#Republicans only work for the filthy rich | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ultimatebottom69 · 9 days ago

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Hi I am reading the thread right now and frankly after that I am going to actually sleep.

You all saw the whole world watching you with abject horror since 2016. And thought we were scared/judging only the MAGA people ? Like I am so sorry but in what world do you live for you to beleive the WHOLE world is judging ALL of you.

Yes in France we have difderent parties. We have the right to vote. We have the right to not say who we vote for too. In fact we have a sort of republican party.

And you know what we get horrified when this guys even make 3% votes more then usual mind you it's been a steady 20% for 20 years now it's a resounding 33%. Why ? Because Donald Trump happened. And the USA site is very enthousiastic in telling us how rascist we are. Yes. We are.

We are filthy colonizer but may i say the reason the USA is a less popular colonizer is simply because your country is too fucking young. Anyway.

The difference though is here when someone is rascist. Well you better be joking Carole cause your reputation could be destroyed unless you are rich. And even that stops protecting you after 10 years.

Hi Mister Zemmour. No one misses you.

Yes Zemmour. You know. The fucking comedian. Why he presented himself ? BECAUSE TRUMP HAPPENED BRENDA ! Bro thought he could get elected by being his usual mysoginistic self as if one does not need a degree.

You need a degree to become a clothing hanger nowadays Bella. Trump looked so incompetent to us that, a fucking comedian thought he stood a chance in a president race.

And you know what some people actually voted for him. Even if it's a mere 5%. 5% still voted for a guy with no degrees, qualifications, or even a programm. And it's because he was a Trump on TV aka very blatant and boy did it not fly.

Meanwhile as I speak to you all I am watching a France 5 interview and I have an Old lady who lives in Springfield who just casually said to the camera deadass "They never spilled their blood for this country what we work for they get it for free-" after just saying she herself go take free food. To Haitians people. Deadass.

This would never fucking fly on our news channel you would have to be 10 times more subtle about it and even then you could get red handed caught in a scandal that will be spread on tiktok.

You all have no sense of shame at all and that's why none of you can kill any President ever.

But I am drunk so. Anyway. If Trump wins I 100% expect another rise of fascism in all countries. Just like 2016. Palestine ? Oh you mean the new Israel ? Cause that's what's going to happen if he fucking wins. Like I need all of you to understand just how much you all fucked over at least 30 countries. And I am not going to even extend the economy subject and how the inflation is going to hit you like a Smooth Criminal. Cause it will go up again but higher then we all predicted.

Now. Am I telling you all to be doomers ? Well the planet still turning Stacy. Do something. Unionize. Actually do something. Don't wake up on election night. Wake up early and stay awake.

Trump winning won't be the end of the world but it will definitely feel like it. For too many people. Frankly good luck babe per Chappell Roan for the people who did not vote per choice.

If Harris wins you all better fight that Cuntmala all the way for her to bend to your desires to help Palestine, she will listen now to convince Congress is another fucking proboem.

Your election system is so fucked.

And for fuck sake stop voting third parties.

Enfin bon. J'ai bien remonté les bretelles maintenant passez une bonne journée, bonne merde et welp. *ricktus* J'allumerais un sierge pour vous peu importe le resultat. Je vous aime mais putain de merde l'amour c'est vraiment vache.

#Rant #My life

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automatismoateo · 5 months ago

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I am an atheist. In my view of the world we cannot let the US become a Christian Country. Think of the radical views or laws theyll try to impose. Its scary. via /r/atheism

I am an atheist. In my view of the world, we cannot let the US become a Christian Country. Think of the radical views or laws they’ll try to impose. It’s scary. In my view of the world, we cannot let the US become a Christian Country. The thought of it is downright scary. We need to preserve our religious freedom which is to believe or not to believe. Why is the religious right imposing radical views on us. I am non religious and find it deplorable. Just look at the case argued in front of the Supreme Court by radical Senator Hawley’s wife about 2 months ago pushing to ban the abortion pill. It is bad enough Roe vs Wade was overturned and now this. Hawley’s wife was not impacted by the pill being legal, but she desires to impose radical views upon the rest of the nation, particularly women. I do not want or will never impose my non religious views on anyone but her and other dangerous people are telling us how to live our lives. Abortion is personal choice and it is a tough choice to make, but government should not make these decisions for us. Mrs. Hawely is not the all powerful Queen of the US, She wants to force women/couples to have babies. The pill only works early in the pregnancy, is safe and it’s individual choice, not the religious views of the extreme right wingers. No women intentionally wants to get pregnant to terminate, but mistakes happen and that is what the pill is for. My view on abortion is this. If the fetus can live outside the womb, then it’s too late to abort. Plus I have never heard them advocating who will pay to raise unwanted children because many who take the pill do not have the means to support a child. Unwanted children live horrible lives an why bring an unwanted child into the world when you accidentally got pregnant. Take the pill and end the pregnancy. Women need to decide and not the Government or Evangelicals. Then you have Trump and the radical Republicans wanting to cut programs for the poor and cut taxes for the filthy rich. It’s one big mess. We need more birth control pills and condoms available, plus more funding for Planned Parenthood to minimize abortions. No one wants abortions, but there a fact of life unless the Evangelicals win and that would be a shame. Submitted June 05, 2024 at 03:19AM by EnvironmentalCat682 (From Reddit https://ift.tt/kt9uGFh)

#reddit

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scottguy · 8 months ago

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Actual Republican Budget Proposal

Raise Social Security retirement age

Cut Medicare

Eliminate student loan forgiveness

Cut green energy subsidies

Cut funding for IRS (that pays for itself catching big dollar tax cheats)

#Republicans only work for the filthy rich

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scottguy · 3 months ago

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Article: Lara Trump on Project 2025: "There are some ideas in there that are very productive and will be great for this country"

Lara Trump on Project 2025: "There are some ideas in there that are very productive and will be great for this country" (and some that are a "little extreme")

When Republicans admit something is "a little extreme" - you know it's a disaster.

Project 2025 is a plan to fire all government employees hired to support agencies like the EPA, the FDA, OSHA, Medicare, Social Security and 10,000 other agencies created to help Americans and to keep them safe at work and from unethical businesses.

Under Project 2025 those knowledgeable experienced workers will be summarily fired without cause, just so Trump can appoint thousands of mindless MAGA lackeys loyal only to Trump.

Suddenly, no laws will be enforced. Live near a refinery? Too bad! Didn't get your Medicare payment? Oh well!

It also applies to election officials. Trump wasn't able to cheat in 2020 because of nonpartisan elected officials with a conscience. They too will be fired and replaced with election deniers that believe the only legitimate election is one Trump wins. That's how Trump will end democracy without firing a shot.

Project 2025 has nearly 1000 pages of wish list ideas for the filthy rich to profit more at average Americans' expense by rolling back hard-won regulations. Pollution will become rampant again like it was in the 1960s.

On religion there are hundreds of pages forcing EVERYONE to follow Roman Catholic religious dogma and rules. We will all do what christofascists SAY we should do. Oligarchs like christofascism because many "religious" people do not think for themselves. If someone tells them "God" said it's okay, then it's okay.

The ENTIRE DOCUMENT is terrifying. It's amazing that the Heritage Foundation had the gall to explain to the world just exactly how detailed, wicked, greedy, and utterly unAmerican right-wingers' plans are. That's the kind of arrogance and privilege rich white oligarchs are feeling these days.

There are plenty of lists summing up the worst plans of Project 2025 such as:

No abortion nationwide, no birth control, end mixed couple marriages, put politicians or preachers in charge of private medical decisions for your family. Cut Social Security. Cut Medicare. Start mass deportations and jailing of immigrants. Invade Mexico (ostensibly to stop fentanyl but really it will be an illegal land grab).

If this all sounds like what Hitler did in Nazi Germany, that's exactly what it is. The United States will be a totalitarian government with a complete fool of a man, Donald Trump, in control of the world's largest military by far and also in charge of the nuclear codes.

In the first Trump administration we were assured, "the adults in the room" wouldn't let Trump launch any nukes. But, they will be GONE in a 2nd Trump administration. Trump is crazy and impulsive. Trump envies the worst of the dictators and enjoys comparing who was most ruthless.

Do you want THAT MAN with his finger on "the button?"

Trump winning won't just destroy America, it could quite easily lead to a nuclear WWIII and the end of life as we know it.

Read what it says about the issues that matter to you most:

#project 2025 #lara trump admits project 2025 is bad

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tomorrowusa · 4 months ago

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Sen. Bernie Sanders visited Stephen Colbert after Trump's seemingly endless acceptance speech at the Republican convention. His refutation of Trump was more succinct as well as more interesting than The Orange One's speech.

In that segment he describes the total lack of attention Republicans devote to climate change – except to give free rein to fossil fuel oligarchs to put even more greenhouse gasses into Earth's atmosphere.

He also outlines how the attention the GOP devotes to working Americans is just superficial bullshit. The GOP opposes raising the minimum wage but favors even more MAGA tax breaks for the filthy rich.

The Bern described our system as a "semi-democracy" because it gives disproportionate power to oligarchic billionaires who can more easily influence the system. He singled out the disastrous 2010 Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court decision as the main culprit in corrupting our political system.

I would add that there only two ways of overturning Citizens United: 1] a US Constitutional amendment (good luck with that!); 2] a subsequent SCOTUS decision overturning Citizens United. #2 is possible in the medium turn – as long as progressives understand that the main goal in any presidential or senatorial election should be the defeat of Republicans who appoint extremist SCOTUS justices. Casting symbolic "protest" votes for impotent third party candidates who have no chance of winning has only led to more justices like Alito and Kavanaugh.

#bernie sanders #stephen colbert #donald trump #republican national convention #republicans #climate change #working americans #minimum wage #tax breaks for the filthy rich #billionaires #oligarchs #semi-democracy #citizens united v. fec #us supreme court #scotus #third parties #election 2024 #vote blue no matter who #Youtube

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scottguy · 1 month ago

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Anything that helps the working class is "radical" to Republicans.

The Right is bankrupt.

#Republicans only help the filthy rich #Republicans don't care about working-class Americans

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quakerjoe · 4 years ago

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Is America really ready to reclaim democracy?

I’m going to share a fact with you — and you’re not going to like it.

America’s problems can be reduced to the following. White Americans want America to be a failed state — and that is its fundamental, deep, and long standing problem. That is how America ended up here — more than half a century of white hostility to any kind of social progress whatsoever — which resulted in social collapse, and culminated in Trumpism. White people made America a failed state.

But are white people ready to own this problem, of their own extremism? Is that long-term social position really about to change this election, finally, after more than half a century? Are white Americans ready to become a modern, functioning society? The answer, right about now, is a kind of hysterical “yes!” We all — all of us sane and thoughtful people anyways — want Biden to win, and put an end to the long nightmare of the Trump years. But — despite what the polls might say — how realistic is that?

“Kill Umair! Get him!!!” Maybe you’re foaming at the mouth, ready to dispute my simple fact. So take a hard look at the chart above. What does it say?

I have some bad news, and then I have some worse news. Don’t worry, you’ll thank me later. The first piece of bad news is this. Here’s a fact that most people underestimate. America is still about 80% white. 80%. Given the record-breaking turnout, this election is going to be more about America’s white majority than about minorities, probably, at least if every group turns out in record numbers roughly equally. Minorities have much less power than many imagine, precisely because they are still seriously in the…minority. This election is about white America, and if it really wants to live in a democracy — or if it’s happier living in a fascist society.

You might think that sounds over the top, so here’s the worse news. The chart above says this. It says that white Americans, as a group, have never, as a group, voted for a Democratic President. Never in modern history. In fact, the chart above in fact understates the problem. This trend goes back to JFK and perhaps before. Are you beginning to see the problem here? Why I say “America’s problem is that white people want it to be a failed state?”

Let me make it clearer. White Americans can be relied on, in the majority, as a group, to “vote Republican.” I put it in quotes because it’s worth examining what that anodyne statement really means. Liberal, sane, thoughtful White Americans often overestimate how many of them there are, how widespread their cause is. The result is that when I say “Americans are…” meaning of course the majority, which is still white, I get a wave of protest. Americans aren’t dumb! Americans aren’t dumb! They’re not violent, stupid racists! They want to live in a modern society! Are they, do they — at least the white majority? Let’s take a brief and hard look at reality.

Here are some things white Americans have been for, as a group, in their majority. Segregation. Endless war. Inequality. Billionaires. Capital. Guns and religion as primary social values. That is what the voting pattern above means. Conversely, here are some thing white Americans have been against, as a group, in their majority. Desegregation. Civil rights. Womens’ rights. Their own healthcare, retirement, and childcare. Public goods of any kind whatsoever. That is what the “voting pattern” above means in the real world. Need I go on? America’s problem is that white Americans as a social group, its majority social group, want America to be a failed state. They don’t want to live in a modern, civilised democracy, and never have.

White America is America’s problem. A big, white, ignorant problem. The problem of the white American voter — that white Americans don’t want to admit — goes back more than half a century at this point. If the answer is “Make America Great Again!” then the question is: “well, who brought it this point of self-destruction?” and the answer is….white Americans. They’re the ones responsible for the self-destruction of the society they still rule as a massive majority. Nobody else is responsible for their poverty, despair, and humiliation but them. That is what the chart above makes crystal clear.

Who voted, over and over again, to have worse lives? No healthcare, retirement, affordable education, childcare — no public goods of any kind whatsoever? White Americans did. What the? The question baffles the world. Why would anyone choose a worse life? The answer is that white Americans would not accept a society of true equals. “I won’t pay for those dirty, filthy peoples’ educations, healthcare, retirements! Why, their grandparents were my grandpappy’s slaves!” White Americans chose to retain power, supremacy, superiority, even in a failing society. They chose staying on top of decline and ruin, rather than prospering as equals.

Let me make that even clearer, by putting it in a global perspective. This is the part you’re really not going to like.

White Americans are the rich world’s most hostile, ignorant, violent, cruel, and selfish social group — by a very long way. “Voting conservative” after all doesn’t mean nearly the same thing in Europe or Canada. There, even conservative parties agree on the basics — people should have healthcare, education, retirement, that the only point of the public purse isn’t endless war and death machines. Conservatism in America is off the charts, and so “voting” that way carries a very different meaning. It means that White Americans are the rich world’s most regressive, ignorant, and self-destructive political bloc — by such a long way that they might as well not be in the rich world at all.

I don’t mean any of that as an insult, by the way. I mean it objectively, literally, factually. You’d think that by now White Americans would have figured out that voting against their own standards of living ever rising just because it meant black and brown people would have public goods too was…imbecilic. Especially watching Europe and Canada rise and prosper. They’ve had more than half a century to figure that out. But they still haven’t. What else do you call the inability to learn from the world and history but…ignorance?

Do you know what the word imbecile means? Someone who can’t look after themselves. But that’s what has happened: white people are the ones who wrecked their very own lives, futures, and society — beginning the moment, decades back, that minorities finally gained a few rights, in a giant, stupid, endless, escalating temper tantrum, that culminated in Trumpism.

I know this sounds insulting. But to speak factually and empirically about levels of self-destruction this immense requires us to reach beyond the lines of everyday discourse. Let me try again, then.

White Americans really are different. From their peers — or at least the people they believe are their peers. But the truth that their political choices over decades reveals is this. White Americans have almost nothing in common with White Europeans or Canadians — who back the expansive social contracts of social democracies reliably. White Americans reliably reject such choices, which is how they made their society collapse. instead, they have more in common with the ethnic-religious-fundamentalist majorities of nations like Iran, or the authoritarian-nationalist majorities of nations like Russia. They are regressive, sectarian, fundamentalist, unable to change, trapped by their own ideologies.

That is how and why America collapsed. Black People didn’t make it so. Brown People didn’t. Native Americans didn’t. America is still about 80% white, and white Americans make a certain choice reliably and consistently and predictably as a group — they vote “conservative,” but conservative in America doesn’t mean what it does in the rest of the rich world — it means something much more like Iran or Russia. Bang.

White Americans impoverished themselves, through decades of such folly. Voting against their very own basic public goods. Which meant they had to pay monopolists eye-watering prices for those very things which could and should have been socially provided — healthcare, higher education, retirement, and so on. Today, the average American dies in $62,000 of debt. Do you know what that predicted, a few years ago? A fascist implosion. When majorities grow impoverished, they turn even more regressive, violent, ignorant, and brutal. America’s white majority was already all those things — and then they became even more so.

A demagogue came along, Trump, who blamed white America’s problems on everyone but white Americans. Mexican babies. Black mothers. Latino immigrants. Syrian refugees. Gay minority couples. Everyone but white Americans was responsible for the plight of white Americans. But how could they be? America was and is still 80% white. Nobody was ever responsible for white America’s stunning plunge into poverty, humiliation, and despair — but white America.

But nobody wants to blame themselves, do they? It’s only human to project one’s failings onto others. So white America took Trump’s bait. And it was easier, too, to sell that line of nonsense, that racism, that prejudice, that bigotry, to a white majority that was already those things, and always had been. It was a self-reinforcing process, which was inevitable once America’s white middle and working class began to implode. Fascism was coming to America.

And it did.

Those of us who warned of it were called alarmists and hysterics and so on, when we warned of camps, genocide, bans, raids, purges. As all those things came to pass, and, sick to our stomachs, we survivors tried to warn all over again, we were mocked, shamed, and condemned. By white Americans. Even the good ones. We were told we were underestimating the power of white America to do the right thing.

But we understood something that white American never has about itself. White America has never done the right thing. Ever. At least not in modern history. White America, again, the chart shows us, has been for segregation and war and brutality — and against desegregation, women’s rights, civil rights, and so on. White America, as a group, as a majority, has never, ever voted for anything even slightly towards greater equality, justice, freedom, for all. It has only ever voted to preserve, maintain, and expand its own power. Ever.

White Americans — the good and reasonable ones — overestimate their social group so badly that they probably imagine a majority of white people voted for Obama. Wrong. Even Obama couldn’t win a majority of whites. The only candidate who came close was Bill Clinton — and even he failed. White Americans, again, never voted any way but fanatically “conservative”, which, in global terms, means more like majorities in Iran or Russia than Canada or Europe — regressive, ignorant, brutal, hostile, selfish, and supremacist, not modern, gentle, fair, wise, sophisticated, thoughtful, peaceful, tolerant.

White America’s escalating temper tantrum — its pattern of regressive voting — finally escalated in Trumpism. That is how all of America ended up here. Ruled by white America’s fascists and fanatics, too. Which even the sane and thoughtful white Americans despair at. But will they finally understand themselves? Can they look in the mirror once and for all?

We survivors and scholars have seen all this before — the phenomenon of the deceptive majority. By “deceptive majority,” I mean the idea that good and reasonable white Americans have about themselves. That as a majority, they are good and reasonable, and so goodness and sanity and reason will prevail in the end. They have not in America precisely because white Americans badly overestimate just how sane and reasonable their group in society is. How can they be, when they think guns matter more than healthcare and human rights?

I’m sorry if that sounds harsh. But again, I am only speaking to you factually, empirically, objectively. White Americans have voted over again and again for their guns and their Bibles — but they have never, ever voted as group to have healthcare or retirement for all or any single aspect of a functioning modern society whatsoever. Not to this day.

White America seemed to prefer supremacism and theocracy and authoritarian-fascism over modernity, as a social group. And that is how America ended up being a failed state. That, my friend, is the ugly and difficult fact.

That is the problem of the white American voter. And it spells real trouble.

Because when we say things like “Biden will win in a landslide!” what we are really saying is: white American as a group will, for the first time in modern history, not vote Republican. That they will, as a group, vote for something other than regressivism of the most extreme kind on offer. That the massive tide and force of history will suddenly turn on its head. That a decades long trend will simply reverse itself en masse, like never before.

We are asking for something greater than we may know — for history to deliver us a genuine transformation in long-standing political and social attitudes amongst a majority that has never, ever felt the way we wish them to. Who have never, ever been on the side of modernity or greater democracy or more civilization.

We are hoping for change of the deepest kind. Are we overconfident, then?

I’m not saying that a Biden landslide is impossible. But I am willing, at this stage, to call it unlikely. I don’t think white America is suddenly going to reverse decades of history. I think history has a terrible momentum and inertia, which doesn’t turn itself around so easily. I think social attitudes and political preferences don’t simply magically upend themselves overnight. I don’t think white America as a majority is going to back Biden. (If it does, it will be thanks to young people, though.)

Where does that leave us? Not in a very good place. The problem of the white American voter is very, very real. More real than white Americans know — which is precisely why their pundits and intellectuals never discuss it: they are giving their own social group’s regressivism and imbecility a free pass. But it’s the elephant in the room, just how different white Americans really are, as a group, in the majority, how regressive, cruel, hostile, ignorant, and backwards. That’s not an opinion — it’s a sad, terrible, frightening fact.

It’s possible that minorities will deliver the election for Biden. That’s if turnout for them is much, much higher than for whites. We don’t know, really, if that’s the case. I’d say while the chances are slim, they are very real.

More likely, though, is the following scenario. White America votes the way it always has as a group, as a majority — to screw everyone else over, as hard as possible, even if it itself pays a price. That will lead to three possible outcomes. One, an outright Trump victory. Two, a undecided election, which the Supreme Court will obviously hand to Trump. Or three, the most likely, in my estimation, months of chaos, as America tries to figure out what to do next, about the mess its in, and the GOP makes every grab for raw power.

And the protests of the good and thoughtful white Americans don’t help: “not all of us!” Sure, Chet, not all of you. But enough of you have been like this for most of modern history. Embittered, hostile, cruel, backwards.

Is that about to change? I don’t know, my friends. I doubt it, but I hope so. So why do I tell you this? Because we minorities are what we have always been: barely tolerated interlopers and hated intruders in the Promised Land. You, my white American friend, are the only one with the power to change any of it.

Umair October 2020

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automatismoateo · 8 months ago

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Why is the religous right imposing radical views on us. I am non religous and find it deplorable. via /r/atheism

Why is the religous right imposing radical views on us. I am non religous and find it deplorable. Just look at the case argued in front of the Supreme Courty by radical Senator Hawley’s wife pushing to ban the abortion pill. It is bad enough Roe vs Wade was overturned an now this. Hawlley’s wife is not impacted personally but she is looking to impose her radical views upon the rest of the nation. I do not want or will never impose my non religuous views on anyone but her an other dangerous people are tell us how to live and run our lives. You cannot and should not be forcing people to have babies. The pill only works early in the pregnancy, is safe and it’s individual choice, not the religous views of the extreme right wingers. Plus I have never heard them advocating who will pay to raise unwanted children because many who take the pill do not have the means to support a child. Then you have Trump and the radical Republicans wanting to cut programs for the poor and cut taxe for the filthy rich. Submitted March 27, 2024 at 02:14PM by GrapeWooden4988 (From Reddit https://ift.tt/UlnqShg)

#reddit

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qqueenofhades · 4 years ago

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I was hoping you would be able to help me form a response when my family says they're sick of hearing of systemic racism and white privilege because THEY have had to work for everything and believe nothing got handed to them (true in the way they're thinking, but you know what I mean).

Welp. First, I applaud you for taking the initiative to engage in difficult conversations with your family, since the only way embedded racist ideas are going to get confronted in white society is if racist white people hear it from their friends and family. They are going to cheerily ignore protestors, academics, newsreaders, popular culture, and certainly politicians who say anything to the contrary, but it’s harder to ignore and brush aside when it’s coming from people who are directly within your own family group. They can still then ignore it, but at least you’re trying to do something that is not at all fun but which is deeply necessary, and good for you.

First, there are a few things for you to consider. Is this a case where they actually don’t know the difference, but are willing to learn, or is this essentially sealioning (where they act like they don’t know the difference, but they absolutely do, and put the emotional labor on you to extensively define and explain and educate while never intending to change their stances on anything). If it’s the former, then there is some point in engaging in dialogue with them. If it’s the latter, it’s a giant emotional trap that you are within your rights not to engage with until they signal that they’re willing to engage productively. You don’t have to educate someone who is categorically unwilling to be educated (especially when it’s often deliberate ignorance). As people like to say, Google is free, and it’s their responsibility to take the first steps to change. You can continue to talk with them, but yes, that is contingent on them actually standing a chance of listening to you and not just you wearing yourself out on something that they don’t want to actually hear (because it threatens them and makes them feel Personally Wrong, and white people don’t like that).

There have been various books written on why it’s so hard to talk to white people about racism, which you may be interested in checking out, not least the book "Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race” by Renni Eddo-Lodge. Ibram X. Kendi has also written “How to Be An Antiracist,” one of the bestselling books of this summer, either of which would be useful either in shaping your own arguments or (if they’re receptive) giving to your family. Once again, this is contingent on them signalling that they’re actually willing to listen, and not just to make you do pointless emotional labor. These books are probably available from your public library (though there’s probably a waitlist) or in other easily available formats.

Next, it’s a basic tenet of an anti-racist education that white people have never had to do this kind of reckoning, and thus get whiny, defensive, guilt-tripping, and “it’s not about ME I’m a GOOD PERSON” when it comes up. This also rests on the damaging and deeply intertwined effects of racism and classism, which has to be understood if you’re going to talk about it. One of the greatest tricks that racist capitalism ever pulled is convincing poor white people that they had more in common with their filthy rich white masters (people whose way of life will never in a thousand years be anything like each other’s) simply because they shared the inherent racial “purity” of being white. There have been political studies written on how poor/undereducated/working class white people have become such a reliably Republican constituency, because they have been successfully manipulated to believe that the white overlords are their “people” and they will constantly vote against their own economic, social, and cultural interests in favor of enriching amoral white demagogues who beat the populist xenophobic drum. Then they blame black and brown people for society’s ills and for the reason that they stay poor, rather than the rampaging oligarchs awarding themselves massive tax breaks and billion-dollar bailouts and refusing to extend unemployment benefits in case people “make too much money” from not working, just to name the most recent example. They are so poisoned on populist politics and white supremacy, which assures them that they’re better than anyone else by virtue of being white, that they actively attack politicians and policy platforms and other social welfare initiatives that would materially improve their own lives as “un-American.” This is maddening and sometimes baffling, but it’s how it works. Whiteness trumps all, currently literally thanks to the Orange Fuhrer. Problems in life are the fault of the Other.

This isn’t to say that poor white people are “dumb” and just unable to realize it, because they’re caught in a system that has done this literally from the start of America. In the early 17th century, indentured laborers and slaves in the American colonies were in fact more likely to be white. (The word “slave” comes from “Slav,” since that was the predominant ethnicity of slaves in medieval Europe; i.e. white eastern Europeans.) But even despite the fact that they were unpaid laborers, they were still white and thus recognized as human by their white masters, and thus when slave ships began arriving, it was easier for everybody to simply outright demonize and dehumanize the black African slaves. The poor white indentured servants got to feel better than the black slaves simply for the fact of their whiteness. Their lives obviously sucked, but their whiteness was in fact a mitigating factor in the suckiness that it involved once it was easier to use “animalistic” black people. And we wonder why America can’t ever confront its racist history properly. As Kendi calls it in his other book, it is stamped from the beginning.

As it has been put before, white people can and often do have difficult lives, because late-stage capitalism devours its workers no matter what color they are, but their whiteness isn’t a factor in why their lives are difficult. They will never encounter racial prejudice, race-based hate crime, discrimination for housing, education, employment, bank loans, daily microaggressions and identity erasure, constantly racist tropes in the media, politicians fingering them as everything wrong with America/the world, casual prejudices or assumptions even from close friends, assumed criminality based just on their race -- etc etc. The list goes on and on. Just because you have a hardscrabble economic background does not mean that your life has been made harder by your race -- because if you’re white, it hasn’t. (And as noted, poor white people have consistently voted for megalomaniac white men who don’t give a shit about them but promise them that everything is fine or should be better for them because of their whiteness, and then blame minorities for being the source of their problems.)

I honestly wonder if racism would still be such a problem in America if we had a remotely more equitable economic system, because when you’re well off and have your basic needs consistently met and don’t need to worry that you’re one paycheck away from disaster, it’s harder to constantly be paranoid that your differently colored neighbors are stealing everything from you and the cause of all society’s ills. The historian Patrick Hyder Patterson wrote a very interesting book on material culture in Yugoslavia in the 20th century, where he basically argued that despite the spectacular collapse of the federation into the Yugoslavian wars of the 90s, things didn’t really go to hell until after the economy crashed following Josip Broz Tito’s death in 1980. While there were obviously ethnic fault lines and conflicts between Serbs, Croats, Montenegrins, Bosniaks, Albanians, etc, when there wasn’t any money and any jobs and everyone thought everyone else was to blame, THAT is when the whole thing blew up into a genocidal civil war clusterfuck. Food for thought.

This is why people talk about economic justice and racial justice as going hand in hand. When there is a scarcity of resources and no social safety net, people are obviously more inclined to look for scapegoats and to blame someone for taking their entitlement (while still somehow refusing to blame the billionaires and corporate oligarch who are ACTUALLY stealing from them). They indeed actively resist any attempts to make their own lives better as being “socialist” or “un-American” and take pride in the fact that there’s absolutely jacksquat nothing (until of course, something like the coronavirus pandemic hits and it’s revealed just how many of us were always one missed paycheck away from disaster). Then when they need government assistance (while disdaining the government as tyrannical the rest of the time, unless it’s Trump’s actively tyrannical lot, but hey, we don’t have time to unpack all that) it’s still shameful and something they shouldn’t be using, instead of their basic entitlement to a decent life.

This country is poisoned on a lot of toxic beliefs, but this is one of the deepest-running one, and which will always get in the way of poor white people dealing with racism: their lives suck, but they have ALWAYS been told that despite that, they’re still better just for being white, which is their consolation prize for supporting white populists who actively rob them, and they haven’t even always consciously registered that. They just feel that if they’re “fine,” even if they’re not fine, then black people are just malcontents and criminals who can’t hack it. In 2016, there was a lot of ink spilled over how poor white people felt a sense of economic grievance and being left behind, which was why they voted for Trump, but... Trump was never going to do a damn thing about that??? He doesn’t actually do anything for his supporters except feed them his jingoistic Orange Nazi stump speeches. They voted for Trump to feel vindicated, not to actually improve their lives, and it’s damn clear by now that not only has he NOT improved their lives, he has no desire to do so. He just wants them to cheer for him and feed his ego, not fix any problems.

Basically, racism and capitalism and the American political system intersect in multiple deeply toxic ways to do precisely what you’re talking about; producing poor white people who feel that they shouldn’t be included in the reckoning with racism because if THEY worked hard and they don’t live in a mansion, somehow racism is fake and black people should just shut up and get a job etc etc. This is because poor white people have been systematically conditioned to support white supremacy at the direct expense of their own economic and social interests; it’s terrible, but that’s how it functions. They will never in a million years have anything in common with the (white) ruling class, but they still instinctively identify with them rather than people in their own deprived economic class who are different races or colors or religions. That is how white supremacy has supported the hyper-inequality of the industrial age, and vice verse, and it is one of capitalism’s best functions for survival, so it’s in the interests of the overlords to maintain it. Stop the workers from recognizing pan-racial solidarity based on economic grievance, and compete with each other and blame each other rather than the overarching system, easy!

Anyway. Once again, this is long. But in short, the attitudes your family are exemplifying are a direct result of both racism and classism as they have been deliberately cultivated in the American social and political system, and the interlocking causes and symptoms of both have to be recognized (and acknowledged) before they can get to dealing with that. I don’t know how that will go, and I don’t have an easy shortcut. But I’m glad you’re trying. Good luck.

#politics for ts #history of racism #long post #anonymous #ask

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scottguy · 6 months ago

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The American people are NOT crying out for overpriced insulin. Republicans are just sucking up to their big pharma donors.

Republicans think that enough of their voters are brainwashed enough to still believe that right-wing politicians give a single damn about average Americans.

Prove them wrong and vote blue.

A party should EARN your vote by passing laws that help you, not that HURT you!

GQP - Wrong side of every issue

#Republicans work to hurt average Americans #Republicans only serve the filthy rich #voting Republican is like punching your own face

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odinsblog · 5 years ago

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Andrew Cuomo is NOT Your Friend

(by Akash Metha)

The message is clear. #PresidentCuomo, as a trending hashtag dubbed him, will give you the real facts where President Trump gives ‘alternative” ones; is even-keeled and trustworthy where Trump is mercurial and self-interested; knows what he’s talking about where Trump spouts misinformation and lies.

It’s an effective public relations campaign — so effective that you could almost forget that this is Andrew Cuomo we’re talking about.

The man who summarily disbanded the corruption commission he’d ran on creating when it began to investigate his allies. The man who made a host of videotaped promises in exchange for the Working Families Party’s endorsement only to turn around and break them all. The man who secretly worked for years to ensure Republican control of the State Senate, protecting himself from the flak that would come with having to veto progressive legislation.

And lest you thought he had turned a new leaf, Governor 1 percent is insisting on taking an ax to the state Medicaid budget even at the cost of $6.7 billion in emergency federal aid — and lying about it. In the most unequal state in the nation, he is fighting to protect the rich and impose austerity on everyone else. Make no mistake: even in a pandemic, Andrew Cuomo is not your friend.

When asked how average New Yorkers can be expected to make rent amid coronavirus’s economic devastation, Cuomo claims he “took care of the rent issue” — but he ignores rent-cancellation legislation that is currently supported by dozens of legislators. He uses the pandemic as cover to roll back last year’s bail reform laws that have reduced the state’s prison population by thousands. He not only uses $2/hour prison labor to rebottle hand sanitizer, but also refuses to release elderly and sick inmates from filthy, crowded jails like Rikers Island.

And perhaps most scandalously of all, he continues to push to meet a budget shortfall by enacting deep Medicaid cuts rather than passing wildly popular tax increases on the 0.01 percent — even though this would require him to turn down billions in federal coronavirus aid to the state.

Last week, even as New York became a global epicenter of the pandemic, Cuomo’s “Medicaid Redesign Team” (MRT) released its proposals to cut $2.5 billion from the state Medicaid budget, including $400 million to hospitals as they battle coronavirus in the next year. Cuomo justifies the cuts as reining in out-of-control Medicaid spending. But as Roosevelt Institute fellows J.W. Mason and Naomi Zwede note, Medicaid spending is already under control; it’s been rising at the same rate as New York’s economy as a whole.

(continue reading)

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msclaritea · 4 years ago

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“Is America really ready to reclaim democracy?

I’m going to share a fact with you — and you’re not going to like it.

“Kill Umair! Get him!!!” Maybe you’re foaming at the mouth, ready to dispute my simple fact. So take a hard look at the chart above. What does it say?

They don’t want to live in a modern, civilised democracy, and never have.

They chose staying on top of decline and ruin, rather than prospering as equals.

Let me make that even clearer, by putting it in a global perspective. This is the part you’re really not going to like.

I know this sounds insulting. But to speak factually and empirically about levels of self-destruction this immense requires us to reach beyond the lines of everyday discourse. Let me try again, then.

Fascism was coming to America. And it did.

That is the problem of the white American voter. And it spells real trouble.

We are hoping for change of the deepest kind. Are we overconfident, then?

Umair October 2020

‘Stop The Count’ Trump Protesters in Detroit.

#Well Damn #Nevada #Arizona #Michigan #North Carolina #Georgia #Umair #Election 2020 #Cold Hard Facts #1000th Reason Bernie Would Not Have Won #Get it now?#BidenHarris #Count Every Vote #Fuck All This

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raisingsupergirl · 4 years ago

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I Didn't Vote

Yep, you heard it right. On 11/3/20, I didn't go anywhere near the polls. I woke up, went to work, went home, and went to bed. Sure, I'd had a long day, but I certainly had a chance to swing by and punch my ticket. I thought about doing it. From the time I woke up I thought about it. But I just couldn't bring myself to do it, and I didn't really know why. Even the next day I couldn't figure it out. And I've been mulling it over since then. I still don't have a satisfying reason, but at least I have a reason. Actually, I have several.

Okay, let's get this out of the way. My first reason for not voting is ignorance. No, not on the part of the political candidates, or social media, or you. I didn't vote because I'm ignorant. I know so little about the two old guys (and there was a woman, too, right? That third-party so-and-so?) fighting to "rule" our country. Here's what I do know… First, Trump: He's filthy rich. He owns some companies (honestly couldn't tell you which ones). He had a TV show (can't remember the name) and a tower. He has been our president for the past four years, and he did some things that veterans and conservatives like (I can't tell you with certainty even one thing that he's responsible for changing). He's a republican, but I think he used to be a democrat. I also think his wife's name is Ivanka, he has a daughter, and his VP is Mike Pence. Lastly, people either love him or hate him, which has only further divided our nation. He comes off at different times as a megalomaniac, a bully, and an idiot (though he may not be any of those things. Who knows?). He has no filter, he has Twitter, and he claims that everyone else is out to lie, steal, and cheat to make him look bad, which is ironic, because his ridiculous hair does that all on its own. And now on to the other guy.

I actually forget Joe Biden's name a lot. I want to call him Pence or Kerry or even McCain. Seriously, though that's not saying much. I'm horrible with names. But I also forget what he looks like. When I think about him, all I see is Jim Carrey. Oh! That must be why I tend to call him Kerry in my head. Silly me. Now… what about him? He's a lifetime politician, he's democrat, and he's really old. I know that much. And his running mate is a woman, I think. Seems like he's probably going to be our next president based on the Electoral College, but I couldn't tell you with confidence what that means. And that's about it. Honestly, I don't know anymore than that.

But why don't I know more? Am I dumb? Well… I don't think so. I received a master's degree over a decade ago (with honors, no less), and I like to think I've only grown smarter and wiser since then. I love learning new things—ideas, talents, how things work. But one of those things just isn't politics. So, the second reason I didn't vote is disinterest (I'm racking up quite a compelling argument, I know). I've written about how I don't have a passion for BLM even though I think it's a worthy cause. And I think the main reason is because it falls under the "politics" umbrella in my mind. Too many people with too many emotions and not enough listening. I just don't have the stomach for it. I would rather spend my one life changing the world one person at a time. I'd rather show love to my neighbor (as a Christian), fix someone's knee pain (as a physical therapist), and help other people get their ideas across clearer (as an editor). And, if I'm being honest, all of the doom saying just doesn't scare me. I'm a country boy at heart, and I have simple needs. My family is small, and I have a cabin in the woods. I was sad when Y2K didn't happen. I love individual people, but I'm not a big fan of society. In large groups, people are mean and naïve. And so, fear just doesn't enter into the equation for me. Life is so much bigger than what the marketing campaigns claim.

If you haven't caught on yet, I'm a bit of a skeptic. I don't know if I was born that way, but I became aware of it in college. I didn't particularly like my research classes, but I loved learning how to read scientific articles. Specifically, I love learning how to recognize BS (Biased Science, that is…). I have a knack for seeing through it in any situation. I can generally tell when people are lying, and even though I don't know everything, I do understand concepts, theories, and ideas better than the average person. And like Aristotle (and Plato), I'm keenly aware of my own ignorance as well as that of others. I see how people embrace sensationalized "fake news" and assume causality just because of correlation. Everyone does it. I do it. But I'm aware of it. I'm aware of social media algorithms, of herd mentality, of confirmation bias. And so, the third reason I didn't vote is because I assume everyone is either lying or buying into lies (lying and bullying are my two biggest pet peeves, by the way). And we've already established that I don't have the time or the energy (or the mental capacity) to learn the truth of every political topic and use those truths to set everyone straight. But hey, at least I'm honest…

Remember when I said earlier that fear didn't factor into the equation for me? Yeah, obviously that’s not true. I mean, sure, I'm not afraid of societal collapse or the end of the world. But I'm obviously afraid of being wrong. We've established that I don't know much about Trump or Kerr—er… Biden. That I'm ignorant about politics, in general. And we know that I'm a skeptic—that I have to come to my own conclusions. And most of the time that looks like stubbornness. I hate being told what to do. I hate being micromanaged. I hate the virus on my computer that sets Bing as my default search engine instead of Google. I hate the alarm on my wife's van that makes me wear my seat belt. And I hate the Facebook banners that keep telling me it's my duty to vote. I'm a grown boy. I can make those decisions all on my own. And I will not blindly trust a random source with dubious intentions to make those decisions for me. And, as much as I love my friends, I don't buy their claims that it's my duty to vote, either. Countless brave men and women did not die for my DUTY to vote. They died for my freedom to do so. Same as my freedom to be a Christian. Which means I'm also free to NOT vote.

But why wouldn't I WANT to vote? Because I'm afraid of whom I would have voted for. I'm aware of where I live and what my local culture thinks. In short, I voted for Trump last time, and I probably would have voted for him this time. And I couldn't stomach that thought (side note: I do have one regret, and that’s not voting local. I do know people personally who were running for office--as well as local bills--but I missed the opportunity to vote on things that I DO know about because of my fear of voting for the “wrong” president). It’s not that I doubted that Trump would do positive things while in office (even though, as I said, I'm not sure what he actually did the past four years…), but I'm just so tired of everybody acting insane. There's a reason I don't have cable. There's a reason I only get on social media to post pictures and check my notifications. And while I don't buy into all the sensationalism claiming the president has ultimate power, I do believe that he has a microphone. And a Twitter account. And even though our government is based on checks and balances, our media definitely isn't. If Biden is, in fact, our president for the next four years, my only hope is that he'll keep his mouth shut.

Okay, everyone's mad at me now. And that's okay. I put myself out there. I was honest about my ignorance, my bias, and my fear, which is more than I can say about most other people (presidents included). And maybe my honesty will compel others (you?) to reevaluate the "truths" they (you?) assume are self-evident. It's taken me four years, but I finally understand what "Make America Great Again" means. What would it take for our country to be great? Accountability. That's it. If every man, woman, and child did everything possible to give back to our country, we WOULD be great. If we worked hard to repair crumbling buildings, if we painted breathtaking murals, if we learned classical philosophy and used it shape our thoughts, if we refused to blame someone else for our unhappiness, if we did everything in our INDIVIDUAL power to contribute to the greater whole, if we truly loved our neighbors and gave them the shirt off of our back regardless of their political leanings… THAT would make us great. Right now, we're all so divided. We're all so afraid and easily manipulated. I've chosen to put my time and energy into things "smaller" than politics, but that doesn't mean I don't care about the future of my country. Quite the opposite, in fact. And hopefully, when I'm dead and gone, my tombstone won't read, "The guy who didn't vote in the 2020 presidential election."

#voting #politics #trump vs biden #biden #trump #go vote #2020 presidential race

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