Rant by Anand Giridharadas about turning people away from the pro-democracy movement
Yep and look at this thread, more than half the commenters (heavily upvoted) seem to think that all Trump voters are deeply hateful white supremacist Nazis that are incapable of change when that ain’t reality. Sure, you can sneer at them, shout at them, deride them - feel superior because you figured it all out sooner. And that would continue letting Russia’s investments dividing America (via online propaganda farms, assisting Trump in the 2016 election, and ongoing payments to right wing figureheads like Tim Poole, Tucker Carlson, Dave Rubin, Lauren Southern) be the best money and time they ever invested.
If you think ‘its not my job’ well, bad news is you will either convince these people verbally with a compassionate ear and tone, or (best case) keep seeing your best future stripped from you or (worst case) meet them on the battlefield in some civil war 2 or other violent civil clash.
Throw away the black and white thinking shit. Sure, there are lots of hardcore Trump voters that are deeply conservative, love Project 2025, and are just fine with fascism. However, a huge proportion of Trump voters are just ‘low-information voters’ that have been brought up in conservative households and voted Trump because they didn’t think much about it. Many further are dumbasses that knew the US was a mess and wanted political ‘change’ but were political laymen and were grifted by multiple dozens of RW media figures & orgs (which are just the default shit on tv in many states) into believing Trump will bring his promised change for the better.
If some of them are waking up to the con now then that’s a gift horse that you shouldn’t look in the mouth. They are perfectly positioned to be pushed farther along with more knowledge - you can show them the left wing rabbit hole while they have a more open mind, or some brainwashed racist can show them a different rabbit hole about “(((globalists)))” that may lead them to a become even worse enemies.
Gosh your country is a mess. Is it still “plain popcorn” time or should I get the fancier caramel and peanut kind?
MAGA is imploding
lol… no it isn’t.
I just saw, probably on Lemmy The Far Right Contagion, offering the explanation that many of the people turning to far-right movements around the world don’t necessarily hold far-right beliefs, and often oppose far-right policies. Instead, they feel abandoned by the current system and will align with nearly any movement promising to dismantle it.
If another movement makes them feel heard and offers solutions to their problems, it’s very likely to be able to redirect that momentum. Assuming it’s a better movement (and it would be hard to do worse), that’s a win for humanity. We won’t get there by branding everyone who got sucked into a far-right movement as an enemy for life.
That’s not to suggest that any person is wrong to be angry at someone who voted to hurt them, but is holding on to that anger more important than a better future?
Why do people like this guy always put the onus for reconciliation on the victims? If someone voted against humanity for years, and treated me and mine like garbage, why is it up to me to extend the olive branch?
If these fucking dipshits decide to vote for non-Republicans, that’s great, but it has fuck all to do with me. I’m in no way responsible for luring them back to humanity one painful step at a time.
So, when a racist, white nationalist becomes upset with his cult leader over his refusal to release the names of the baby brain-juice drinkers in Hollywood and Washington…we should open our arms to them?
Are they “on our team” now, despite still advocating for most of us to be lynched in the town square?
No.
If that cult leader was a factor in him being that racist and white nationalist, and if this is an actual opportunity to pull him away from that, then yes. If isolation from decent people perpetuates the echo chamber I’d rather not let that continue in the name of a grudge.
But if that person tries to hold on to those beliefs they can fuck right off.
Still, people can change and I’ll encourage it in the right direction.
I don’t believe that Trump is making anyone more racist. They always were. What they like about him, is that he validates those feelings. He says everything they’re already thinking, and they relate to that.
Most of those people feel isolated, because those feelings are not acceptable to the rest of us. That’s why they gravitate towards others that feel the same way. When it comes to Trump and their cult…they’ve finally found their people. They feel like they belong, with them.
If they’re feeling disillusioned right now, it isn’t because they feel any different. They haven’t changed. The only thing that might have changed, is they are realizing that Trump is fake as fuck, and has just been using them all along.
That doesn’t bring them any closer to “our side”. It just gives “us” an opportunity to drive a wedge between them and their cult leader. It weakens their movement…but it doesn’t make us allies.
There’s plenty of people beyond saving, that’s for sure: but I think people aren’t so immutable. I think people are being made more monstrous by the capitalist system we live in, and the people at the top who exemplify avarice as a path to success. I’m not going to be buddies with ex maga unless they’re really going the extra mile to make up for the damage they’ve done, but I hope at least some can be decent humans.
someone else can offer that to disenfranchised MAGA, im just gonna be mean to them
they were still racist, selfish, stupid, hatemongers.
all that changed is that their pedo leader was a pedo leader
… they still don’t support minorities and marginalized communities. Why should they be welcomed with open arms?
Getting then way from the constant propaganda machine is a first step towards what may not be a full 360, but at least potentially realizing that the ones they’ve been trained to hate are just a scapegoat for those who have really been fucking them (and everyone else) over.
They don’t have empathy unless it specifically happens to them. They didn’t learn a lesson, they’re not capable of learning this kind of lesson.
I think the left would benefit more from being open to socialists rather than coddling fascists.
I would be way more sympathetic if these MAGA “defectors” gave a tiny shit about the little girls who got rapped, rather than than being disappointed their side lost this round.
I think the left would benefit more from being open to socialists rather than coddling fascists
For a lot of red states, the exceptions have been FDR and 08 Obama…
Progressive campaigns wins votes. It just also pisses off billionaires so the candidate has to choose between gaining votes directly and money to spend on ads no one even sees anymore.
Recently I remember something from the Democrats where the person was complaining that most of their funding was coming from the voter base and not from rich capitalists. Like, you’re getting money but not the correct, evil money and that’s bad?
The problem is more about what they’ll be expected to do, once they’re elected. If regular people are giving them money, they’ll be expected to do things that will help regular people. If it’s all coming from wealthy elites, then they’ll be expected to do things that will help the wealthy elites.
Rich people will typically just want you to stay out of their way, and do nothing. Regular people problems are often much more difficult to solve.
Making the lives of regular people better usually means making the lives of the wealthy “worse” by way of income redistribution. Guess who has the money to ensure they come out on top?
I put worse in quotations because functionally, your life isn’t much different if you have 8 digits in your bank account vs 9+. It’s still an obscene amount of money for one individual to have and likely will have zero impact on your quality of life.
No it fucking isn’t. You really think anybody who voted R in the last election isn’t going to vote R in the next one, assuming we even have another election?
Fuck them. We saw what they did.
Many of them voted D during 2008 and 2012. Why do you think they would never flip back?
Actually yes, there are going to be a very noticable amount of people swinging back to the other side. Most people are dipshits who voted trump because they forgot what he did the first time. They may not vote away from republicans but democrats have a huge window of opportunity to blow away
2028 is a long time from now, and there’s a lot of ways for republicans to retain power, and for democrats to “appeal to the moderates” by shifting further right before then
Like I said, YUGE window the democrats have the opportunity to piss away
Well then they obviously don’t give a shit about government policy and are just mindless fools following the breeze. They can vote Democrat if they want, and their votes are welcome. But “not turning them away” implies actually trying to adjust the party’s positions to appeal to them. Sorry, but we don’t need to for example, throw trans kids under the bus, just to appeal to a bunch of idiots that happily voted for a known rapist. These are fundamentally not good people.
Agreed. Cannot wait to see how democrats decide how they want to throw away their biggest opportunities
There’s this giant fucking myth of “crossover voters” but what few of them they are, are statistically insignificant.
What can make them significant, is giving them something to cross party lines for.
08 Obama we all thought he was really a progressive and even as a Black man with the middle name Hussien he got traditional Republican voters to vote D and flipped a shit ton of red states.
If trump pisses off maga voters, best case scenario they don’t vote for a couple elections.
At this point thinking trump can do anything to make them vote D is willing naivety.
I was listening to a radio show (CBC) who had an expert on voting demographics. He was saying that a fairly sizeable portion of Trump’s base were irregular voters. That is to say, they only turn out if they feel strongly enough about something, and the promise they believed was that he would fight corruption.
They also have a core belief that the gov’t is run by a cabal of pedophiles, and that Trump would fix that. Backing down on the Epstein files is a huge slap in the face to them.
So while you’re absolutely right that these people would probably never cross the aisle and vote democrat, as you say, what they’re more likely to do is just not vote.
I just watched Cody Johnson’s new podcast and he made a good point:
trump and “the left” kind of forgot about Epstein, but for a lot of MAGA that shit was the whole point.
Like, remember that guy who shot up a Chucky Cheese knockoff because they wouldn’t take him to a basement that literally didn’t exist?
This was the thing MAGA was built off of, and trump just fuckin forgot.
So are we supposed to just give up and just accept that every election is going to swing to the right now? Assuming they don’t rig elections, how are we expected to get people over to the other side if we treat them like garbage even if they realized they fucked up? I don’t think it’s very wise in this current situation to continue to make enemies when we are all in danger. The fact that people are breaking away should be a good thing and we should encourage it instead of just calling them stupid. If one of your friends joined a cult and managed to get out, would you be pissed at your friend for falling for it or be pissed at the cult that manipulated them? In cults there are always hierarchies and the majority of MAGA are not the people we see in podcasts and on the news. Those are the people in charge and are the ones that convince people to join for their own selfish reason by being loud and portraying themselves as the victims.
Seriously, go look up videos of people that were in cults and tell me that it’s their fault. There are people that would rather kill themselves than try and leave the cult because they are so scared. We only see this on a macroscopic scale while we never consider the small scale things going on all over the country. These people have literally been brainwashed and the people on the “outside” would rather call them stupid than give them a chance at fixing things. All that does is reinforce the idea that the cult is better because everyone else hates them.
Edit: I’m not saying we need to forgive them. All I’m saying is treat them like people instead of all of them being monsters.
All I’m saying is treat them like people instead of all of them being monsters.
I’m all for treating anyone with decency once they start acting like people, and not monsters. They’re not going to get a welcome by clinging to their racism and conspiracies.
Fuck that and fuck them. Let them rot and hang.
Nah I don’t feel like having you traitors on my side, fuck You.
Yeah. What I want is a bunch of fair weather fuckwads that will turn coat as soon as it suits their “needs.” I don’t want another Fetterman. That red hat is a scarlet letter. Let them fucking rot. Cowards all.
99.9% of MAGAts are not redeemable.
Fuck em. Leave them by the side of the road and don’t give them a single moment of your time. They aren’t worth it. If roles were reversed they would be spitting on you. Remember that.
The moment their goldfish brains get a little of that Faux News, they’ll be back to voting like the hateful shills they are.
