You seem to be saying that it’s **not **that they support or voted for Trump. I don’t mean to pick on you, but I think this is a real thing. The anti-Trump side has, almost literally, never spoken with a Trump supporter. They can shout at them, they can tell each other how wrong they are, but they can’t hear them.
I think that’s not true and this thread is specifically about people dealing with Trump supporters. I am not friends with Trump supporters because I find their world view vile and their actions destructive to society, but I do know them. In my work in Afghanistan, I got to know members of the Taliban, but they weren’t my friends. Getting to know Trumpists and the Taliban is precisely why I don’t like them.
I live in a town full of them. I know them quite well. I hear them quite well. They have been judged, and found wanting. At this point there is no excuse for still supporting Trump other than they are just as bad as he is. I would rather shitcan my “friends” than my principles.
Orange County at least wised up and voted out all their scumbags Republican reps. I’m still stuck with the likes of Paul Cook, who makes Devin Nunes look smart.
Yep. They’ve lightened up a lot since I left L.A. I remember one morning on the 22, a guy in a Mustang was offended by my BUCK FUSH bumper sticker. He gesticulated wildly at me, and was shouting something I obviously couldn’t hear. I thought his head was going to explode. So I smiled and blew him a kiss.
I find posts like these very interesting. I haven’t spoken to my own father in two and a half years, largely because of his complete inability to do anything other than explode into a left-wing tirade the moment a single word on the most innocuous of subjects comes out of another person’s mouth. Right down to the idea that you can’t even mention the weather because he will immediately start angrily ranting about climate change. He’s incapable of having a normal conversation. No matter what you say, within 30 seconds he’s stamping his foot and shouting about how Congress is bought and paid for by corporate lobbyists who pull the strings to lower taxes on the rich so they can get even richer.
The typical SDMBer seems to think the typical Fox News viewer is like a child stuck in a perpetual tantrum over how brown-skinned transgenders are taking over America or something. But my father is like a child stuck in a perpetual tantrum over how the rich don’t pay more in taxes.
Also, since many of you think only right-wingers get their facts wrong, there have been many times my father–who is as devoted to MSNBC and Salon.com as your reviled relatives are to Fox News–has berated and harangued everyone within earshot about how the Republicans in Congress just voted for some horrific bill that will increase gun sales, or some Republican state government just decided to allow some private corporation to commit some environmental atrocity, or something like that. And I’ve said nothing because I have no absolute proof that he’s wrong, but have then gone home and furiously Googled every possible combination and permutation of words I could think of to find some news article referencing what he was talking about… and found absolutely nothing.
When I do talk to my father again, I know I will have to use k9bfriender’s tactic of simply standing up and walking away. He doesn’t respond to any insistence that we just not talk about politics. That lasts about 5 minutes.
I have to wonder how many of the liberals who complain about Fox-News-ranting relatives may be the same way, but not see it, because they don’t see their ranting as ranting, they see it as the rational expression of fact-based views. Admit it–when some of you read my above reference to my father “stamping his foot and shouting about how Congress is bought and paid for by corporate lobbyists who pull the strings to lower taxes on the rich so they can get even richer,” did you not think “well, what’s wrong with that? Congress is bought and paid for by corporate lobbyists who pull the strings to lower taxes on the rich so they can get even richer!”
Yeah, yeah, this is the same thing as the other post, just without the snark. So it has the same issue: we have to have spoken with them to know what we know about them. There are Trump supporters on this board, even.
But I also have to note the irony. You accuse us of not hearing them, but here you are, not hearing us. Rather than read what the posts say, you come up with your own assumptions about how we must be.
Nearly every post in this thread contradicts your assumption about us. Some even specifically address talking to the Trump supporters they are talking about.
And I do note the tactic of implying we’re wrong, without actually saying that any part is actually wrong. Not just no evidence, but no actual claim, either. You do not contradict a single poster in this thread.
The people I socialize with don’t talk politics, and if discussion about current events heads in that direction, we do our best to make sure it stays discreet.
There are some people on Facebook with me who are rabidly pro-Dumpster (one of them recently posted a picture of her newborn son in a “Trump 2020” onesie, and some people praised them for “starting him off right” - UGH) and I have unfriended a few people and likewise, they me for dissenting political views. WTH, it’s a free country. I am also currently cat-sitting for a FOAF who thinks he’s great. I like her, but I refuse to discuss politics with her.
I don’t mind if someone respects or supports him as POTUS, but the ones who totally worship the guy are another story.
To me it is the casual cruelty and lack of empathy. I hate having a conversation that basically goes;
Republican: “The world sucks and it sucks to be them.”
Me: “So we shouldn’t do anything to help our own people? We’re the richest, most powerful nation on Earth. People shouldn’t starve/lack healthcare here.”
Republican: “Nope, fuck them. I pay for my own shit, they can pay for theirs. Nobody deserves free stuff!”
Or the ever popular: “I can say whatever I want and you just have to get over it.” :rolleyes:
So who the fuck asked for your racist/sexist/insulting rant while we’re enjoying lunch/hanging out/working? You can just get the fuck over your problem with me not wanting to hear it. Because I don’t. And I get to say that. Every. Damned. Time. If that bothers you and makes you angry, then perhaps you should shut your fool mouth and stop saying those things in my company, snowflake.