Realizing this is hard for some to admit. They don’t want to admit lifelong friends and family ARE these people. But honestly, is there anything you can say to change their mind? Even if you make it personal about yourself? They still don’t have trouble stomping on you, their family and friend. 😭
Case by case. Meanwhile everyone else has to decide how much energy they want to spend on this, or if there are more productive and nourishing ways to spend their time & company.
Same idea with the way Republican politicians make these ridiculous ads with them shooting guns, as if that’s a political asset. But they wouldn’t do it, if it didn’t work, and that speaks volumes about the average American’s intellect
there’s an important and exploitable wedge here. they’re not being tricked into supporting racism or cruelty - they want those things. They are being, if not tricked, then at minimum manipulated into supporting a plutocratic agenda that will decimate their own wealth.
realistically you will never get bigots to vote for you so the best outcome is suppressing their votes. Liberals are understandably squeamish about this but you want those people feeling so angry and humiliated that they just drop out of the process entirely and stop voting.
If people who voted for Trump for bigot reasons believe that they were suckers, they won’t vote for democrats but they’ll just sit the next election out entirely, which is almost as good.
There needs to be a break with this whole Left and Right nonsense. It is a class war, and we ignore that at our peril. The problem is the Right is voting for billionaires because they are cruel and ignorant (uneducated, engaged in lies, can’t critically think; stupid).
They don't want to share a society with us, yet we've tolerated their genocide, land grabs, slavery, cage camps, picking off their hate targets all while hoping hate breeds out. Now we know it doesn't.
Yeah, I'm thinking of younger schoolboys who didn't go looking for Andrew Tate. Their friends or older male relatives brought Tate to them. But something has to be innate for it to click.
This is true of some of them, not others. Most just listen to what others listen to & assume it's true.
They believe what they hear--just like you believe your meme that "Disinfo doesn't work. It doesn't matter if we're immersed in lies. It's the fault of the conned ppl, not of the con artists."
This meme is highly convenient 4 con artists. Bc it means we can not solve this problem. U believe ppl are fully aware of what they're doing & of the consequences of their beliefs/votes. That they've consciously chosen this w full awareness, so why wd they change?
At some point, this country is going to have to reckon with the fact that a lot of white people *like* listening to racist, misogynistic dickheads telling them what they want to hear. Like, the problem is not really the racist, misogynistic dickhead. The problem is THEIR AUDIENCE.
No. This is wrong. How we interact with things can and cannot shape our worldview based on a multitude of factors, just as our own personal filters vary wildly based on the context. The idea that "Y listens because Z" is almost never a universal truth. It's speculation based on pop sociology.
People should really start by taking responsibility for their choices.
The white community passes on racism, like it’s generational wealth. Start with accepting that truth. Listening to other racists is a choice. Addressing racism & racists is what will make a change. Or just carry on😑
We currently have massive inequality and whole industries dedicated to showing-off wealth accumulated through anything but hard work - and the many forms that takes probably provides fertile ground for resentment, which is then redirected at scapegoats. That's the biggest issue.
The biggest issue is racism & wilful ignorance.
The white community must do the work or simply continue to flame out.
The Black Community cannot do the work for them.
So honesty & changed behaviour, etc!
... "They just are" is a form of defeatism designed to provide a reason for not engaging, not fixing, not showing compassion or understanding, for being tough, for eventually hating, and hating causes prejudice. I give into that, sometimes, but that's because it's easy. Because it's copium.
Literally, the Black Community at this point doesn’t need to continue engaging with the white community who means us harm.
Changed behaviour is a starting point, without that, what is the point?
A lack of engagement means a lack of changing minds. You're arguing for the status quo. Understanding why something happens means you can counter it. And it's tiring, stressful, difficult work. I understand your reluctance, but if we don't talk, as we are doing, nothing gets better.
I’m not arguing anything.
I’m stating facts, it is not the job of Black ppl to end racism. It is the job of the white community. If Black ppl could have ended racism, it wld have been done.
Your community is responsible.
I’m not sure why there’s a disconnect in accepting the truth 🤷🏽♀️
... were raised by conservative, Christian parents, and you start to see so many reasons that contributed to them carrying hatred within their hearts. It's understand every single step of their road to becoming bigoted that provides the roadmap to counter their hate. Not, "they just are"...
I don't disagree. I think black people have been historically disadvantaged through to outright extermination. I think it's similar for us queer and trans folks. But there were reasons why that happened, and justifications, and they are as important, if not more so, to building a better tomorrow.
... tell me that "cis people are not allies, we're on our own". It's too sweeping a statement, too general, to possibly be true. Then, you start to look at the people who hate us and they have a trans kid and are toxically masculine, or were abused by cis men, or grew up in poverty, or...
What I’ve seen & heard over time is that, until certain individuals are affected by a certain situation they aren’t empathetic towards others. & even when it involves someone they love, their compassion is only for that person.
I completely agree. But I'd like to know why that is. My parents are like that and disowned me when I came out. The thing that bothers me most isn't that they did it, but why, and what lessons we can learn from that. That's key to building a better future.
... are a multitude of things, some legitimate, some not, some environmental, some personal, some political, etc. which create the conditions for prejudice to fester and grow. Simply saying, "white communities are racist" is, again, far too simplistic. It's like when other trans people...
The white community is simply racist.
For this not to be true, that community has to admit the truth & move forward from there.
& if you or anyone in that Community needs me to say “not all”, that’s ridiculous & not happening. If you can honestly say not you, great.
I'm not going to defend myself because I don't see a reason why I need to. I think it's self-evident that not all white people are racist, but also that some of the people determined to be the least racist can be the most damaging. I'm saying it's a lot more complex than absolutist statements.
People shouldn't be racist. But why they are is often down to fears and insecurities that turn into anger and an inability to accept responsibility for their own situation, and that becomes a prolonged situation due to their lives which metastasises into hatred. And, each step along that path...
White people shouldn’t be racist.
White ppl shouldn’t use racism to harm & subjugate Black ppl.
White ppl should look within, but that isn’t going to happen. If racism wasn’t giving that group what they want, they wld stop.
Fear of Black ppl who haven’t done harm to them is absurd. Continue
White people, as a group, are as diverse as any other group, and aren't racist as a group. That kind of thinking helps no-one. There are a lot of white racists, don't get me wrong, but that kind of zero sum thinking is conservatism's greatest trick.
I’ll say this one more time, for racism to die, the white community has to end it.
The white community, & only the white community benefit from racism.
That’s all.
My being afraid has never made me harm others, to the point of hanging Black kids, women & men. Not has it caused me to burn a cross in anyone’s garden.
Nor make laws to continue enslaving the Black community, & every other indignity levied against us/them.
My MAGA sister has a black daughter and says there is no racism in this country. I watched her white son (age 30-plus) vehemently insist that the Little Mermaid IS white in front of his black sister. I'm confused by these people.
Here’s the thing, anti-Black propaganda is aimed at all of us, not just white ppl. Many Black ppl grow up hating themselves. It is by design. I am not surprised at all by your family.
All of my brothers, uncles, cousins and fit that bill which is why I dont speak to them or have anything to do with them. I do not feel one ounce of remorse about it!
I have been surprised by a few of the people I know who joined MAGA, but for the vast majority of them I knew well before November of 2016 that it was only a matter of time before they'd find their new prophet in Trump and their new religion in MAGA
This is one of those things I always sort of knew as someone who grew up in a white, rural churchgoing family. Church is the best place to hear the most horrible things about people. My family proudly supports everything that's happening no matter how I tried to stop it. They WANTED this. Scum.
Yes. But I'll just add if there's "trickery" involved, it's that many in the racist audience don't want to be seen as racist. So Rogan, et al, show them models for plausible deniability.
Among other things, the erasure of the fact The March on Washington for Jobs & Freedom was about demanding a Job Guarantee means even well meaning liberal folks don’t understand why liberals turned away from MLK.
Yep. I recall being 12, hanging out at the patio of the private golf club after working the tournament as a spotter. The private pool next door was playing rap music, and hooo boy did the middle-aged white golfers have a lot of terrible shit to say about it.
Yeah, it's hardly new. As a kid to evangelicals in the 90s, I grew up with Rush Limbaugh on spewing his bile pretty much every day. There's always been a big market for that shit.
This! Reagan took everything from them, gave to the rich, offered to tickle some back. They loved him as much as the hated Biden (who did the opposite and actually tried to improve their lives), why? because Raygun allowed them to say fat black welfare queen on Welfare all they wanted.
Hell W's daddy who the media is always trying to tell us was a good decent man terrorized black people with the Willie Horton ad. A lot of these young ones don't know what it was like. Lee Atwater look him up young ones and look up the Republican Presidents who employed the bitch.
I’ve thought about this a lot lately. I used to mad at the messenger - but they are just delivering what those people WANT and that is deeply disturbing.
This was the thing that broke me the last election, that this is who we are - still - even after all these years. This is why there’s the whole “92% are resting” discourse.
The worst lynchings in the included extended humiliation, torture, and multilation before the actual murder. The witnessing crowds often numbered in the thousands, even more than 10k. Some would collect body parts as "souvenirs."
Some of the witnesses were in the age range of my grandparents.
Yup people keep saying we just have to talk to them, educate them, ect. Okay but most of them don't want to? Most of em revel in the bigotry. Thinking that if start speaking about it as a class issue only they can win em over. You can't. They like being the boot.
I don't think it helps that we have opinions and lies masquerading as news and they can get away with literally making things up. Many people believe Fox news IS news. It says news. It's on TV. So it must be based in reality, right?
People forget Reagan Democrats, many of them were what? Remember the Shock Jocks in the late 80s into the 90s took over AM radio? Remember when a certain cable news network was established? It is this part of the public who Elie refers to. They are main reason why we cannot have nice things.
Yet all we hear is, “It’s the economy stupid!” Sure addressing economic inequality will help, but we’ve had an underlying issue of white supremacy/racism in this country since its founding. Avoiding the topic certainly hasn’t helped it disappear, so naming&addressing it seems necessary to me
I disagree. It’s because they enjoy being told they don’t need to *deserve* power through personal qualities or achievements, they are simply entitled to it, and anyone who does demonstrate personal qualities or achievements, *deserves* to be derided and obliterated.
My mom would listen to Rush Limbaugh on the radio. Daily I think. And became fairly agitated about *those* people. Until she became too forgetful to remember to listen. Her longtime boarder said she then became much happier. The daily fix of right-wing propaganda is just that. A daily fix.
Don’t divide us. I’m a white woman and hate hate hate Trump /administration. I don’t understand who could ever even think about voting for him for anything.
They went looking for someone to tell them what they wanted to hear: that their noxious, vile views are not only acceptable, but the ONLY reasonable option.
Yes
Trump = borderline insane senile douchebag with a small talent for demagogery and always has been.
in a sane country he'd be shouting on a street-corner in rags, or running a shitty cult.
that he has captured these minds of millions and an entire party is on THEM
seeds only grow in fertile soil
The US seems to be full of very angry, spiteful people who love to hate on liberals. And yes, many are probably very bigoted as well. Maybe I am just bitter after being flipped off and yelled at for hours today while protesting in a "blue state," I don't know.
The most sobering experience I went to was Yad Vashem holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. It showed Nazi propaganda used to demonise and dehumanise Jewish people. Also radio hate propaganda was used in Rwanda. Words and speeches are powerful hate tools.
They don’t just hate on liberals. They hate on immigrants, non-white people, transgender and nonbinary people, gay people and women. Their bile knows no limits.
True, but the strange thing is that some of these Maga folks are women, people of color, and gay. I think what unites them all together is hating on liberals and leftists. At least that is my working theory.
Threating 2016 as a fluke was somewhat defensible. But a second non-consecutive term is solid evidence the electorate is not so progressive as Democratic strategists assume.
Or, hear me out, Fox News has been a steady diet of lies, and because they only have a grade 4 education, these poor idiots can’t detect lies. I mean, $700 million judgement because they aren’t news? And these morons didn’t get that memo. Cutting Education is not in your best interest.
it bears discussing how they got that way, instead of just assuming a third of the population is born with the racist gene and there's nothing to be done about it. racism is inculcated by culture but also by a mediasphere (owned by billionaires) which has normalized it.
Truth. I hate that for a time I was racist shaped by the culture I grew up in. My family helped me by living a better way. Years later I found pictures of my dad, 12, in blackface, for the Boy Scout minstrel show, as told by my grandma on the back of them. Wish I could ask about what changed them.
Yes, revealed, not converted. As I heard Elie say on TV one time, “Just like Dumbo in the movie, they didn’t have to learn to fly, these folks always had it in them.”
Elie is correct. This is how they see the world and they are seeking confirmation bias from social media influencers. It reminds me of how widely Rush Limbaugh took off when he first came out.
It was very unusual for someone that blatantly racist to have so much air time. I remember at the onset of his radio show, people would make sure their car windows were shut when they listened to him. It was shameful to listen to him “publicly.”
And the refusal of Dems to defend Clinton's "basket of deplorables" statement -- and to make it clear that she did not say ALL Trump voters -- is part of why we're here today. Dem leaders normalize the tolerance of racism by refusing to speak up when they see it.
In the US many foreign born doctors staff rural hospitals and towns. Cutting Medicaid will decimate the financial support of those hospitals and all nursing homes ( 2/3 of nh pts are on Medicaid).
Loss of the hospital, those jobs and health services will kill many small towns.
In all the post-mortems on the 2024 election, I've seen next to nothing on Trump's base and their racism. They never got over Obama's election. So, he had that base that would vote for him no matter what. Then he could create a coaliton with 2nd amendment nuts, vaccine kooks and Musk's $288 million.
"A wealth of research shows that voters don’t come to their policy preferences organically - they follow the cues of political figures they identify with."
I'm still blaming right wing media and politicians for this.
Can't we just get to the point where we accept it's both the audience and the instigators? It's not one or the other. This is a feedback loop, both the bigoted public and bigoted podcasters feed each other
I've been saying for a decade that Trump is just a symptom. Nobody wants to hear that. I think our culture has been poisoned by the cinematic "Eliminate the Big Bad, solve the problem" convention.
It hit home for me this election. He won the popular vote, and the swing states weren’t particularly close. This can’t be chalked up to the Electoral College or Comey or Russia or flaws in Hillary’s candidacy. This is just what America is. This is who we are.
build as broad a coalition as possible of literally everyone else. let these dudes figure it out for themselves when the leopard finally comes for their faces. accept no strings, sincere apologies & offers of help. anything short of that, cut them loose & pass the steak sauce.
Agree; just like nobody innocently wanders into child porn or pedophila like the “trump derangement” GOP legislator in MN just did. Note the significant overlap between these racist Fox News types and the child porn/pedophile types. The overlap on the Venn diagram is huge
For me, the MAGA cult has always been about permission giving. The audience has these beliefs, but they know they’re wrong and inappropriate. They were waiting for someone horrible like Trump to come along and give them permission to let the worst parts of themselves live out in the open.
I keep saying this. My mom is not politically sophisticated, you might fool her for a little while with carefully chosen rhetoric, but the minute you hit "and that's why trans people should be driven out," she'd be like EXCUSE ME THAT IS UN-CHRISTIAN NO THANK YOU. Ugly speaks to ugly.
Yeah. This is why I internally scream every time I see someone say that the billionaires/oligarchs are "the" problem. They aren't *not* the problem... but there aren't just one or five or ten or 200 evil garbage fires in this country; there are tens of millions of them.
Comments
it’s a journey.
just remember you don’t deserve to be treated like shit for anyone else’s comfort. You, too, can be Just Like That.
these are enablers in this system.
“No, actually I don’t. Love you but I have zero tolerance for UF from here on out.”
their move.
this is what they were looking for
They don't want to share a society with us, yet we've tolerated their genocide, land grabs, slavery, cage camps, picking off their hate targets all while hoping hate breeds out. Now we know it doesn't.
There's no repair for this but separating.
They believe what they hear--just like you believe your meme that "Disinfo doesn't work. It doesn't matter if we're immersed in lies. It's the fault of the conned ppl, not of the con artists."
https://upine.medium.com/disinformation-about-disinformation-most-people-dont-want-to-believe-propaganda-works-3980264a6093
At some point, this country is going to have to reckon with the fact that a lot of white people *like* listening to racist, misogynistic dickheads telling them what they want to hear. Like, the problem is not really the racist, misogynistic dickhead. The problem is THEIR AUDIENCE.
1/x
Everybody wants to pretend that people who listen to Trump, Rogan, Tucker, whoever, are being *captured* or *tricked* in some way.
THEY ARE NOT. Your uncles and cousins and friends who listen to this stuff WENT LOOKING FOR THIS FILTH, because they already agree with it.
2/2
The white community passes on racism, like it’s generational wealth. Start with accepting that truth. Listening to other racists is a choice. Addressing racism & racists is what will make a change. Or just carry on😑
The white community must do the work or simply continue to flame out.
The Black Community cannot do the work for them.
So honesty & changed behaviour, etc!
Changed behaviour is a starting point, without that, what is the point?
I’m stating facts, it is not the job of Black ppl to end racism. It is the job of the white community. If Black ppl could have ended racism, it wld have been done.
Your community is responsible.
I’m not sure why there’s a disconnect in accepting the truth 🤷🏽♀️
Could it be because they don’t see Black ppl as human beings, & they were deprived of free labour/slavery?
Start there.
Until the white community is honest, the excuses is just simply that excuses.
For this not to be true, that community has to admit the truth & move forward from there.
& if you or anyone in that Community needs me to say “not all”, that’s ridiculous & not happening. If you can honestly say not you, great.
White ppl shouldn’t use racism to harm & subjugate Black ppl.
White ppl should look within, but that isn’t going to happen. If racism wasn’t giving that group what they want, they wld stop.
Fear of Black ppl who haven’t done harm to them is absurd. Continue
The white community, & only the white community benefit from racism.
That’s all.
Nor make laws to continue enslaving the Black community, & every other indignity levied against us/them.
Worse, Dad and Aunt Sue were so happy to be open racists that they turned on you when you called them out for it.
Racists chosing racism over family is too much for them to accept.
Just saying that neoliberalism creates & enforces that it many ways
From using the myth of “tax payer money” to ignoring the fact that law creates private property, a labor market, banks, corporations, etc
She voted to fire herself 🤷🏻♀️
It’s truly bizarre.
While I think I have some small understanding of how this happened, at this point it’s simple insanity
But she’s really white, Black & Thai
But my family used to be quite progressive given the times (I’m 63)
And especially my mother became very progressive
Then she slowly got brainwashed
Who, over time, became MAGA.
While I agree with what he says to a huge degree, it doesn’t explain everyone all of the time
And I think it’s very important for us to try to understand this
Among other things, the erasure of the fact The March on Washington for Jobs & Freedom was about demanding a Job Guarantee means even well meaning liberal folks don’t understand why liberals turned away from MLK.
Which they did in droves
That’s why MLK said the white liberal is worse than the KKK.
Because the white liberal pretends to be an Allie whereas the KKK doesn’t
Anyway, divorcing identity politics from economics is neoliberalism
And plays a huge part in the rise of Trump
And I've spent my whole life being told to "calm down" "you're overreacting" "stop, it's just jokes" when I say this is who they've always been.
(My ex spouse avoided his shit family for clear reasons.)
Some of the witnesses were in the age range of my grandparents.
When The Civil Rights Movement demanded an Economic Bill of Rights that included a Job Guarantee, liberals turned against MLK, etc
It makes it look like whites pay for POC, men pay for women & billionaires pay for the poor
When really our government creates our currency
Trump = borderline insane senile douchebag with a small talent for demagogery and always has been.
in a sane country he'd be shouting on a street-corner in rags, or running a shitty cult.
that he has captured these minds of millions and an entire party is on THEM
seeds only grow in fertile soil
BTW: he has a book out next week —
And the refusal of Dems to defend Clinton's "basket of deplorables" statement -- and to make it clear that she did not say ALL Trump voters -- is part of why we're here today. Dem leaders normalize the tolerance of racism by refusing to speak up when they see it.
Loss of the hospital, those jobs and health services will kill many small towns.
Leopards.
"A wealth of research shows that voters don’t come to their policy preferences organically - they follow the cues of political figures they identify with."
I'm still blaming right wing media and politicians for this.