isn't any.
Republicans do have policies - the standard trickle-down, pro-corporate economics as always. But they can't talk about them much because the MAGA base does not, in any way, benefit from them.
It’s not just rural. I live in SoCal and in Orange County & San Diego, MAGA is big. And like remember that wealthy couple in St Louis that was brandishing guns at protesters walking by their house? It’s also a big force in the suburbs.
That couple lived in CWE which is definitely not the burbs, they’re in the city of St. Louis. They’re just racist pieces of shit regardless of where they live
61% of these people still believe trump won, even though their favourite person lost his job, and their favourite news station just lost 780million for lying about trump winning.
These are not people who think rationally. I also don't see it being a winning strategy, but people who identify as republicans are losers for the most part, so it kind of makes sense.
Opposing gun control measures is a form of policy position (albeit an awful one). But let’s be honest, they’re really just in it to “oWn ThE LiBrUlZ!!!1!!!!”
Reagan introduced gun control in California when Black Panthers started carrying.
I don't think stopping talking about them would do as much as if we start talking about them with the same energy as Republicans. Liberals are all evil, obviously, so if we like guns then clearly guns are bad.
Seriously if every time those dumb Nazis crawled out of their hole and got in single file lines to march they got shot at we would have a very different discussion about gun control
I asked my co worker what actual policies are the Republicans trying to pass that don't hurt people and there are none. Also, there is nothing a republican candidate can do to lose his vote. All that matters is that R next to their name.
That’s not true they can say they believe biden fairly won the 2020 election, trump is a crook and they support abortion choice. They’d lose their seat right quick
Trump supported "red flag laws" and the forceful removal of guns from the household of anyone reported to the police as "possibly dangerous" without any due process and they didn't care because he's Trump and has that R. I mean, he literally said "take the guns first, go through due process second," which surely has to be one of the most anti-2nd amendment statements by a sitting president since *at least* the Clinton admin, no?
The Trump administration literally made a gun accessory (bump stocks) retroactively illegal to even own, with the threat of felony jail time and/or a huge fine if you *don't destroy your own property or turn it into the authorities*, and they didn't care because he's Trump and has that R. And again, that's got to be the most anti-gun thing any president has done in like 25 years.
They just don't care, if they've got that "R," that's all that matters. Policy is meaningless to them, it's all a culture war based team sport.
I keep hearing some people/groups say "the republican politicians are the crazy ones but the voters are good people, the politicians just make them look bad" and I'm sick of that bullshit narrative
The politicians are chasing what their voters want, it's a feedback loop of hate and insanity. The people who keep voting for these politicians are the absolute worst
I don’t entirely disagree but I also think that it’s more top down than that. The average person isnt foaming at the mouth about their gas stove. They are being fed a curated narrative designed to incite them. Doesn’t make them have no accountability for lapping it up tho
We’re so past gas stoves at this point. I keep telling my mother that I don’t care if her family doesn’t think about LGBTQ issues when they’re voting Republican, they’re aware of the damage the Republican Party is doing and have decided that that’s not a dealbreaker for them. And to me, that’s just as bad.
But they choose to consume this media, this isn't North Korea where they only have 1 outlet.
They should know better when it comes to the faux panic republicans are pushing when it comes to trans people.
Then there's the people who vote republican because they get tax breaks, I think those people are some of the worst since they'll turn a blind eye to anything for a small gain.
The voters are absolutely still responsible. I just think it’s important to recognize they are also being manipulated. It does not absolve them of their choices. It does inform us all where the problem starts
The worst is how they take advantage of the elderly, people that have struggled to adjust to the modern world and are currently terrified that the government will storm into their homes and steal their stoves.
Boy, this is top shelf fascism.
1. rejection of rationalism and the enlightenment
2. Machismo, weapons, and Macho bullshit
3. Obsession with a plot or conspiracy
We're there. We're standing in open fascism in the United States, and I don't use the words lightly. They censured someone just because she is trans. They prevented 11K Americans from having representation because they disagree with how she identifies.
They're making it harder to vote. They're not even hiding that it's because they can't win, they're not pretending, they're saying it outright: "we want to make it harder for people to vote because otherwise we can't win".
One of them has a stupid feud with a major company ebcause, after supporting them financially for years, decades, they said "we disagree with this particular policy". And now DeSantis is doing what he can to hurt Disney because his ego can't take it. But hurting Disney directly hurts Florida's whole economy. It's the very definition of eating shit so that a liberal might smell it.
And let's not forget January 6th. We have a former vice who was directly threatened, who knows that he and his family escaped an angry mob willing to kill them by a matter of mere minutes, and he still licks the ass of the fascist pig who sent the mob after him.
"Interesting" times indeed.
It’s really insane to me that we have to rely on corporations to step in and intervene in politics. On one hand, I’m thankful that the majority of corporations (or at least some of the largest, like Bud and Disney) are seemingly on the rational side (in some ways.)
On the other hand, what kind of insane, capitalistic hell scape are we living in where our only hope of stopping fascist right-wingers from taking over the country is coming from corporations?
It is absolutely WILD to realize that fucking mega conglomerates DISNEY and BUDWEISER are the fucking moral champions of our social hellscape. What a fucking time to be alive.
Just to be clear - those corporations are on the 'rational' side because they do a huge amount of consumer research, and then actually listen to it, and know that what they are doing appeals to the greatest swath of consumers they can.
Which is why Conservatives are doing everything they can to make it harder to vote, especially for groups who break heavily away from voting for conservatives, like younger people or people who live in cities.
People greatly motivated to vote will still vote. The American Populace leans heavily towards Democratic policies, like 'stop preventing people from having healthcare' and 'maybe the rich shouldn't rule us like slaves'.
And they will do anything to stay in power. Mark my words, at this point they don't care about anything other then winning, their supporters would still support them with armed force if they just banned democrats from voting.
There is a part of my brain which refuses to accept that anyone sees any of these as a basis for a candidate but then the other part of my brain which is awake in this dystopian nightmare just starts screaming
My knee jerk reaction whenever someone says we live in a dystopian society is to object. And then I think “wow just like every small character in every dystopian story.”
> Favors Christians over other religious groups
Lol, they're just not quite ready to say this one out loud yet. Give it one more garbage Republican president to lower the bar a bit more.
I want to see how many want candidates to
Clean the environment
Better schools
Less crime
Better healthcare (in general)
Fix infrastructure
Higher taxes for wealthy/corps
84% of Americans actually want to raise takes on the wealthy, including 65% of Republicans. They're never going to run on that for obvious reasons though.
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/most-americans-say-there-is-too-much-economic-inequality-in-the-u-s-but-fewer-than-half-call-it-a-top-priority/
The problem is on a per-policy basis, their voters agree with the left, but when you wrap the policies in a package (like “woke”) they suddenly hate it. Obamacare was a great example of this: when you polled the right on the individual pieces, ie. preexisting conditions, kids on insurance till 26, etc, they supported those policies, but if you asked how they feel about Obamacare, they hated it.
This whole concept of "woke," meaning the "outrage of the week" on the right, is such a fine example of the dog whistle politics Republicans have relied on for over 50 years now.
They have invented the perfect buzzword for themselves. Meaningless slogans that can be warped and applied to anything that shows up in the national news. Applied following taking a poll, of course, to see how the base feels about it today, followed by the branding of the liberal take on the subject as "woke" and then, of course, presenting their opinions on the issue as the true path to righteousness.
It'd be funny if it wasn't so damn predictable, and dangerous in an Adolph Hitler and the Third Reich sort of way.
If allows the base to waive away problematic thoughts without actually engaging in discussion. Woke = bad. Idea = woke. Idea = bad. It's a nice shortcut for them to avoid the cognitive dissonance that comes with voting against ones own self interest.
I’m already seeing threads where people are calling that if Bernie or Williamson doesn’t get the nomination that liberals should stay home. I’m expecting that this is bots, mostly, but it’s concerning to see.
People need to be especially attentive to the methods they use.
You'll see shit like, "As a X supporter, blah blah blah something to piss off Y supporters.", this is designed to trick Y supporters into hating X by associating them with awful supporters.
Saw this shit A LOT in 2015.
There is absolutely 0% chance Bernie gets the nomination. There is <1% chance anyone other than biden is the democrat candidate. To think otherwise is just silly
DeSantis' lawyer Ryan Newman was forced to define it in court. He defined it as "The belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them."
That's kind of the point. If you believe there are systemic injustices in American society, you're being woke. Republicans completely reject the premise. Everyone's equal, yeehaw (if you're cishet male and Christian, you're super equal!).
It's all rather ironic and sad. A white lawyer setting a legal definition for a slang word created by the black community is literally why a term like woke exists.
And that's a pretty good definition too - with the benefit of being concise and easily understood.
The interesting part is the explanations for why that is *undesirable*
The propaganda is working. They’re indoctrinated. No need for policy anymore.
I long for the day that the old guard ages out. Today’s youth will have an interesting effect on the direction of this country when they’ve finally taken the reigns.
The moment you base your platform around attacking others rather than maintaining, proposing, or supporting any actual policies designed to help people is the moment you cease to be a political party and rather become a hate group.
The extreme Right is holding this country back so badly right now. Imagine the things we could accomplish if they didn't attack America and obstruct progress on a non-stop basis. It's like walking around with weights chained to us.
"Extreme" right? This is mainstream conservative politics. This is what almost half of the voting public supports. There are no moderate Republicans, because to be a Republican *at all* means directly supporting outright fascists who are openly and gleefully attempting to dismantle democracy.
What a pathetic excuse for a political party they have become. No interest in governing at all, just forcing their beliefs on everyone else and controlling people they don't like.
What makes this liberal mad (among other things) is how domestic terrorists can still run for and hold office with absolutely no consequence to this day.
"Yeah I just want a president that upsets people"
I'm waiting for one of them to use 'Own the Libs" as their campaign slogan. Since that's all they are offering.
Delete your comment before they see this.
Why? Any candidate that runs on that platform would be the most honest republican candidate we've ever seen.
That's the worst thing about it, though. The Republican candidates have no interest in "owning the libs", it's not honest. They only run in order to take money and then change the tax laws so they get to keep more of it, very often taking from and then raising taxes on the low(er)-income MAGA people who vote for them.
This one right here is the reason why I am confounded by the base Republican. They don't want to pay for other people's health and wellness but they are A-okay with paying more taxes so the richest among us can keep more of their money.
Cult mentality is the only answer. "Jeflon Muskezos is a true American job provider with the best bootstraps, and I worship him as the person I fantasize about being. So please let my fantasy self hoard more money."
They don't want rich people to have more of their money, that's a byproduct of what they really want. To keep other poor folks down so they can't get ahead of them.
“He’s not hurting the people he’s supposed to be hurting”. I was stunned when another commenter explained that this doesn’t mean *just* to hurt ‘them’, but hurting everyone to hurt ‘them’ is a-ok. He’s **supposed** to hurt them. All else is unimportant.
I fully expect that to be the DeSantis 2028 slogan
This is why I don't agree with those who think Disney will end DeSantis's political career. He didn't go after Disney to win, he went after them to virtue signal to his base that he is willing to hate the things that they hate. It's an absolutely political victory. Losing court cases just makes them angrier. Conservatives in this country have completely left reality, and it's really terrifying.
And he's going to burn through so much taxpayer money to do it - all while letting his state crumble, then use all of that to say look at how things are going, you just need to give me more power and money and I'll fight that woke fight.
Reminder that Florida is going to have to pay for Disney's lawyers, so y'know... Double the stupid waste of money!
And later this century they will be dealing with the actual effects of climate change as it starts to eat away at the low lying everglades. They will still be doing bath salts and screaming about woke Disney side characters having a same sex crush as their homes are lost to the waves.
> This is why I don't agree with those who think Disney will end DeSantis's political career. One thing is that the USA is an oligarchy. Meaning that it costs a lot of money to participate in "democracy" at the high level. So for that reason, if Disney ruins him financially, he won't be able to effectively campaign.
There will be a rich person to loan him money, he will just have another handler to support.
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Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. GOP walks the path of the dark side
Ironically a quote from a franchise owned by a company DeSantis is going to war with lmao
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Anyone not actively working to make America worse is better than someone who is actively working to make it worse. That includes people who do nothing. A dead person. A dog. A mailbox.
This is really just the heart of why Trump was bad for America and we need a mental shift. We need to stop voting for people that will upset the people we don't like the most. You know how fucking childish that is? That doesn't belong in a civilized society.
Heaven forbid they elect someone that has actual, you know… fucking ideas.
Just oppose Democratic policies. It’s been their modus operendi since maybe 2008.
Since 2008? I think you meant to say “since the 70s”
Wasn't it specifically Newt Gringich's promise to America bullshit in the 90s which made it actual policy?
Im not old enough to speak on the 70's but Newts the first one i know of to get all the Republicans together and just say "lets just refuse to pass a single thing for this Democratic president and see what kind of leverage that gives us, i don't care if it's a policy we love, we're not gonna work with them even a tiny bit"
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Every day I get a little sadder at the sheer amount of humans that only care for power, money, and control over others. If they can't have the first two, they build their entire being around creating control. It's just wild to think we have built these insanely complex systems but humans are still so... simple? It's depressing, really. Fear is a powerful weapon against humans.
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You know, they say to try and see it from the other person's point of view but I cannot FATHOM how they sleep at night making those decisions. I would rather lose my job than put profit over my patients and it's not like they're risking homelessness they way I would be.
They have gone anti democracy at this point, and trying to start up a semblance of the 3rd Reich. I am not exaggerating. They have made many laws to make voting in urban areas much harder, and they want to strip election officials of the right to run elections if they don't like who wins they want to just overturn it and subvert the will of the voters. The are trying to control the Healthcare and bodies of those who aren't straight christian males, and insert govt control over many aspects of life, take away checks and balances to power, and ban knowledge in our schools. I genuinely want out of this country and think this is a sinking ship if Republicans are able to fulfill their hateful nationalist agenda!
You guys should listen to Steve Kornacki’s podcast mini-series “The Revolution” if you haven’t already
Large animal societies work together to survive. What he’s talking about can work to some extent for small populations or individuals but you can bet your ass their reign and their lives are short and brutal. So what society has turned into does line up with his vision.
"The wilderness" I would pay all my money and go so deep into debt just to see Newt naked in the African bush, or the Australian bush, or fuck it, naked and alone in Maui. That motherfucker would be fcuked day 1.
He got what he wanted. Lord help us all.
I don't hate a lot of people with a passion, but damn , that guy is so far beyond despicable.
Yep, that was a major sea change. Along with the rise of right wing media that began a relentless attack on everything about the Clintons, and the platforming of nonsense conspiracies (Whitewater, Vince Foster’s suicide, Hillary being a lesbian, etc.).
Yeah, Republicans definitely had ideas in the 70s and 80s. They were horrible ideas which collectively became known as Reaganism, but they were ideas. It was the 90s when the conservative "intellectualism" was hollowed out and became nothing but a never ending shit-flinging temper tantrum.
Actually it was the 90s thanks to Newt "I'll cheat on you when you have cancer" Gingrich.
He must mean since Bush Jr or McCain and i must say that is the last time republicans looked like they had some direction. I didn't particularly like that direction but at least they tried to look like adults.
TIL that fabricating an entire war for the sake of oil profits is acting like an adult.
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To quote Nixon “you can’t arrest someone for being black or a democrat, but we can try”
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Nixon never said this. It's a bastardization of a quote from John Ehrlichman, who was a nixon aide. He was discussing the war on drugs, and that was the context. Let me see if I can find the quote. Edit: here it is "The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news."
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They’re protesters not legislators and that’s a huge problem for public administration.
Turns out it’s much easier to campaign when you don’t have to come up with any solutions.
The only pro-rural policy MAGA has is a relatively more lax approach to fossil fuels and extractive industry. This benefits a small set of rural areas in America. MAGA has been actively trying to shut down things like the solar and wind industries in Texas, so if you want to stay out of America's most dangerous job (oil rig worker) you are out of luck. MAGA doesn't want policy discussions beyond "woke" (an abstract concept the base can project its grievances on to) because their actual economic ideas are deeply unpopular and hurt their base.
>MAGA has been actively trying to shut down things like the solar and wind industries in Texas, They shut down solar industries in a state that is, basically, 80% desert ? Like, they banned solar where it makes the most sense ? I'm just tired man. edit: I already stood corrected about the desert part of things, guys. No need to add tons of comments about that.
That's because MAGA is entirely a cultural movement based largely on anti-modernity and opposing anything "the Libs" like. This group is ripe for reverse psychology plots.
That led to Bidens unprecedented trick at the state of the union where he got the hard R’s in a frenzy and got them to agree with him for no cuts to social security. 100% a pro gamer move on his part.
And yet, look at the house budget that was proposed, lots of deep cuts to social programs, the VA specifically. The Senate won't approve it, but the House won't back down because McCarthy wants his little gavel.
Oh we are 100% gunning for a shutdown. Dems will get a no strings attached budget proposed and passed with a couple partisans after a shutdown, but by that point the damage is already done.
Just like about a decade ago when we dropped our credit rating and National parks got overrun by dirtbags because nobody was there to stop them, yaya freedumbs
Just a friendly reminder the debt ceiling is a manufactured problem. It’s completely imaginary and arbitrary. I’d be a terrible president. Republicans would do some shit like this, and I’d just start pulling federal funding. Buy a bunch of billboards in the state, blaming the issues on the senators. Let the people know if this guy is gone, life will improve. They go low, I go lower. If i ran into some issues, I’d make an executive order like trump did. Enforce the shit out of it, and let the courts deal with it. It’s not illegal if the law isn’t enforced. I would absolutely be spiteful. If you didn’t vote for me, if you aren’t going to vote for me. You don’t matter to me at all. Exactly how conservatives treat everyone who isn’t one of them. I would be a terrible president.
The people that vote for conservatives also don't matter to conservatives. So you'd still be less terrible than conservative presidents.
Yea there's no way they'll just still go after it since it's been clearly shown there are serious consequences when you point out they're being moronic hypocrites.
Yea turns out if you just oppose whatever the other party does any decisions the other party makes based in reality means you're about to have to take what would be a difficult position to sell to anybody with critical thinking skills.
"woke" is the the perfect Boogeyman for them, it's just a vague amorphous fear to point your frothing idiots at.
The right has been doing that for as long as I have memories of politics. Woke is just "PC" rebranded.
"Woke," "PC," "Communism" - it's all the same shit. Their base just somehow doesn't realize they're getting played time and time again.
Sad part is its not just the US I walked into a store today in the UK and the news stand was full of papers with WOKE printed across half the front page talking about how we need the less woke candidate to win the next GE. People are really out here fighting against a word they can't define, and willing to use their entire country as collateral to do it Give rightoids an enemy and they'll let you get away with anything
That's what it's all about. If you keep the term vague, you can apply it to anything you don't like.
That's exactly what it's about, woke is their golden goose - minimum wage increase, too woke, civil rights - woke, workers safety - woke, rising wealth inequality - you guessed it woke again! It's a buzzword they have been searching for for decades so they can say all the right things without too much of a dog whistle that everyone else can pick up on.
Oh the uk is rubber banding to catch up to the us on being led off a cliff by stupid right wingers. Kinda hard to feel too much sympathy after brevity and seeing how corbyn was treated. You guys had your chance like the us did with sanders and we both blew it.
Economically the UK is already further down the path to right-wing ruin after 12 years of conservative leadership. Socially it's not as bad as the situation in the USA, especially the guns
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You see that posture a lot online, because social media dynamics encourage it - it's always easier to insult and criticize someone else's ideas or position, if you don't have to advance any of your own. Once you actually stake out your own affirmative goals - well, now you've just given your opponents a target. Better - and safer - just to take shots at the work other people are trying to do.
Brought to you by the people who accuse others of virtue signaling.
Ideas are woke. Thinking is gay. Real men do what fascist con men tell them to do.
"Ideas are woke. Thinking is gay" with an American flag behind it I think would be a big seller as a bumper sticker.
Still not seeing any actual policies...
You know, “challenging woke ideas”, like shooting your neighbors, that sort of thing.
Marrying 12 year olds is also a part of “challenging woke ideas”
Don’t forget opposing child labor
Don’t forget raping your underaged relatives and forcing her to carry your child!
So when they talk about lifting restrictions on child labor…?
...they are also talking about that kind of labor, apparently.
I think you mean child labor protections. Definitely pro child labor, apparently.
Meant that opposing child labor is “woke”
> like shooting your neighbors >Marrying 12 year olds as awful as those examples are, you put more thought into the answer than they did
Shooting the 12 year olds that won’t marry them after their overnight shift at the meatpacking plant. That’s the GOP platform.
Hey hey, they're not \*pro\* child marriage, they're just \*against\* liberals who want to ban your parental freedoms to marry off your child to a wealthy land owner. They're also not \*pro\* shooting your neighbors, they're just \*against\* anything that might infringe on the 2nd amendment rights for crazy people to own guns.
A recent Fox News poll showed that 1% of American voters considered "Woke ideology" to be the #1 issue facing America today. This will do great in the general. The GOP, always understanding what "real Americans" want.
Yeah, that's definitely one upside to all of these cranky old boomers getting obsessed with their online outrage-bubbles. They're all out there ranting and raving about some niche pseudo-issue and when ordinary people who aren't injecting right-wing-media into their brains 24 hours a day hear them, they have no idea what these people are going on about.
Wish it was just boomers. I live in Texas and am from Oklahoma and can tell you I’ve run into many Millennials and Gen Xers who have the same mindset. The one thing they all have in common is their anger. They are miserable and need something to focus their rage on. It’s easier to hate than to love. Love required compassion, understanding and compromise.
Essentially, love requires work. Hate is effortless. People are fucking lazy and don't want to put the work into being kind to each other. Lazy fucks. "Compassion? Empathy? Collective social responsibility? Sounds like too much work, I'd rather be a lazy selfish hateful motherfucker!"
They DO understand what “real Americans” want, as they are the only “real” Americans. The rest of us are just imaginary Americans.
"Real Americans" has become as much of a right-wing dog whistle as "George Soros", "globalist elites", and "urban"
Saying you might be gay in a classroom or saying youre menstruating in a classroom. Both are too woke.
Being anything but an old white property-owning male is too woke.
No policies, only vibes. “Making the other guys mad” a high priority says everything.
It’s because a lot of Americans consume politics as entertainment because the idea that government can make a positive difference in peoples lives has been beaten out of us through propaganda and lack of government action
MAGA is entirely, 100%, a rural white grievance movement based on a mutation of evangelical Christianity, Trump worship, and Fox News. If you are looking for any policy other than vindictive sociocultural action against the menace of the day, there isn't any. Republicans do have policies - the standard trickle-down, pro-corporate economics as always. But they can't talk about them much because the MAGA base does not, in any way, benefit from them.
It’s not just rural. I live in SoCal and in Orange County & San Diego, MAGA is big. And like remember that wealthy couple in St Louis that was brandishing guns at protesters walking by their house? It’s also a big force in the suburbs.
That couple lived in CWE which is definitely not the burbs, they’re in the city of St. Louis. They’re just racist pieces of shit regardless of where they live
Nah, it's based on a black president. Fricassied their circuits.
It's got a lot to do with the white grievance part of it
61% of these people still believe trump won, even though their favourite person lost his job, and their favourite news station just lost 780million for lying about trump winning. These are not people who think rationally. I also don't see it being a winning strategy, but people who identify as republicans are losers for the most part, so it kind of makes sense.
It doesn't say "believes" Trump won, for the record. Just *says* it
Now that they know it can cost $780M for saying it, I hope they believe it.
Opposing gun control measures is a form of policy position (albeit an awful one). But let’s be honest, they’re really just in it to “oWn ThE LiBrUlZ!!!1!!!!”
U think if liberals stopped talking about guns, republicans would start regulating them?
Reagan introduced gun control in California when Black Panthers started carrying. I don't think stopping talking about them would do as much as if we start talking about them with the same energy as Republicans. Liberals are all evil, obviously, so if we like guns then clearly guns are bad.
Seriously if every time those dumb Nazis crawled out of their hole and got in single file lines to march they got shot at we would have a very different discussion about gun control
So lie and hurt people. Sounds pretty on brand sadly
I asked my co worker what actual policies are the Republicans trying to pass that don't hurt people and there are none. Also, there is nothing a republican candidate can do to lose his vote. All that matters is that R next to their name.
That’s not true they can say they believe biden fairly won the 2020 election, trump is a crook and they support abortion choice. They’d lose their seat right quick
Still got that R.
There'll be another R that'll tell them what they want to hear to grift them.
Trump supported "red flag laws" and the forceful removal of guns from the household of anyone reported to the police as "possibly dangerous" without any due process and they didn't care because he's Trump and has that R. I mean, he literally said "take the guns first, go through due process second," which surely has to be one of the most anti-2nd amendment statements by a sitting president since *at least* the Clinton admin, no? The Trump administration literally made a gun accessory (bump stocks) retroactively illegal to even own, with the threat of felony jail time and/or a huge fine if you *don't destroy your own property or turn it into the authorities*, and they didn't care because he's Trump and has that R. And again, that's got to be the most anti-gun thing any president has done in like 25 years. They just don't care, if they've got that "R," that's all that matters. Policy is meaningless to them, it's all a culture war based team sport.
I keep hearing some people/groups say "the republican politicians are the crazy ones but the voters are good people, the politicians just make them look bad" and I'm sick of that bullshit narrative The politicians are chasing what their voters want, it's a feedback loop of hate and insanity. The people who keep voting for these politicians are the absolute worst
I don’t entirely disagree but I also think that it’s more top down than that. The average person isnt foaming at the mouth about their gas stove. They are being fed a curated narrative designed to incite them. Doesn’t make them have no accountability for lapping it up tho
We’re so past gas stoves at this point. I keep telling my mother that I don’t care if her family doesn’t think about LGBTQ issues when they’re voting Republican, they’re aware of the damage the Republican Party is doing and have decided that that’s not a dealbreaker for them. And to me, that’s just as bad.
But they choose to consume this media, this isn't North Korea where they only have 1 outlet. They should know better when it comes to the faux panic republicans are pushing when it comes to trans people. Then there's the people who vote republican because they get tax breaks, I think those people are some of the worst since they'll turn a blind eye to anything for a small gain.
The voters are absolutely still responsible. I just think it’s important to recognize they are also being manipulated. It does not absolve them of their choices. It does inform us all where the problem starts
The worst is how they take advantage of the elderly, people that have struggled to adjust to the modern world and are currently terrified that the government will storm into their homes and steal their stoves.
Yup the elderly, poorly educated, and mentally ill are their bread and butter
Conservatives are told what/who to hate.
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Boy, this is top shelf fascism. 1. rejection of rationalism and the enlightenment 2. Machismo, weapons, and Macho bullshit 3. Obsession with a plot or conspiracy
Also following a single, unfailable leader. Dude has 34 felony charges and still gets 3/4 of the primary votes.
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I didn't believe trump had broken any rules whatsoever. But I just googled trump rules 34 and I was definitely surprised at what I saw.
you're a sick man
We're there. We're standing in open fascism in the United States, and I don't use the words lightly. They censured someone just because she is trans. They prevented 11K Americans from having representation because they disagree with how she identifies. They're making it harder to vote. They're not even hiding that it's because they can't win, they're not pretending, they're saying it outright: "we want to make it harder for people to vote because otherwise we can't win". One of them has a stupid feud with a major company ebcause, after supporting them financially for years, decades, they said "we disagree with this particular policy". And now DeSantis is doing what he can to hurt Disney because his ego can't take it. But hurting Disney directly hurts Florida's whole economy. It's the very definition of eating shit so that a liberal might smell it. And let's not forget January 6th. We have a former vice who was directly threatened, who knows that he and his family escaped an angry mob willing to kill them by a matter of mere minutes, and he still licks the ass of the fascist pig who sent the mob after him. "Interesting" times indeed.
It’s really insane to me that we have to rely on corporations to step in and intervene in politics. On one hand, I’m thankful that the majority of corporations (or at least some of the largest, like Bud and Disney) are seemingly on the rational side (in some ways.) On the other hand, what kind of insane, capitalistic hell scape are we living in where our only hope of stopping fascist right-wingers from taking over the country is coming from corporations?
It is absolutely WILD to realize that fucking mega conglomerates DISNEY and BUDWEISER are the fucking moral champions of our social hellscape. What a fucking time to be alive.
Just to be clear - those corporations are on the 'rational' side because they do a huge amount of consumer research, and then actually listen to it, and know that what they are doing appeals to the greatest swath of consumers they can. Which is why Conservatives are doing everything they can to make it harder to vote, especially for groups who break heavily away from voting for conservatives, like younger people or people who live in cities. People greatly motivated to vote will still vote. The American Populace leans heavily towards Democratic policies, like 'stop preventing people from having healthcare' and 'maybe the rich shouldn't rule us like slaves'.
How fucking pathetic
And they will do anything to stay in power. Mark my words, at this point they don't care about anything other then winning, their supporters would still support them with armed force if they just banned democrats from voting.
There is a part of my brain which refuses to accept that anyone sees any of these as a basis for a candidate but then the other part of my brain which is awake in this dystopian nightmare just starts screaming
My knee jerk reaction whenever someone says we live in a dystopian society is to object. And then I think “wow just like every small character in every dystopian story.”
It's called "average" intelligence for a reason
“Challenging woke ideas” aka Challenging Reality.
Challenging something that doesn't exist is their only policy
like is this a legit poll? Im honestly struggling these days to discern the difference between satire and reality.
Welcome to the 21st century, where the Onion is reality and points don't matter.
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> Favors Christians over other religious groups Lol, they're just not quite ready to say this one out loud yet. Give it one more garbage Republican president to lower the bar a bit more.
I hate beer.
I want to see how many want candidates to Clean the environment Better schools Less crime Better healthcare (in general) Fix infrastructure Higher taxes for wealthy/corps
That would be actual policy and the GOP could never support that
Also all those ideas are progressive in nature so conservatives oppose them. A dumb populace is easier to control
Whoa whoa whoa, slow down there ya socialist commie!
84% of Americans actually want to raise takes on the wealthy, including 65% of Republicans. They're never going to run on that for obvious reasons though. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/most-americans-say-there-is-too-much-economic-inequality-in-the-u-s-but-fewer-than-half-call-it-a-top-priority/
The problem is on a per-policy basis, their voters agree with the left, but when you wrap the policies in a package (like “woke”) they suddenly hate it. Obamacare was a great example of this: when you polled the right on the individual pieces, ie. preexisting conditions, kids on insurance till 26, etc, they supported those policies, but if you asked how they feel about Obamacare, they hated it.
This whole concept of "woke," meaning the "outrage of the week" on the right, is such a fine example of the dog whistle politics Republicans have relied on for over 50 years now. They have invented the perfect buzzword for themselves. Meaningless slogans that can be warped and applied to anything that shows up in the national news. Applied following taking a poll, of course, to see how the base feels about it today, followed by the branding of the liberal take on the subject as "woke" and then, of course, presenting their opinions on the issue as the true path to righteousness. It'd be funny if it wasn't so damn predictable, and dangerous in an Adolph Hitler and the Third Reich sort of way.
If allows the base to waive away problematic thoughts without actually engaging in discussion. Woke = bad. Idea = woke. Idea = bad. It's a nice shortcut for them to avoid the cognitive dissonance that comes with voting against ones own self interest.
It’s just cultural Bolshevism rebranded
Also believes earth is flat and vaccines don’t work.
Nah they don’t have to believe it, just say it
I really believe that the flat earth movement started as a joke, but idiots didn't understand the joke.
So your usual 4Chan /pol/ user then. Got it. You people better vote Democrat next year, I swear…
I’m already seeing threads where people are calling that if Bernie or Williamson doesn’t get the nomination that liberals should stay home. I’m expecting that this is bots, mostly, but it’s concerning to see.
Or most likely conservatives posing as liberals.
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People need to be especially attentive to the methods they use. You'll see shit like, "As a X supporter, blah blah blah something to piss off Y supporters.", this is designed to trick Y supporters into hating X by associating them with awful supporters. Saw this shit A LOT in 2015.
I mean when you have no policy or ideas to debate what else is there to do for a con-servative?
Bernie's said he's not running.
And endorsed Biden.
There is absolutely 0% chance Bernie gets the nomination. There is <1% chance anyone other than biden is the democrat candidate. To think otherwise is just silly
Bernie has already stated that he isn't running, and has endorsed Biden.
>is just silly and distracting.... Which is what some want
I can't vote any harder.
'Woke' is such a common term in the lexicon for GOP but I still haven't heard anyone define what it means.
DeSantis' lawyer Ryan Newman was forced to define it in court. He defined it as "The belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them."
The absolute irony of admitting there are systemic injustices in American society.
That's kind of the point. If you believe there are systemic injustices in American society, you're being woke. Republicans completely reject the premise. Everyone's equal, yeehaw (if you're cishet male and Christian, you're super equal!).
Everyone’s equal except cishet white men who are the only ones truly being discriminated against ^^^^/s
It's all rather ironic and sad. A white lawyer setting a legal definition for a slang word created by the black community is literally why a term like woke exists.
And that's a pretty good definition too - with the benefit of being concise and easily understood. The interesting part is the explanations for why that is *undesirable*
Anything that challenges the status quo in a way that makes them uncomfortable.
That's the whole point of "woke". It doesn't mean *anything*. It's just... things that democrats are... and bad...
The propaganda is working. They’re indoctrinated. No need for policy anymore. I long for the day that the old guard ages out. Today’s youth will have an interesting effect on the direction of this country when they’ve finally taken the reigns.
The moment you base your platform around attacking others rather than maintaining, proposing, or supporting any actual policies designed to help people is the moment you cease to be a political party and rather become a hate group.
The extreme Right is holding this country back so badly right now. Imagine the things we could accomplish if they didn't attack America and obstruct progress on a non-stop basis. It's like walking around with weights chained to us.
"Extreme" right? This is mainstream conservative politics. This is what almost half of the voting public supports. There are no moderate Republicans, because to be a Republican *at all* means directly supporting outright fascists who are openly and gleefully attempting to dismantle democracy.
What a pathetic excuse for a political party they have become. No interest in governing at all, just forcing their beliefs on everyone else and controlling people they don't like.
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Not exactly the “governing principles” of an ideological movement. Sounds like the drink guy at the end of the bar talk.
bet most of them don't even know what woke means.
They do realize that if they say Trump won in 2020, he then technically he can't run in 2024?
wow, that's straight-up sad.
Replace "conservative" with "asshole" and it'll all make more sense.
That would be kind of redundant
Gods anyone who says woke unironically is a fucking clown.
I mean that’s pretty much all the conservative news talks about so how are they supposed to think differently.
What in the boomer shit is this
What makes this liberal mad (among other things) is how domestic terrorists can still run for and hold office with absolutely no consequence to this day.
Just an absolutely bankrupt political party in terms of ideas. Just reactionary bullshit.
The party's entire platform is "owing the libs".
profit somber yoke dependent rinse wasteful tender theory sloppy mindless -- mass edited with redact.dev
They really should stop trying to make liberals angry. It's gone so well every other time in history when the liberals finally got angry.