The Path Forward

[Gadianton]

The path forward absolutely should include calling out MAGA for being the closest thing to the Nazi movement that we've ever seen. It's too bad that right-thinking folks in 1930's Germany weren't able to warn their neighbors about Hitler. The same folks who are blinded by Trumpism would have been blinded by Hitler. At what point, in Nazi Germany, was it okay to criticize the Nazi party? Remember, at the time the warning needed to be heard, no atrocities had been committed yet.

The main difference between then and now is the economy is very good despite inflation, and the real hard-core MAGA aren't the worst off, they're LARPing out of boredom. The danger now is a little different. It's analogous to the well-fed Capitol rioters running around with a noose to hang Mike Pence. 99-1 they wouldn't have hanged Mike Pence, even if they caught him, but there's that chance when everybody is charged up, that after soaking the field in gasoline lighting the match and prancing around, that it gets dropped. Trump can only keep his brand going by one-upping his last publicity stunt. Some of his plans are real evil that will destroy peoples lives even if they fall short of the executions that his base are calling for on Rumble.

We are well set up for scenarios of massive human rights violations at the hands of the coming administration while the base cheers. Will the match drop? I have no idea. I sure hope not. I will be very happy if four years from now drumdude is condescending to me for over-reacting because things go as he predicted, with the clowns failing and the world moves on.

[canpakes]

Hound of Heaven -

Do you conclude that a lot of voters picked Trump because he told them that he would make grocery prices go down, and that he would cut their energy bills by 50%?

[Dwight]

We are well set up for scenarios of massive human rights violations at the hands of the coming administration while the base cheers. Will the match drop? I have no idea. I sure hope not. I will be very happy if four years from now drumdude is condescending to me for over-reacting because things go as he predicted, with the clowns failing and the world moves on.

This is the dream. Also the reaction is part of changing things. If the boy who cried wolf got the villagers to come out and the racket scared the wolf off before anyone else saw it, but you can see wolf prints, so you know there was a wolf then maybe it was good he cried wolf. Trump does talk a lot of crap, but that just makes it easier to slip in the other stuff. His opponents get mocked for crying wolf, and some might have been real and he drops cause of resistance, and other fake, but it doesn’t change that he is proposing or saying abhorrent things to democracy. I’m not going to apologize for trying to be vigilant about democracy, and I’ll ask Trump supporters why they think it is okay that he talks so much crap. They will of course answer with crickets and go put a microscope to every perceived slight of their opponents.

[ceeboo]

The path forward absolutely should include calling out MAGA for being the closest thing to the Nazi movement that we've ever seen.

Whether you recognize it or not, your suggested path forward has been flatly rejected. Consider this: Your suggested path forward has been supported, encouraged, and echoed by the great majority of the legacy media on a daily loop (most of which is now under hospice care) the majority of printed news, the great majority of academia, the great majority of elite actors/stars, and the great majority cable news outlets. With all of these voices, basically saying the same thing you have said here in unison, over and over and over on the daily, how could the election results possibly have been what they were?

The answer (obviously) - The suggested path forward that is being sold (despite all of the neat packaging and colorful ribbons used by the salespeople) is not resonating with enough Americans - It isn't ringing true to enough Americans, and there are not enough Americans who are buying it.

Perhaps it's time for a few new paths to be put on the table?

[Marcus]

The path forward absolutely should include calling out MAGA for being the closest thing to the Nazi movement that we've ever seen.

...The answer (obviously) - The suggested path forward that is being sold (despite all of the neat packaging and colorful ribbons used by the salespeople) is not resonating with enough Americans - It isn't ringing true to enough Americans, and there are not enough Americans who are buying it....

Because (obviously) - when lots of people believe something, then it must be true. Right?

Have you ever seen the movie, Idiocracy?

[Gadianton]

That's like saying the voices who warned of the rise of Nazism shouldn't have said anything because they lost and Hitler won. It will be more important then ever for people to speak out against MAGA fascism, because a key target of Trump's new regime will be freedom of speech in unprecedented ways. Biden won bigger than anybody while mainstream was more anti-Trump than it is now, if anything, it's gotten soft, and Twitter is now a right-wing propaganda machine.

Your obsession with tone patrolling is laughable. You're giving advise to the team you believe is responsible for destroying the economy and killing countless babies, and war mongering among other things. If you really believed that Democrats admitting they have a tone problem will virtually ensure their victory next time, you certainly wouldn't be telling them that! You'd let that secret out at the risk of the deaths of countless children and the proliferation of war across the globe?

Of course not. This is just you desperate for people to tell you that you're a great guy, without having earned the compliment.

[canpakes]

The path forward absolutely should include calling out MAGA for being the closest thing to the Nazi movement that we've ever seen.

Whether you recognize it or not, your suggested path forward has been flatly rejected. Consider this: Your suggested path forward has been supported, encouraged, and echoed by the great majority of the legacy media on a daily loop (most of which is now under hospice care) the majority of printed news, the great majority of academia, the great majority of elite actors/stars, and the great majority cable news outlets. With all of these voices, basically saying the same thing you have said here in unison, over and over and over on the daily, how could the election results possibly have been what they were?

The answer (obviously) - The suggested path forward that is being sold (despite all of the neat packaging and colorful ribbons used by the salespeople) is not resonating with enough Americans - It isn't ringing true to enough Americans, and there are not enough Americans who are buying it.

Perhaps it's time for a few new paths to be put on the table?

Ceeboo, the Republican Party spent over $200 million on ads in the final weeks of the campaign targeting transgender topics, so it would appear to be an issue of outsize importance to Republicans. Either your argument falls flat, and Democrats will still need to keep that issue in their sights, or something else is going on.

Meanwhile, most common folks who’ve been keen to publicly express their opinion on why they voted for Trump have overwhelmingly stated that they want Trump to keep his promise of making grocery prices revert to 2019 levels, and to reduce their energy bills by 50%. This, at least, mimics a concern of Hound of Heaven’s.

Do you agree that a lot of voters picked Trump because he told them that he would make grocery prices go down, and that he would cut their energy bills by 50%?

[canpakes]

That's like saying the voices who warned of the rise of Nazism shouldn't have said anything because they lost and Hitler won.

Ceeboo’s premise fails because we have the historical example of Hitler’s rise to power as proof.

Hitler specifically used identity politics to gain his position, then continued to deploy it until he had rallied a majority of the German people into accepting and promoting his demonization of others, to the point that they were able to embrace placing those others in camps, from which they were quietly disappeared.

Ceeboo’s position is akin to telling the folks who were anti-Hitler that they should just have shut up about his ambitions and beliefs, and then everyone and everything would have been OK down the road.

This has never worked.

[Dwight]

It used to be against the majority to say that slavery was wrong or that laws based on someone's skin color was uncool and unconstitutional and against the majority, but somehow we progressed beyond that. Ruby Bridges got to go to the same school as white kids, just 64 years ago yesterday.

[Doctor Steuss]

I think I shared it here when it happened, but my ex-wife and son were assaulted by a MAGA husband and wife. How do I know they are MAGA? Because, they were dumb enough to assault a woman and child at a doctor's office where they had an appointment. Fortunately, the doctor's office was incredibly helpful with the police, and he was arrested a few days later. Both of their Facebooks were filled with pro-Trump posts. Her profile picture was her wearing a MAGA hat. Small world icing on the cake, they were in my little sister's ward. Turd didn't even have the courage to show up in person to court, and instead just had his lawyer show.

When my then-wife and son were physically assaulted, and told to "Go back to Mexico" (she's Cuban and Jewish), can we really just sit back and pretend that had nothing to do with Trump? That it had nothing to do with the xenophobic rhetoric that has been ratcheted up even further this go around? Was their support of Trump, and full-on MAGA identity just as inconsequential in their emboldened racism as their hair color, or laundry detergent preference?

There's no shortage of "Your body, my choice" rhetoric being spouted by Trump supporters towards victims of sexual violence who speak out about their trauma on social media right now, and Trump hasn't even been sworn in. One of the biggest problems women face in the military right now is sexual assault... and now they have as the Commander and Chief a serial sexual abuser. There's no shortage of people who were assaulted, verbally or physically, for no other reason than having a bit more melanin. There's no shortage of people who were assaulted, verbally or physically, for no other reason than appearing to be gay (I had a friend jumped in a bathroom by a group of guys, one of which wearing MAGA hat, as they called him a "f**got").

The last time Trump was President, there were migrant women being sterilized without their consent. There were migrant children being forcibly medicated into zombie like states to make managing overcrowding easier. This was the last time, when there were more guard rails, and he had largely appointed adults into his cabinet. His current DoD pick had military orders revoked once because of a tattoo that he has that is common amongst white supremacists. There were American citizens who were Arab, or Hispanic detained without charge or legal representation (in the case of the former group, one American citizen was detained for over a year without charge or access to a lawyer before Trump's administration finally just let him free without comment). There are still over 1,000 children who were separated from their parents by Trump's cruelty-themed crusade that haven't been reunited with their families. Six years later.

So, no, I'm not going to console MAGA voters, and give Trump a verbal hand-job. Real people's lives are threatened by the racism, xenophobia, religious bigotry, and sexism that is the core of MAGA. I was raised as a Christian. My morals and ethics don't allow me to put lipstick on a pig. Ignorance about economics, and geopolitics, and global markets is certainly understandable as they are complex topics, but allowing that ignorance to somehow be a blank check for enabling such vile and reprehensible rhetoric and actions is a bridge too far.