I don’t argue with people, I slowly explain to them what Republicans lawmakers are doing. Try as hard as possible not to be conescending.
I explain how Biden and Obama are better at convicting and deporting, why Trump’s cruelty is so innefficient.
I explain that Trump said he had nothing to do with project 2025 and now Matt Walsh and Fox News are explaining their plans which coincidentally align with project 2025.
I explain the Trump Tax Plan, which is identical to last time, how it raised everybody’s taxes below a certain amount.
Sometimes they tell me “but that Harris was an idjet” and I explain how she wanted to bring back child tax credits and vowed to never raise taxes on anyone below 400k annual earnings. They ask “well she didnt say that during the CNN Interview or debates!” and I direct them to her website where every single policy is laid out clearly.
Many of them do not understand the ramifications of the situation they have caused. They are completely unaware of the consequences of their actions, expect life to go on as if their side just won at sports without any impact on the real world. It is easy to ignore and be ignored if thats what you want to do in a red state.
When people try to threaten me I can be very intimidating as a result of my natural physique. Fear is something I will die before showing any of these people. They respect strength, the simple fools, it can get you far in their world.
That’s how I do.
Trump’s cruelty is so innefficient
the cruelty is the point. he “hurts the right people”
Rigjt but thats contradictory. They claim to want to do something about supposed “hordes of criminal illegals” but at the same time they shift resources away from them and instead detain women, the elderly, and children.
The cognitive dissonance is also the point…
Try as hard as possible not to be conescending.
Feel free to be condescending, they are too stupid to understand anyway.
The only way for Dems to win was to increase turnout and they didn’t pull that off. There was zero chance of peeling off Republican voters.
Terrible, no-good take. It’s because of this attitude, totally ungrounded in the political science, that outside the USA we now have to put up with your bad decisions, once again.
Sorry to be so crude but this really p*sses me off. Your side is now losing in almost every single demographic group, the trend is as clear as day. If it were to follow your terrible advice (which fortunately it won’t) the Democrats would be permanently out of power and the USA would become a de-facto one-party state. You can’t pretend that these people don’t exist or that they’re subhuman. You have to sully your virtue and talk to them and find some compromises. If not for yourself then for the sake of the rest of us.
Bruh just flat out no. The reason we lost is 100% the opposite of that. The reason we lost is because biden and harris both tried to be more moderate to attract republicans. Instead of actually doing anything useful and fixing the world, they both focused on sucking off netanyahu instead of free healthcare and ubi.
They failed the base that elected them and tried to court the enemy. Courting republicans is a waste of time unless your goal is to make things worse. The only way to deal with these fucking vegetables is to treat them like theyre in the past. Ignore republican talking points. Cringe when your republican cousin talks. If you see a trump flag, stop, point and laugh.
Shame these fucks and make sure they understand that they will no longer be taken seriously. The adults are talking and MAGA has chosen to sit at the little kids table.
Fucking shun every single one of them. They no longer are part of our society
I’ll try a different tack. Because after all, we seem to want the same result.
In my analysis (which, as someone who follows this pretty closely, I maintain is much better supported by the evidence than yours), I have to suck it up and talk to people I don’t like and maybe even accept policies I don’t like.
In yours, you get to feel great about being in the right, with no need to question any of your prejudices much less make any compromises.
If you were a neutral observer watching this conversation, who would you believe?
But thats the thing. There are no neutral observers. I dont remember if you said you were european or if that was someone else, but living here its pretty obvious to everyone that there arent any undecideds. Were not trying to convince someone who knows nothing about it, because there isnt anyone who knows nothing about it. Even if there was, at this point youd have to be an uneducated as a maga voter to hold that opinion, so my point still stands. If you are not willing to make an effort to educate yourself, you do not deserve to be taken seriously by anyone that is actually working towards a solution.
Compromises are how we got here, id rather not allow our party to shift even farther to the right. In fact, that literally makes the problem worse because instead of one person arguing for attrocities, we have one person arguing for attrocities and one person saying “well, we should at least hear them out”
Edit: questioning myself is how i got to these beliefs, but maybe you are right. Maybe i should reconsider whether to seriously engage with people that want to hang me for not being white, and i should try to convince those that want to execute my aunt for being trans that maybe thats not the way to go.
This is called a counsel of despair. Or nihilism. With this attitude you are going to achieve precisely nothing - or, rather, you are going to make things worse by ceding control of your government to your avowed enemies.
In a democracy, there is no way forward except compromise. And the alternative to democracy is even worse. Much worse.
There is clearly some miscommunication here. You seem to be under the idea that I have given up, or surrendered. Its quite to the contrary. You are proposing that we court evil in the hopes of making progress. That has been the democrat mission for over a decade now. We are in a worse position than we ever could have imagined a decade ago. That policy has failed, hands down. There is no arguing that, it is an absolute failure. You cannot be more appealing to a republican than a republican. Compromise is tangent. When your opponent is arguing for the abolishment of abortion with no exceptions, what can you possibly gain for compromising with them? You are seriously going to give an inch to people to literally just want to make women suffer? Who want to instill religion into our government and schools? Who wants to deport members of our community and entire families back into countries where they will be killed within a year? Youre arguing for compromise as if this isnt life and death from a stance that has been tested and failed. SO MANY people have already died due to these policies of giving ground to republicans.
Republicans pull in a consistent number of votes every election because they have the hateful moron brigade as a consistent voting bloc. Dems win when there is higher turnout because they motivate people to show up, and lose when there is lower turnout, but they sure as shit aren’t appealing to the hate brigade.
Trying to be reasonable and polite with Republicans like Liz Cheney is what took the wind out of the sails of the Harris campaign. They did the fucking appease everyone bland bullshit and lost. That is what you are saying is the right thing to do.
Your theory is just a theory, and a weak one. The evidence suggests that the election was mainly just a backlash against inflation and immigration, as has happened across the world to parties of all stripes. Not much could have been done to avert the outcome. But it is also clear that a bunch of voters were pissed off by what they perceived as Democrat excesses on cultural issues, and apparently many of those people were in swing states.
More generally: “just turn out the base” is usually a losing strategy in democratic politics. For a simple reason: the cost of turning out your own base is that you will fire up the opposing base and turn them out too. To be sure of winning an election in democracy, you will need to get your hands dirty and persuade people. In practice that will mean tacking towards the center and making compromises.
Found the DNC strategist.
I’m European who votes green. I want the Democrats to win because that is better for the world. If only you did too.
I voted for Harris as a way to vote against Trump and Republicans like I do every fucking election despite Dems constsntly shooting themselves in the foot every election where Obama didn’t run. You know, the two elections where they promoted actual hope and progressive change instead of pandering to the fucking centrists and did extremely well and the only time I actually wanted them to win.
Of course the Republicans obstructed the shit out of that attempt at change and the country learned nothing.
If anything, Democrats would do better. Trump didn’t give a fuck, was a huge asshole, and won.
If Democrats were fair in their vicious scathing of what’s terrible about Republican policies, and used it as a tool in telling the truth clearly, they’d do great.
Maybe once there’s no nazis, civil will work.
Married het cis male. Wife is absolutely bent out of shape due to our states bull shit abortion ban and with Trump being in office again. We had been talking about a second kiddo… But she told me that she wanted me to get a vasectomy Monday morning at 8am. She’s not leaving her life in the hands of old dudes.
So… I’m going to schedule it for inauguration day .
Other than that… okay. Tho… I did buy another carry gun. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Edit: voted Dem all the way down ballot.
voted Dem all the way down ballot.
As if you even need to say this when you began with proper use of cis and het
Haha that’s fair
Contrarian take: being so ostentatious in the “proper” use of such terms is one reason that Democrats just lost and that the rest of us outside America will now have to suck up yet more of Trump.
As if people stopped saying cis het would somehow reduce bigotry.
It is impenetrable jargon. Inadvertently or otherwise, it is being used by the enlightened few as a stick with which to beat the (supposed) ignorant bigoted masses. A lot of people find this deeply annoying and objectionable. Addendum: To be clear, that includes me and I am not “cis het”.
So long as it isn’t attempting to refurbish words that are still in common use and already have common meanings, I usually have no issue with new-speak. Unnecessary abbreviations are taxing, though cis and het have become ubiquitous enough that I can almost forgive it.
Agreed. Much better to introduce new jargon than to insidiously repurpose existing language. This is the point Orwell made.
But it’s jargon nonetheless. It’s exclusionary by definition.
I dunno. Online, it feels less like jargon and more like an attempt at avoiding any snark. Irl, I occasionally hear “cis” but most people say “straight” or rather than “het.” Just another synonym to memorize for me
Is that you, Sam Harris?
“Ostentatious”? Must be a Democrat.
Ah man, I should buy a gun.
Go far enough left… You get your guns back.
Liberal gun owners sub on reddit used to be decent.
I’ve never been against self defense personally, but never felt I needed one previously.
Crossbows come equipped with Hollywood style “silencers.”
Apparently there’s a thing called “linear compensators” which are essentially almost as effective as silencers (when used with subsonic ammo), but don’t require a tax stamp? Someone with more firearms knowledge than I can surely share more details on that. But I came across the things recently and found it rather curious.
Literally just bought a gun safe. Plan on getting a shotgun in the next month for black Friday. Gotta protect yourself.
I’ve been eyeing a DP12. Probably complete overkill but at the same time, if someone comes knocking down my door then I want to be able to erase them with extreme prejudice if I have to.
Do not buy that thing. It’s utter junk. If you are wanting a home defense rifle build an AR pistol.
Aside from being a bullpup and the clumsiness of trying to load two independent tube mags, what’s wrong with it? I’m not expecting to storm a fortified position; I’m only expecting to use it for self-defense and I highly doubt I’d need to go through both mags in such a situation (if so then I’d probably be fucked either way) so reloading shouldn’t be a problem. Bullpup is bullpup *shrug*. The other option is some form of semi-auto shotgun like a Saiga-12 that I can buy a drum mag for.
I’m not really interested in a rifle or pistol. Not really interested in something that can penetrate multiple walls and potentially end up in my neighbor’s neighbor’s wall. If I end up actually getting organized with a group then that’d change, but my modus operandi right now is to put my head down until I’m in a more secure environment; which means basically a shotgun because that seems like the ideal self-defense weapon for a home environment.
These types of shotguns are jamfests, which is the last thing you want in a life or death situation.
Over penetration is going to happen no matter what you’re shooting, drywall won’t stop shit.
https://youtu.be/W7x-gteGnZE?feature=shared
The reason I suggested an AR is you’re going to have better target acquisition and the odds of actually hitting someone are greater than if you have a handgun or a huge shotgun.
As always, practice practice practice.
Alright, thanks for the info.
So… I’m going to schedule it for inauguration day .
Go get it Monday if you aren’t opposed to it. No reason to wait and risk pregnancy being a couple weeks along on inauguration day.
Feeling depressed, trapped, and abandoned. Going through the motions, trying to come to terms that I won’t be a dad because the wife doesn’t want to risk a pregnancy under the conditions, and I won’t be a homeowner because no ones coming to help build houses or stop corporate real estate. Accepting I won’t be starting a business because I can’t risk losing healthcare, and will need every dollar I can hang on to. Settling for serfdom. You know, usual shit.
How are you.
Had to soak last week’s shirts due to anxiety sweats but this week will probably be lighter on the poor things. So, slightly worse than usual.
I feel you…I still can’t believe this country is so … ignorant of the consequences of this. It’s over
Pretty shit. Came out of the closet as trans to my parents just before the election after hiding dysphoria for nearly 20yrs (I’m 30). Unfortunately, the dysphoria has been intense enough that I’m so dissociated that I can barely function, so as you might imagine, I’m currently living with parents.
My dad’s reaction was basically, “whoever the best you is, be that you”.
My mom’s reaction was “but you’re my son… I always wanted to have a brother and you’re kinda like that”.
Meanwhile my grandparents voted for Trump after saying they wouldn’t, and are now crying about it. Literally. My grandmother was in tears.
So my mom is also dealing with that, and possibly osteoporosis, which meant she said, “it’s gonna take time to process this”.
Then last night she told me that I wasn’t allowed to start hrt until I moved out.
She refuses to let me tell her why I can barely function. She refuses to let me describe what I’m going through. She says she “can’t handle it”, that “it’s not a top priority right now”, that she’s “trying to understand” why I’ve made this “choice” while also telling me things like “but I like you the way you are” and rejecting any information I send to her because she’d rather consult her friends that she “trusts more”.
She starts to have a panic attack whenever I try to talk to her about it and God forbid I tell her that she made a mistake because then I obviously hate her guts and want her to die. She’s literally accused me of that.
It hurts like hell but I don’t know how to get out of this situation. I don’t know how long it’ll take hrt and therapy to get me on my feet all while not having a job. All this while in Texas. I’m fucking scared.
Edit: I also kinda wonder if I was born intersex and that’s why my mom is freaking out. I’d think my dad would know and would say something, but idk. I’ve heard of times where one parent had an intersex kid “”“fixed”“” without the other parent knowing. It honestly might explain some shit if I was born intersex.
That’s horrible that you’re having to go through that. I honesty can’t imagine. But from one “Feathers” to another, that took a hell of a lot of courage.
I sincerely hope things get so much better for you!
Thanks. It wasn’t the reaction I was expecting, kinda the opposite. My dad’s the one who had sisters and only nieces on his side of the family, so I was expecting him to be the one with hang-ups about it. Nope, it was my mom. What I was hoping for was support for a little while longer until I felt like I could live on my own, but it sounds like that’s not gonna happen. My biggest frustration is not coming out sooner tbh. Woulda given me more time to make plans and meant that maybe I could have skipped years of feeling like a lazy, freeloading piece of shit (no, they never called me that, but that doesn’t stop me from feeling like it).
Sorry you’re going through this. But I’m proud of you for coming out!
Thanks, it really sucks. I didn’t expect the reaction I got. I kinda expected my dad to be the one who got upset while my mom was supportive, not the opposite. My dad was the one who had two sisters and only nieces on his side of the family, so I kinda expected he was gonna be the one upset by it; but he’s cool with it.
It also blew me away to hear that my grandparents voted for Trump after years of talking about how much they regretted voting for him in 2016 and how they’d never vote for him again. Guess I’m never coming out to them; not that I was totally expecting to due to their age, but it’ll be fun coming up with a reason why moving out means I’m forced to move across the country and possibly never come back (at least probably not while they’re still living).
Once you are moved out, and across the country, the song Cat’s in the Cradle, by Harry Chapin gives you the perfect believable excuse. I’d love to come visit, and I will once work isn’t riding me so much. We’ll get together then.
I love that song… It’s just so sad. The kid wants to spend time with his dad but can’t because his dad’s always busy, and then the dad wants to spend time with his kid but can’t because his child’s all grown up and is busy now.
I will say it took me awhile to wrap my head around my kid being a son not a daughter. My concept of womanhood is quite broad, I really and truly did not see it coming, just thought she was dykey , for lack of a better word, still doesn’t seem distressed at all either but that may be because all the kids at school just accept kids are whatever gender they say, it’s no big deal to them, and siblings all immediately supportive. I didn’t lay my trouble adapting on them, it’s not his problem, it’s mine - just saying you have known a long time but she has not, she will adjust.
She refuses to let me tell her why I can barely function. She refuses to let me describe what I’m going through. She says she “can’t handle it”, that “it’s not a top priority right now”, that she’s “trying to understand” why I’ve made this “choice” while also telling me things like “but I like you the way you are” and rejecting any information I send to her because she’d rather consult her friends that she “trusts more”.
She starts to have a panic attack whenever I try to talk to her about it and God forbid I tell her that she made a mistake because then I obviously hate her guts and want her to die. She’s literally accused me of that.
Those paragraphs reminded me of the !raisedbynarcissists@lemmy.ml community.
Absolutely. It’s not about the transition at all, she just can’t stomach the idea of losing an inkling of control.
Congrats on coming out!
My wife’s mom still insists on deadnaming her over a decade after her transition, and refuses to recognize her gender. Sucks because she could be in our lives but instead just gets a phone call at Christmas, and I’ve never even talked to her. Some parents just make that choice, sucks that your mom is one of them.
I’m hoping she’ll eventually come around. In the meantime though, I’m getting to try and figure out how to get on my feet long enough to move out.
Planning on teaching the young folks in the friend group how to garden and preserve food, how to make simple medications, how to defend themselves. And I’m also planning to leave as soon as I get my bachelor degree to pursue a research PhD in another country. I’m in ecology and conservation, there’s no future for me here.
That sounds very productive, wishing you luck in your pursuits
make simple medications
Really interested in this. Care to elaborate or share any sources on the matter?
A lot of our medications come from plants originally, and there are a lot of plants where I live with medicinal value. Willow is probably the best known because aspirin comes from it, and is very common in my area. The main thing will be teaching them which local plants have medicinal use, how to properly identify the plant (I have a dissecting microscope and a few identification books), and how to properly extract the compound that they want.
Steam distillation is a really common method for extracting essential oils, and it’s easy to do. Menthol can be extracted from mint this way.
Some of this is what I’ve learned in uni, but you can get somewhere by looking up the remedy you need in Google scholar with the scientific name of the plant you want to use. USDA plants has really good identification characteristics, so you don’t accidentally pick a toxic copy cat.
As someone studying engineering and also looking for a way out, what all options have you looked into? Immigration seems to be both expensive and competitive in most places, and those are two things I don’t know that I’m prepared for.
My advisor got her PhD in England, so I’ve been trying to get her help in navigating this. I specifically want to do a research PhD, so that narrows my choices a little. Something I don’t see mentioned much is networking. I’ve read a few studies that I can see myself doing, so I’m going to reach out to those researchers because my undergraduate research compliments their research.
There’s an exchange program called Erasmus that will provide a monthly living allowance. I saw another one that offered help with employment after completing the degree but I can’t find it now. That might have been university-specific.
I’m in Texas in a blue bubble - more than i had realized i guess. 80% of the people i know are blue. I work in public education, so most of the red people i know were considering voting blue because of the push for school vouchers. I rarely see maga stuff and the yard signs around me were 80% Harris. Because of that i was completely shocked last Tuesday by the popular vote and it’s left me kind of disoriented. My husband works in redville, so he’s disgusted and exhausted. My adult sons are sad, mad, scared. My DIL has called me crying a few times - her parents are trumpsters and she wants to cut them out. Luckily we have enough cash on hand to help the kids get passports ASAP and enough savings to briefly go out of state/country if she needs healthcare. I 70% believe that Republican infighting will slow them down and it won’t be as bad as feared, 30% ready for the leopards!
Depressed.
I haven’t gone on walks for a bit because I just cannot stand seeing those fucking signs. My mom and grandma are in a tizzy, and my mom is just as forlorn. She doesn’t even want to vote anymore.
And I’m so, so, so angry. I’m not saying Harris would be the second coming, but that anyone would pick a fascist over anyone is infuriating. The area I live in is not bougie, these signs were sometimes outside houses that have seen better days. And they doomed us all for at least the next four years. I’m so distrustful of my neighbors
not that we were close to begin with. I want to ask them why, I want to scream at them, I want to question them.I feel helpless. All my life I believed that there was some thread of decency that connected us, a thread of common sense. But there’s none. And that’s really upsetting.
Well you should ask them. Respectfully, without interrogation, and as part of a wider conversation that overall seeks to strengthen your relationships with your neighbours. You might find there is some sense there.
I’m from the UK, not USA. But I can see why some might vote for Trump. I wouldn’t, personally, because of stuff he’s said, but if you accept the premise “sure he speaks crazy but what he means is [non-crazy stuff]” then maybe there is some rationale behind their choice, and you might find you’re not as different as you think.
I’mma be real with you: I have zero interest in hearing someone’s reasons for voting for a fascist.
I hate this response when it comes from outside the US too. Not only for what you said, but also because they’re not taking gun ownership into account. You don’t even have to knock at someone’s door here, just pulling up into someone else’s driveway is enough for the crazies to pull the trigger…
Lemmings gonna lem, but I blame the millions of Dems who stayed home because Kamala didn’t meet their moral purity standards and they refused to be “complicit in genocide”. Cuz everyone knows it’s better to walk over broken glass barefoot than wear uncomfortable shoes, right? If some of the 10 million who voted in 2020 but not 2024 had bothered to show up, we’d be looking at a very different story. Righteous dumbfucks.
Campaigning is getting people to vote for you which includes getting people out to vote. Those are the true “swing” voters. Her campaign failed in this regard
Yeah, it’s not the fault of the voters, but a lack of advertisement.
God, I hate this timeline.
I think Kamala could have been the perfect candidate and she still would’ve lost.
The economy being in the shitter under the Biden-Harris administration killed any possibility of either of them winning another term. The economy ended up being the single biggest issue for American voters. Way bigger than bodily autonomy for women, LGBT+ rights, or Palestine.
I think it was closer to 15 million
The stats I saw were 81 million in 2020 and 71 million in 2024, but I’ve been unable to find that table, maybe you’re right.
it could be, I’m going off videos and stuff, not my research
Not great. Have a trans spouse and a young daughter who goes to public school. Have been burning through savings lately to pay off medical debt and am scared of losing my job once the tariffs kick in. My state just made homelessness illegal so the thought of the house of cards coming down is real
Pro: a handful of my state’s absolute worst officials are set to quit their jobs and we get a do-over.
Con: they’re quitting to join the administration and they’ll be way more powerful and everyone else will suffer.
Sorry. I did what I could.
Honestly I am so scared for my children. If Trump goes through with dismantling the Education department I do not trust my state at all not to destroy our public school system.
I grew up in a progressive city in a gerrymandered-to-hell swing state. Cheeto’s first win promptly sent me into a tailspin there. I’ve moved a handful since but now find myself in MT 80 miles from the border, you know, just in case.
Red up here is different than red down there. There it was like rubbing salt in the wound, here it’s quite obviously because there aren’t enough people to know any different.
I’m nonbinary and have been laid off in Florida about it, so I no longer disclose that information professionally. It’s not the most pleasant, but hey, hiding in plain sight is a really good way to see what’s coming down the pike.
Hello fellow Montanan. I wish you well in your journey. There are more of us than you might guess but it does feel like a losing battle a lot of the time
<3
Cheers, used to live there but moved when Gianforte made an example out of that sweet trans public servant from Missoula. I’d pick a blue state to live in if you can. I’m an optimist and think things will recover (with permanent damage) but it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better :/
I developed a pretty strong sense of apathy for most of the people around me, who either won’t vote or vote for whatever Fox News tells them too.
That being said, I’m fearful for the friends I have that feel they will need to hide who they are just to go about their lives.
Man I feel you there. The apathy is real. I feel for those who are innocent who are really going to be hurt by this. I’ve stopped caring about anyone who voted for it. You’re on the lower income but can’t afford food? Too bad he’s coming for food stamps. Bootstraps. Grandma needs Medicaid but voted red? Sorry grandma, better get a job.
For all those who truly voted to try to save these things, my heart goes out to them. The rest though, it’s going to be painful.
The ironic thing is that they did it all to own the libs. The thing is though, the vast majority of “libs” I see push for these programs for others, not themselves. But these people can’t even comprehend that we want to help people and assume we want free stuff. All the while it’s them that we were probably helping the most. It’s absolutely asinine
Well put
Looking into immigration opportunities for college students
If you can become fluent in German tuition is free and you still have access to US federal support (for now)
German’s an easy language, right?
Speaking of Germany, how’s their government doing?
(Half joking, can’t be worse than what’s happened here)
We are working on the same shit, don’t worry.
I’m just giving up worrying and taking a break. I can’t control these people. I’m gonna wait and see what happens and laugh at them when it blows up in our faces. Crying and laughing at the same time.
I’ll join you in craughing
I guess they do already have the market cornered on lying.
The tarifs are probably the first shitstorm. Buying any electronics and China-ware I preemptively think I’ll need.
Car parts are going to go way up, that also means the cost of new and used cars is also going to go up, especially with interest rates stabilizing. I’m seeing used cars in the 200k-300k miles range for sale right now. Take care of your car and watch for rust, because that is going to have to last you a long time.
And also insurance rates are going to go up as well due to cost of repairs pushing many to drive illegally without insurance
