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R Mercer's avatar

(Apologies) It ISN'T what it wants to be, but it is getting there, step by step, inch by inch.

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Tim Coffey's avatar

How much worse do you think it can get?

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Bridget Collins's avatar

Never challenge them.

Every time I think they can't do something worse, they work overtime to prove me wrong.

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Robert Jaffee's avatar

Just imagine we were all sucked into a giant black hole; thatтАЩs the best we can hope for, so it can get even worse than that!...:)

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R Mercer's avatar

Death is lighter than a feather, duty is heavier than a mountain.

Isn't it interesting how doing the right thing almost always seems harder and more expensive than doing the wrong thing? Says something about humanity, I think--such great aspirations brought low by our nature.

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Robert Jaffee's avatar

Well said...:)

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R Mercer's avatar

There is no bottom. That isn't just a meme, it is the reality. There is ultimately nothing that these people will not do if they think they can get away with it. All the shit they have projected onto the Democrats all these years... including the murders? Ya, they are up for that.

And it is all okay because it is:

In the service of God; or

Defending Western Civilization;

For Law and Order (laugh, I thought I'd die);

For the Children;

Making America Great Again.

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John Kendrick's avatar

In the service of "Mango Jesus".

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Lucy's avatar

You are talking about MAGA. There are plenty of Republicans and liberal (not progressive) Democrats, as well as former Republicans and Democrats, who are attempting to defend the values of Western civilization undermined by both parties.

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Jed Rothwell's avatar

You wrote: ". . . defend the values of Western civilization undermined by both parties." Well, both parties except for the Democrats. Perhaps you meant the Republicans and the Libertarians.

Anyway, the Democrats are not undermining anything. I doubt they are capable of it. It would take concerted action and organization, and as Will Rogers said: "I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat."

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Jeff the Original's avatar

Unfortunately from what I see on FoxNews there are a lot of R's that deserve the following slogan: "I'm not MAGA...I just hang out with them"

Most of them simply will not call out their "brethren" no matter how disgusting, crazy or factually wrong their post is. They are convinced that the Dems are far more the real problem with the US.

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Lucy's avatar

For what it's worth, I registered Independent after voting Republican for many years. I talk about the dangers of Trump and, of course, have been accused of TDS and dismissed many times. You are correct - we need intellectual honesty, but we need it on both sides. If reasonable Dems aren't willing to call out repressive environments on college campuses, the ridiculousness of "defund the police" movement and the curbing of parental rights with respect to their children's gender identity issues, they can't come down hard on GOP not pushing back on MAGA.

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KAY MCELRATH's avatar

There are plenty of Democrats who do voice support for exactly those positions but the media is only interested in controversy so defending moderate positions gets very little attention.

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Jeff the Original's avatar

100% agree, but the problem on the GOP side is a Code Blue at the moment and the Dems aren't anywhere near that these days.

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R Mercer's avatar

And there are a lot of people who are not MAGA who will still vote for this crap because.... R is beside someone's name. People who aren't willing to do anything themselves and MIGHT be against something... but not enough to be against it (openly) until it is too late because it is already happening or happened--or are willing to selectively believe the BS because of some one thing in there that they like.

Sure I voted for the face-eating leopard--I didn't believe he would actually eat MY face and I wanted a tax cut.

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David Court's avatar

Then let's Make America Trumpless Again, MATA v MAGA.

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Tim Coffey's avatar

You know what kills me? Whenever these people talk about defending Western Civilization, I laugh out loud because in reality, they reject all the advances that "Western Civilization" has made. They don't believe in science. They don't believe in individual liberty. What they do want is to go back to an era before the Enlightenment and implement some form of throne-and-altar style of government.

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pfuhlir's avatar

Re the Enlightenment, see my satire that I wrote a couple of years ago:

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/3/23/2022464/-The-Enlightenment-Was-a-Hoax-Satire

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Tim Coffey's avatar

Is it really satire, though? :)

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pfuhlir's avatar

All satires rely on real-world acts, but I agree it's not very funny.

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R Mercer's avatar

There is no real requirement for satire to be "funny."

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pfuhlir's avatar

True. It's more social or political commentary. Funny is a bonus.

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Tim Coffey's avatar

It's darkly funny.

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Mingo's avatar

Oh goody! I can't wait to get back to the middle ages. No vaccines, no dentists, no education.

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MillennialExistential's avatar

Also, socialism is 100% "Western" in origin. Funny how they never acknowledge that.

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R Mercer's avatar

Well, it would help if many of them actually knew what socialism was... because it is pretty apparent that they don't. If you do not know what something is, it isn't surprising if you do not know where it came from.

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R Mercer's avatar

As long as they are sitting on the throne and control the altar.

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Dan-o's avatar

That is exactly the key. This whole thing, or whatever you want to call it, is because they see their electoral power as unable to completely regain the throne lawfully. They do not want to share power. They do not want to compromise with democrats. It seems to me that most of them want to live in a white suburb in the late 1950's.

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Tim Coffey's avatar

Exactly. These people have a disordered relationship with authority. They reject it, yet crave it at the same time.

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R Mercer's avatar

I do not know that I would characterize it as "disordered." It is actually kind of normal.

People do not like being placed UNDER authority. People hate being under authority that they do not agree with. People LOVE being in authority.

An interesting read in connection to this issue:

https://www.amazon.com/American-Nations-History-Regional-Cultures-ebook/dp/B0052RDIZA/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1PMMJ1GPK1XJM&keywords=american+nations&qid=1693407658&sprefix=american+nations%2Caps%2C142&sr=8-1

One of the things lying behind this relationship with authority (or lack of one) is what is often referred to as "borderer" culture. People that live on the edges of empires or between competing empires or in frontier zones that are not fully under control.

Many of the settlers of certain areas of this country came from such backgrounds.

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JF's avatar

There is no bottom, I agree.

When I participated in my own experiment, befriending a MAGA, I did a thought experiment about one year in. Could I imagine her hurting me physically? It chilled me to realize I could easily imagine it.

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Jeff the Original's avatar

There are some truly brainwashed souls out there. Their response to a world-wide pandemic was mind boggling and I never in a million years would think a modern society would behave so cravenly in response.

I was an eye witness to the MAGA response on FoxNews. Honestly...it seemed like the pandemic ended up being the catalyst for the final plunge into misinformation on steroids.

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JF's avatar

I just finished an article by Peter Sagal about the cult of Trumpism. He verifies that it checks all the boxes of being a тАЬcultтАЩ. His opinion is that it wonтАЩt break until death intervenes - not TrumpтАЩs death, but the death of those brainwashed souls. Luckily he also included data that MAGAs trend toward the elderly demographic. Tick tock. IтАЩm old too, so I wonder if IтАЩll make it to witness a recovery.

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Jeff the Original's avatar

Yes...it's like the baby boomers ended up being a prime target for this propaganda. I'm a tail ender baby boomer and am extremely disappointed with many of my peers.

In my opinion...some of it is simply laziness. It's just easy to let the Fox hosts do all of the thinking for you...providing your talking points about those evil Dems.

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JF's avatar

Yeah, so much for тАЬflower powerтАЭ and the Summer of Love. It would be interesting to know if thereтАЩs any crossover from people who identified as hippies, and Fox News viewers. Probably not.

I wish there was some way to give Fox viewers a chill pill. Or some weed. Could it be possible theyтАЩre already partaking?

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Peggy Bussell's avatar

This is terrifying.

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JF's avatar

ItтАЩs definitely an outlier, and somewhat illogical, when my self-generated thought experiments surprise me.

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