Thank you, I’ll removed those. I did remember to undo the Detail Spoiler tags.
Thank you.
And yes, the OP is acting like an idiot. Or as a RW shill. Might be sincere, but if so is most sincerely absolutely positively full of shit.
The orange idiot is going to get people hurt.
That’s my fear.
Apparently they had bomb threats in Springfield yesterday. Simply because Dumb and Dumber (Trump&Vance) took a notion to gin people up.
I think Trump likes this. This technique makes people and the news talk about him.
Ya know, Even bad publicity is publicity.
I think the whole idea that things are in some kind of state of moral and social decay is just people remembering or worse, fantasizing about some “ideal” past era that never existed.
I mean, these people go and propose the 1950s and 1960s as the ideal, as if it was all white picket fences, jobs for everyone, crew cuts, clean shaves, poodle skirts and all that stuff. It wasn’t- there were slums, unemployment, long hair, beards, orgies, drugs, gay people, etc… They just weren’t actually visible back then like they are now.
Nothing really changes- it’s just that between the 24 hour news cycle and the internet, any weird goings-on are instantly visible worldwide in a matter of hours, if not minutes. So if you’re some sort of old goat living somewhere placid, you’re going to assume that things are going to hell in a handbasket because all you hear about on the news and web is crazy and awful stuff. Which is true, but 99% of that crazy and awful stuff would have stayed local or even never made the news in decades past.
The corollary to that is that politicians and other people with axes to grind can use that phenomenon to their advantage by conflating things (lots of Haitian immigrants in Springfield, OH, old racist trope about Asians eating pets and park ducks), and spinning it to their own advantage.
Isn’t that the literal definition of conservative?
I live 20 to 25 minutes from Springfield and go there at least once a week for shopping and whatnot. The goose-eating/cat-eating stories are ridiculous.
I’ve seen them at Walmart on Bechtle Ave. in Springfield over the past few years. They seem nice and respectful. I genuinely feel bad for them due to these false accusations.
Back in MY day, we had better stupid rumors like all the Satanic Panic stuff.
Not this “eating pets” nonsense the kids are spreading now.
Wasn’t there something about some sinister Others eating babies back then too? Or ritually sacrificing them?
My memory is vague but probably real.
Cutting back from babies to pets might be a kind of shrinkflation.
It’s not kids spreading it. It’s a major candidate for our highest office.
No… the classical definition was more or less that they are saying “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it”, and being generally skeptical of change, especially change for change’s sake.
But in recent decades, it’s taken on more of a social identity, rather than just a political alignment. I mean, when I was a kid, being a Republican or Democrat didn’t actually have a social identity and associated package of assumptions and expectations accompanying it. Nowadays, it seems to go without saying that if you’re a Republican/Democrat, that not only are you politically aligned with the parties, you’ve also got a whole market basket of social attitudes, popular entertainments, etc… that are also aligned with that view. And vice-versa, for what that’s worth.
This whole “Things were better in the past” reactionary nonsense is part of that in the Tea Party/MAGA market basket, if you ask me.
Trump doesn’t dream this shit up; it’s the people he’s surrounded himself with. They’re the worst of the haters and shit stirrers on the internet and no lie or libel is beneath them. Trump is their puppet and parrot. He’s a weak man who is easily manipulated and Og help us if he and these people end up in the White House again.
Never knew there would a sub topic that would be generated by my reply.
@Cool, make sure you avoid really stupid hijacks like this again please. What a pain in the neck. Stay on topic in Politics & Elections and Great Debates.
Moderating
Personally, the times I get concerned about a decay in our society’s moral fabric is when I see rich assholes driving down the highway with severed whale heads strapped to their cars. It gives big Late Versailles vibes, and it actually happens.
I have it on good authority that thousands of people in Springfield regularly take to the woods with arms in search of fresh meat. Disgusting, if you ask me.
We still have Satanic Panic. My mother called me a couple of months back because apparently the Satanists were running around Greater Boston grabbing up people for and she wanted me, an more importantly, my godless daughter, to be careful.
I read this three times before it clicked that you weren’t talking about seeing geese and cats hanging out at Walmart 
Vance is currently tweeting that the immigrants have turned Springfield into a wasted hellscape of crime, disease, homelessness and high auto insurance rates. San Francisco of the Midwest!
Naturally, he’s blaming this all on Kamala Harris because she’s the Vice President (in charge of wrecking small Ohio towns, as the constitution mandates as a VP duty) and he’s just… a senator from Ohio.
It’s a shame this was moved to the Pit. The Republican Party candidate for President of the United States made this evil, racist lie, but we can’t call it out as such in P&E.
Also they went largely unrecorded. Today everyone has cellphones and can upload it to youtube. Previously if a deranged man was chomping on a human leg, you would only hear about it if it was local to you and your paper happened to pick up the story. Now if any one of the 300+ million people in the US does something strange there is a good chance you will actually be able to watch it happen.