Yes
Yes
Yes
You’re missing the point. See post 69 above for a good summary.
Someone is wrong [del]on the Internet[/del] at a family gathering.
Regards,
Shodan
I wouldn’t defend Hillary if she acted like Trump. That is a major difference between us. You act like those of us on the left act like many on the right do, just defend our side right or wrong. A lot of us won’t do that.
We asked weiner, Franken, etc to step down. We don’t claim they are victims of a conspiracy or yell fake news. We enforce some decency.
And yes, if Bill and Hillary are involved in any sex crime cover ups (Juanita Broderick, etc) then by all means investigate.
Yes. They are not supporting racism or sexual assault. Or fraud. Or theft. Tax evasion, betraying one’s country, …
So, yes. After two years, do you still not get that this is not a matter of whose ‘side’ won, or even the best polices to achieve social good, but a fundamental difference in values?
Trumps does not say what everyone really thinks; he says things that horrify and disgust many people. He’s not a good person.
Yeah, when we’re talking about interacting with Trump supporters, we’re not talking about interacting with boorish people, we’re talking about interacting with bad people.
Do you really intend to forget about 40% of americans?
I’m not saying i support the orange man, but he is the elected leader of the country, and he does have a support base of something over 100 million americans.
Ignoring this fact is how he got elected in the first place!
My tactic is to sing “God Bless America” and gesture for everyone to join me. With a good stock of patriotic songs, you can get through most of the reunion, and you make the point that progressives are patriots. Maybe skip the National Anthem if you’re trying to avoid conflict, though.
Speaking of Rush, he is the one who is the most responsible (in my opinion) for why I absolutely loathe political talk radio, especially as it’s aired on 106.3 WORD in my area; that is the worst station I have ever listened to lately!
It isn’t just Rush who has driven me crazy (I haven’t listened to him in quite a while, though); it was 106.3’s morning people as well, especially the late Russ Cassell. Not to speak ill of the dead, but to me, he seemed to be so dadgum far to the right it wasn’t even funny! AAMOF, both seemed to express their opinions in my face in a sort of preaching, combative tone, meaning that if I did not agree with and hang on every word they said, I was to be considered worse than unAmerican (and this is the very same thing, IINM, that they accuse liberals of doing).
Fortunately, I have a cellphone now, and I can bring up AM stations from elsewhere that are actual news reporting (like WCBS of NYC, KYW of Philly, et al.), and even some sports stations as well (all in crystal-clear quality through the Radio.com app). Also, WCBS is one of the stations I recall listening to with my father late at night while I was out on the road trucking with him for Wal-Mart.
Long story short, like I said, while I am fortunate enough not to have had to listen to him lately, Rush has done the most damage in polarizing me against political talk radio, and why I still believe that sports radio, or even actual news radio (meaning actual reporting, like WCBS and KYW, not talk stations that claim the name of NewsRadio, like 106.3 WORD did for a while), are my favorite kinds of stations now.
Please keep in mind this is a very privileged position to be in. If you’re largely cis, straight, or racially homogeneous it’s very easy to take a “live and let live” position to politics, where you have the luxury of remaining a little detached. Even if the economy is going, you’re largely in a position where nobody is actively really coming after you, specifically. It’s easy to view it as a game and thus, if the game is causes hard feelings at a gathering, why play it?
If you’re gay, if you’re trans, if you’re bringing your spouse of a different race to the gathering, if you’re married to an immigrant, if you’ve suffered at the failings of the legal system, whatever. There are a lot of areas where politics is very real, tangible, and in your face, and support for a certain politician and their policies is very much an attack on your livelihood in a direct way. Even if your family doesn’t intend it as such, backing a politician who hates, say, gay rights, is at best an admission they care more about their tax policies (or whatever) than you and your rights.
Now, I’m not saying the OP is in this position, in fact, most of this thread reads like people who do have the luxury of playing this like a game. Most of the posters are coming from a place of moral virtue rather than personal stakes, and honestly most of them could probably bite their tongues and have a fine if somewhat grating time. But “politics” isn’t just some fake thing you can throw away for the sake of getting along when it affects you in a very direct, tangible way the way it does social minorities.
Then 40% of America is fucking evil.
You want my opinion on liberal behavior?
Quite frankly if I was to slam a democrat they will quickly start calling me names like racist or sexist. Yeah, admit it. Anyone who had a problem with Obama was a “racist” and everyone who hated Hillary was “sexist”. It happened way too many times.
Maybe you are a “good” liberal but their are too damn many on the left who are not.
Or, maybe I am lumping together people on the left as much as some of you lump together all the people on the right?
Sounds like we could use more dialogue.
I don’t think that’s a fair characterization of my post. I think Trump is an objectively bad person. I think many in the Republican leadership are objectively bad people, too. I don’t think all Republicans are bad people; I don’t even think everyone who voted for Trump is a bad person.
I do think anyone who voted for Trump was either a horrible person or shamefully ignorant.
If you’d just stop whining about how mean and intolerant Lefties are, that might be possible.
Fair enough, it may not be a fair characterization of your post, but it is my opinion. I think bad people do and think bad things and supporting Trump is not something decent people do. I think that for too long, we have been giving the worst elements of our society a free pass in the name of getting along. We’ve been letting our crazy uncle get away with his crap at Thanksgiving dinner and now the country is run by the crazy uncles. I think that the more we make their behavior unacceptable and isolating, the better we’ll be.
This says it perfectly. There are real consequences for a lot of people, Trump supporters are doing real harm and causing real suffering in the world.
Oops, sorry. I misunderstood.
No worries, I wasn’t clear. I was just expanding on what you wrote. My wife has an uncle (married to her dad’s sister) who is an asshole. He’s racist and kind of creepy; inappropriate jokes at other people’s expense and hugs that go on too long with women in the family. Last Christmas he was over and people were talking about him before he came over and the family refrain has always been, “he’s not that bad.” But this Christmas, a bunch of us decided that you know what, he is that bad and we just started calling bullshit on his racism and sexism right to his face. At one point he turned to me and said “why is everyone calling me racist?” and I said, 'because you are and we’re all tired of it." It was liberating, Christmas got crazy awkward, but it’s been better since then. Instead of all the decent people dreading his arrival and biting their tongues, he’s the one on the defensive: for a change the bad person is the one made to feel bad and forced to watch what he says. We’re well past the time when we can just ignore people who are racist, sexist and destroying the environment.
Well, when I hear someone tell me they hated Obama because he was illegitimate Kenyan Muslim - and then they vote for the author of that fiction - it is hard to draw any other conclusion.
Of al the reasons I’ve heard someone give for disliking Hillary or Obama, the vast majority have been purely fictitious.
Does anyone else have one of those young college student relatives who has really drunk the radical leftist koolaid and now things everyone older than them is part of the evil patriarchal structure?
That’s been happening for generations. They usually are harmless and grow out of it. They’re not as bad as people supporting Trump. Supporting Trump is immoral.