What the hell is wrong with republicans? Don’t pay your taxes and you should be killed. Rape a 12 year old and you get to be a daddy. This is messed up.
I am European. I seriously can’t understand why USA conservatives (referring strictly to republicans in this case) are so extremely regressive to the point of hurting themself.
I feel like much of their talk is influencing bad ideas here too.
It begs the question - were they always thinking this stuff and now feel entitled to say it out loud? Or are they being coaxed by propaganda generated by some of our nations enemies in order to break apart our country? Is this all one big state-sponsored psy-ops attack by a foreign country?
I don’t know. But it sure as hell scares the hell out of me.
Yeah, I agree with kobra. It’s a mix. The Alt Right Playbook video series gives some interesting thoughts on the matter. Conservatives and further right tend to be hyper hierarchical and tend to demand respect for the chain of authority, even to their own detriment (as long as it hurts someone else more). Rejecting an authority figure is a bigger deal on the right than the left due to the whole “control how people think” angle.
So it hasn’t gone far enough to alienate the ones that are still on board. Some refuse to hear the negative and just bury their head in the sand. Some are convinced by emotionally charged rhetoric that “the other side is even worse.” And some already agreed with them secretly. For most, it’s probably a mix of these various techniques for contorting to fit the shape demanded of them by their authority figures–some being more bigoted than others after all. For the pro-hierarchical people, their place in the hierarchy is a piece of their self-identity and it’s really hard to fight that instinct.
It’s propaganda meant to put the stooges for the ultra wealthy in power so I wouldn’t be surprised to see it elsewhere in the world. They have NO policies other than “cut expenditures for the wealthy” (taxes, regulations, etc) so they have to use propaganda outlets to foment a culture war that they can then “fight for you” to get your vote.
I do have hard feelings for those that succumb to the propaganda as they have to want some of these hateful things, but I REALLY LOATHE the propagandists. There is no word in the English language that properly conveys just how much hatred I have for them, people like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson. I don’t like to wish death on anyone, but god would the world be a better place without them and people like them.
Seasoned the conspiracy thinking associated with their particular brand.
When you think there’s a conspiracy of scientists to hide the real age of the earth, it’s not a far drive to “vaccines are weapons of the antichrist” and “Satan runs the Democratic party” and “climate change is a lie to take your way of life from you.”
Notably these conspiracy theories are pushed by parties who benefit from their spread. Furthermore, any evidence against the conspiracy is twisted into proof that the conspirators are even more clever than previously thought.
I am European. I seriously can’t understand why USA conservatives (referring strictly to republicans in this case) are so extremely regressive to the point of hurting themself.
Because Trump ushered in an era where the only “strong” Republican is one willing to hurt “Others”. One who never apologizes when they’re wrong, but instead doubles down. One who is willing to step on whoever it takes to get to the top, especially if the people being stepped on are “them”.
The entire party is all Trump all the time, and the only way to survive in today’s GOP is to either (a) Be Trump, or (b) be willing to openly ratchet up the cruelty. And while I disagree with people like Liz Cheney on just about every policy issue in existence, she at least tried to bring the GOP back to what it was before Trump, and look what happened to her and others who tried to do the same thing.
These Republicans are so regressive to the point of self-sabotage because the MAGA base is still large enough to dictate their political careers and they’ll accept nothing less. MAGA may only be a portion of the GOP voting base, but that portion is large enough where it’s nearly impossible for a Republican to win without them.
It’s not all that different from some far-right political parties in European countries. Vox in Spain, for example, has nostalgia for the Franco regime and would just love to nullify people’s divorces. I mean, talk about extremely regressive. How about Italy’s extreme right-wing party? They successfully nullified some adoptions. Those are two examples I know from Europe, but I think there are other European countries with extremist political parties that are gaining traction.
Because they think it makes them look “tough” in front of other like-minded idiots. Thats the thing they care most about. Not compassion, or equality, or anything like actual fairness…just trying to look “tough”.
Divide and conquer mentality. They have no real policies other than to cut and deregulate. In order to achieve these goals, they need to be in power. No one in their right mind would vote for people who want to do these things, so they misrepresent their ideological alignment by creating strawmen out of minorities, immigrants, and unborn fetuses in order to drum up emotional support amongst reactionary idiots (hardcore religious nutjobs) and racists. Then they double down on the rhetoric by calling Democrats pedophiles, and you basically have a guaranteed voting bloc.
Don’t pay your taxes and you should be killed.
Only if you’re a democrat. If you’re a republican then not paying your taxes is patriotic and supportive of ‘small government’.
Can we not inflate his bullshit on this new site though? Like… This is just him saying whatever random stuff to stay in people’s minds. There’s no meaning behind it and there’s no action either. It’s just actual clogging up of more important politics and news.
Unfortunately, the guy is the leading contender for the Republican nomination for President. It’s important that people (especially independent voters) know about this crap before they consider voting for him.
No, that isn’t really true. He needs to be isolated like the mental plague that he is. He is memetic poison. “Let people decide” basically lets them get infected.
That is why we have a down vote option which I highly recommend using for items such as this. The community controls what it wants to see.
It isn’t exactly a matter of wanting or not wanting to see it. You know the addage “any news is good news?” By posting content that keeps a person and their commentary in the forefront of people’s minds, that person gains an audience. That audience will contain people who can be swayed by the snake oil, but who would otherwise be reasonable. Or in short, posting their content facilitates radicalization.
That said, while content from harmful influential people needs to be approached with caution, I don’t see this as promoting Trump’s action/behaviors. To me it reads more like a “not the onion” headline. I’d be disappointed if anyone felt that the death penalty was warranted for late tax filing, but I suppose it’s possible.
Does Lemmy have a way to filter keywords? It would be helpful for people to be able to blacklist keywords so a user could choose to avoid seeing, for example, news about Trump or content with sensitive topics.
We need that slashdot system of vote + mark “insightful”, “flamebait”, “funny”, etc etc. add more categories as necessary so posts can be scored on multiple axes.
Do you really think if a Lemmy instance or vanity fair banned anything about Trump it’d make him less influential? Maybe if there was a media wide blackout, but so long as Fox News exists and asshole oligarchs can buy all sorts of giant megaphones to push their messages, I think the rest of us only have a choice in whether we offer dissenting opinions or stay silent
He is recommending if you dont like the post downvote it. Also if you dont like it… dont open it.
This isn’t reddit where they inflated the upvotes. You all control if something gets pushed through to the lemmy servers homepage or not.
I’m not a trump supporter but I’m also not a sensationalism supporter. He made an analogy in his post, “he gave out a traffic ticket instead of a death sentence.” Now we accept that the sentence given by the judge was not a traffic ticket, but we insist that the death sentence part was meant literally? Now honestly, I hate Trump as much as anyone but honest, accurate, and irrefutable criticisms are going to get us farther than stretches of sensational word-twisting.
The problem here is there’s a sub-group of Trump supporters who will read this and think “yeah, someone should just take out Hunter Biden, that will send a real message”. And there’s a sub-group of that group that will possibly try to do it.
Trump is well aware, and possibly proud of, the fact that statements from him can lead to real world violence.
He was trying to get the metal detectors removed from the Jan 6 rally because “they’re not here to hurt me”. This indicates he knew people would try to come armed and that they intended to hurt someone, just not him.
Trump is well aware, and possibly proud of, the fact that statements from him can lead to real world violence.
There’s no “possibly”. He is proud of it, and he’s attempted to directly call for violence on multiple occasions since 1/6. Fortunately, it only actually worked the one time. But it did permanently force everybody to take his calls to violence seriously since he only needs one well-armed MAGA moron to do some serious damage, and his base has proven that there are plenty of people out there waiting for that call.
He speaks far too colloquially and off-the-cuff for a President for my liking. A complete buffoon who can’t speak unless it’s in hyperbole.
He speaks far too colloquially and off-the-cuff for a President for my liking.
This is actually one of the traits I wish more members of our government had. We don’t need or want big, fancy political doublespeak. Just tell us like it is like we’re regular people.
The problem isn’t that Trump speaks colloquially or off-the-cuff. The problem is that he’s …
A complete buffoon who can’t speak unless it’s in hyperbole.
Give me someone who can speak like Trump but has the intelligence and desire to work for the people like AOC or Bernie Sanders and I wouldn’t be able to throw my money towards their election campaign fast enough.
I fail to see any example of Trump’s speech patterns that are ideal. AOC speaks far more intelligently, and without doublespeak, than Trump ever could.
While I get what you’re saying, Trump benefits far too much from not literally saying things, but letting his supporters run wild with what he’s implying.
It’s no different from when he starts a rumor by saying “People have been telling me…” followed by some shit he just made up about an opponent. He gets to claim immunity from being the one that starts the rumor while at the same time putting it out there for his supporters to grab onto.
The question is, do you believe that he wants his supporters to think he literally wants the death penalty for Hunter Biden?
If the answer is yes, then he shouldn’t be defended in any way.
The problem here, I think is, is that Trump does stuff like this all the time. He says things that are absurd, or outlandish and people always say “he’s joking”, “don’t take everything he says literally”, but at what point do you take him literally?
You think for one second if he had won in 2020 he wouldnt be trying to run for reelection again? Or trying to declare himself president for life? He said multiple times his first term shouldnt count because they spied on his campaign or the impeachments. He said the US should try president for life as China had done during his term. Trump also praised Rodrigo Duterte who encouraged murdering drug users/pushers.
We can stick to facts all we want but the one thing we should do, is believe Trump when he says something.
Yeah I’m going to block this community if something like this comes up on my feed again.
Trump should be instantly held to the same standards he wants others held to
That wouldnt be the first law he created that bites himself afterwards.
