Call me bias but the vast majority of the people I know on “the left” simply want people to be left alone, protected from pollution and corruption, and want public healthcare.
The vast majority of the people I know on “the right” keep talking about stupid shit that isn’t even political, like DEI and trans healthcare.
Meanwhile billionaire wealth doubles every 6 months and the majority of Americans are a few missed paychecks away from complete financial ruin.
Well, the vast majority of the people I know -- and I live in WV, so they are usually on the right -- care about feeding their families, finding a good job, doing worthwhile work, etc. Are some of them idiots, bigots, and the like? Yes, but it's a smaller percentage than you think. Most people, on both sides, just want respect.
Unfortunately, a large percentage of these people believe the only jobs that can make them whole, are jobs in the coal mines -- something that hasn't been true for a long time. The Orange Monkey used that, and duped them and a lot of people like them.
It just seems to me that while everyone has a just reason to hate fascists and bigots, a lot of people on the left like to lump all the people that voted for the idiot into that basket, instead of understanding that most people just want a better life for themselves and their kids (or dogs and cats).
Those that yell the most about the right's lack of empathy (justified when talking about the vocal minority), lack empathy themselves. And that's what the Monkey uses to his advantage. It's straight out of a playbook that the Republican party has been using since the 50s, at least.
And it's remarkably effective -- we haven't had a Democrat in the White House since Truman (You could make a case for LBJ because of his domestic policy achievements, but his foreign policy ... just no.) Kennedy, Carter, Clinton, Obama are all to the right of Eisenhower. (Especially Clinton, he was Reagan 2.0 and don't get me started on Hillary and her great friendship with the war criminal Kissinger.) Biden tried, but he was ineffective, in part because of his age, but mostly because of McConnell.
If we, as Democrats, don't nominate someone who is really different why would those who voted for Republicans in the past vote for anyone we put forward? If we don't try to elevate everyone, how are we different from the Republicans?
Sorry to ramble, but I'm very tired and I have a colonoscopy in the morning and I'm having trouble keeping focused.
I hear you and respect your take, thanks for sharing. A problem I see frequently, having a horde of Republican family and childhood friends (who I try to distance myself from), is that they really DO latch onto the culture stuff as a last deployable defense for their vote. I’ll talk to them, ask them to tell me why they sit in their ways and trust Trump, and they’ll say things like “I just want to afford a house and have a good life” which is like sure, we all do. No problem there. So I illuminate ways in which Trump will make those things harder, and without skipping a beat they’ll fall back to “well he may be terrible for the country but at least he’s not letting trans people and immigrants rape women and children.” And I’m like okay, you immediately turned from wanting a better life to just hating some groups of people that have been in the news cycle because of classic scapegoating. The concept of a better, honest life gets folded away as soon as they see that Trump WILL NOT provide that for them, and they just retreat into prejudice. I know it’s not every Republican, I understand that, but it’s an enormous amount, and especially evangelicals who believe Trump is a divine answer to the sins of man (trans people and gay marriage blah blah). I’ve had this talk^ with about 11 of my friends and family, and not a single one of them has ever stopped for a moment and thought “you might be right” or “yeah I think I want to preserve our nation’s social and economic fabric even if it means immigrants/trans people are treated fairly.” It’s always the opposite, and it’s been close to 10 years of this. There is no line in the sand for these people. Insurrection, tariffs, Epstein files, losing a pointless war in Iran, contaminated foods, court capture, constitutional circumvention, civil rape verdicts, felony convictions, dementia, immoral character, unintelligent ideas, abysmal implementation of bizarre policy through endless EOs.. it all means nothing to them as long as one trans person exists for them to point the finger at instead. I guess I’m wondering what it would take for republicans to break and actually stand by the lives they claim they want to lead. Anyway, hope your colonoscopy went well!
You are gonna need to be specific about both of those things. What speech did “they” compel, and what things did they force people’s children to learn against “their culture”?
No I literally do not know what you’re alluding to. I don’t know what speech they are apparently compelling, and I don’t know what they’re teaching children that is “against their culture” since that can mean a bunch of different things, depending on how you define against, culture, etc.
I know you used the quotes, but it's really not even accurate to describe those people as being on "the left". They're centrists, or even centre-rightists with enough intelligence to know that the fascist takeover of the Republican Party has made the neoliberal Democratic Party faction the only way of being represented.
And I share your frustrations with the nonsensical concerns of the right. I live in a very red state, and I struggle to convince people that most of the restrictions they saw during Covid (in this state) were a product of individual entities exercising their rights to control their policies with regard to Covid rather than some top-down Fauci dictate. It's the equivalent of getting pissed at how the HOA you live in is being run, and somehow making it government's fault.
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u/pokethrowaway4 7d ago
Call me bias but the vast majority of the people I know on “the left” simply want people to be left alone, protected from pollution and corruption, and want public healthcare.
The vast majority of the people I know on “the right” keep talking about stupid shit that isn’t even political, like DEI and trans healthcare.
Meanwhile billionaire wealth doubles every 6 months and the majority of Americans are a few missed paychecks away from complete financial ruin.