# What were you THINKING? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 13, 2023, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532 "2023-10-13T19:36:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 213
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/4540 "2025-04-03T15:57:40Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > You address the rot issue, see what it takes to fix it, That’s usually cutting away everything that’s rotten, throwing it in the trash, and replacing it with all new stuff. In the case of our country, the rotten bits aren’t pieces of wood, they’re people. People who think I’m the first signs of rot in their house. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/4541 "2025-04-03T16:02:00Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > In the case of our country, the rotten bits aren’t pieces of wood, they’re people. Damn, bro. > **[Dehumanization](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehumanization)** > > Dehumanization is the denial of full humanity in others along with the cruelty and suffering that accompany it. A practical definition refers to it as the viewing and the treatment of other people as though they lack the mental capacities that are commonly attributed to humans. In this definition, every act or thought that regards a person as "less than" human is dehumanization. > Dehumanization is one form of incitement to genocide. It has also been used to justify war, judicial and extrajudicial... ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/4542 "2025-04-03T16:03:31Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > Anybody who voted for Trump based on the economy has not done their research on him (How many of his businesses went bankrupt?) the economy, the actual causes of inflation, the powers granted to the President in the Constitution, and generally lacks critical thinking skills. Yes, we’re talking about low-information voters. But they are going to notice when they lose their jobs and prices sky-rocket again. Trump’s approval is already underwater and it’s only been 3 months. If the GOP starts cutting benefits too, no amount of propaganda is going to save them. > [@Atamasama](#): > > If you notice the first signs of rot in your house, that’s a legitimate concern. > > It’s not a good thing to ignore it because the house has stood strong for decades and you believe it can’t ever collapse. > > It’s also not a good thing to scream that your house is collapsing and immediately talk about what it’s going to be like when you’re homeless and fighting a junkie over a half-eaten rat carcass. > > You address the rot issue, see what it takes to fix it, evaluate the house and see if there are other problems to address, and make an informed decision. > > Extremists of any kind are not healthy to themselves or society. Good post. This is the correct take. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/4543 "2025-04-03T16:51:19Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > > [@Gyrate](#): > > > > It’s just that the world is really fucking awful right now. > > Not really. > > The world isn’t _improving as quickly as it used to be_. In some ways, it might be flat lining, or declining slightly. COVID was certainly a big setback. Don’t you live in the US? We are definitely regressing in lots of important ways. Like, my daughter is afraid to keep track of her period. And sadly, that’s a realistic concern. > [@Babale](#): > > > [@Gyrate](#): > > > > The proposed changes to voting that will place extra requirements on every married woman who changed her name? > > I assume you’re talking about voter ID laws? I think they’re just being moronic and not considering the implications of their half baked policy, otherwise they’d target “single childless cat ladies”, not married women who went through the trouble of legally changing their name, which is a subcategory that would skew conservative compared to women in general. Naw, they are happy to disenfranchise women, even the “right” women. > [@Babale](#): > > The fact that the right hates DEI is about making women property? OK buddy Nope, that’s a separate issue. But it’s also a real issue. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/4544 "2025-04-03T17:02:04Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > Don’t you live in the US? We are definitely regressing in lots of important ways. I do, and I agree that there are definitely a number of areas we are moving in the wrong direction in. None of that wrong direction movement has carried us past even where we were when I was growing up, in the 2000s. Trans people, gay people, women in positions of authority - in all of these areas, we are still far beyond where we were even a few years ago. Societal attitudes are much more progressive today then they were then. From the 2000s to the mid 2010s, we were rapidly moving in this direction. In the last 10 years or so, it feels like we’ve stalled. Actually, I’d put it more like, in 2016 we hit some turbulence and in 2020 we stalled. But we are certainly not moving backwards at nearly the same speed we were recently moving forwards at. That’s not a good thing, I’m not a fan of the stall, but I’m not going to pretend that we’re about to go all Handmaid’s Tale. The fact that this became such a prevelant meme is probably a big part of why people don’t take our side seriously when we warn about the actual, irreprable, structural damage that Trump is doing to our institutions. They can’t separate that fact from lunatic cravings about post apocalyptic TV shows. > [@puzzlegal](#): > > Like, my daughter is afraid to keep track of her period. And sadly, that’s a realistic concern. The idea has become a bit of a meme lately, yeah. I don’t know that I’d agree it’s a “realistic” concern, though. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/4545 "2025-04-03T17:07:46Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > I do, and I agree that there are definitely a number of areas we are moving in the wrong direction in. None of that wrong direction movement has carried us past even where we were when I was growing up, in the 2000s. Trans people, gay people, women in positions of authority - in all of these areas, we are still far beyond where we were even a few years ago. Societal attitudes are much more progressive today then they were then. When i was growing up, in the 1960s, it was totally legal to end a pregnancy that posed a physical risk to the mother. Now, in a bunch of states, it’s not. That’s worse than “a few years ago”. I agree that we are still ahead of my childhood on gay and trans rights. I think we’ve regressed significantly on voting rights. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/4546 "2025-04-03T17:08:49Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > Holy fucking shit, Der Trihs’ _we are all gonna die_ routine is getting fucking tiresome. And the “OMG. You are right.” could be someone else in complete agreement or utter sarcasm. Derp Trihs assumes the first. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/4547 "2025-04-03T17:36:18Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > I agree. But apparently you think that what they’re _very clearly_ messaging is that women are property, and I just don’t see it. Yes, there are a lot of things you don’t see. They _want_ to treat women as property. And they _are_ indicating that clearly. Again - perhaps you should pull your head out and look? > [@Babale](#): > > They’re messaging some things that I strongly disagree with about women and their place in society, and I agree that this message is clear; and I’m very much not a fan of the message. > > But it’s also not “wOmEn ArE pRoPeRtY”. Your caps key issues aside, your argument that they don’t think of women as property, they just want to strip them of as many rights as they can is not as compelling as you appear to think. Or are you going to claim that isn’t happening either? > [@Babale](#): > > And when you keep insisting that it is, and normal people use their eyes and ears and decide you’re crazy, that’s how we end up with idiots who believe that both sides are the same and stay home on election day. If you were a “normal person” using your eyes and ears, you wouldn’t have ignored all the cites I provided that supported my position and demonstrated that yours is bullshit. > [@Babale](#): > > Oh, now you’re a mind reader, and can tell what I’m “willing to acknowledge”? No, I’m an actual reader of your posts. > [@Babale](#): > > I agree that the right has moved the needle far more than they should have been able to. I disagree with you about where the final resting place they want the needle to go to is. Oh, now you’re a mind reader and can tell “where the final place they want the needle to go to is”? Or are you just a gullible idiot believing what the GOP _say_ while ignoring everything they _do_? > [@Babale](#): > > Or - and hear me out here - they actually think that premarital sex is immoral. That’s certainly what they _say_ and that some are credulous enough to believe. Of course, the reality is that they are perfectly fine with pre-marital sex **when boys and men do it** , [even when it’s rape](http://goprapeadvisorychart.com/). And those laws that hinder not just abortion but an array of women’s healthcare hurt married women too. But I guess if none of this affects you, things must not be really fucking awful. > [@Babale](#): > > I disagree with them; but their refusal to invest in sex ed while they also oppose abortion is not some mysterious paradox. It’s perfectly reasonable, _if_ you accept their starting premises about the (im)morality of sex and when life begins. Unless you look at **everything else they’re doing**. But please keep carrying their water - it’s going great. > [@Babale](#): > > Are these mainstream positions on the Republican side? You know we can find people who believe absolutely insane shit on the left, too, right? How many of them do the DNC invite to speak at their convention? > [@](#): > > Household voting is not a mainstream right wing position. It’s not a MAGA position (by this point, MAGA is the right’s mainstream). Not yet. But they’re willing to platform it and see how it goes over anyway. > [@Babale](#): > > To be clear, by DEI Purge, are you referring to Trump’s admin’s virtue signaling about removing certain words from their repertoire? Or is there something more substantial than virtue signaling to point to? Look at you, downplaying a wholesale purge of historical records, government programs and funding affecting anyone not white, straight male and Christian, and actual fucking people from positions of influence. Here’s a picture of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when Trump took over. [![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/Joint_Chiefs_of_Staff_members_pose_for_a_photo_inside_the_Pentagon%2C_USA_on_14_November_2024.jpg/960px-Joint_Chiefs_of_Staff_members_pose_for_a_photo_inside_the_Pentagon%2C_USA_on_14_November_2024.jpg) ](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/Joint_Chiefs_of_Staff_members_pose_for_a_photo_inside_the_Pentagon%2C_USA_on_14_November_2024.jpg/960px-Joint_Chiefs_of_Staff_members_pose_for_a_photo_inside_the_Pentagon%2C_USA_on_14_November_2024.jpg) Two of those highly competent and experienced people were removed by Trump and replaced by less-qualified candidates. **Guess which two?** You think that’s just “virtue signalling”? And when you keep insisting that it is, and normal people use their eyes and ears and decide you’re crazy, that’s how we end up with idiots who claim to be reasonable centrists who don’t like MAGA but who will rationalize every damn thing the GOP do. > [@Babale](#): > > I don’t know that I’d agree it’s a “realistic” concern, though. Because you don’t want it to be? Oh look - a meme! > **[Va. Republicans shelve bill to protect menstrual data from search warrants](https://www.nbcnews.com/health/womens-health/va-republicans-shelve-bill-protect-menstrual-data-search-warrants-rcna71167)** > > Despite passing the Senate in a bipartisan vote, the bill was defeated in a House subcommittee after an official from Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration voiced their opposition to it. And another! > **[J.D. Vance Wants Police To Track People Who Have Abortions](https://www.levernews.com/j-d-vance-wants-police-to-track-people-who-have-abortions/)** > > Trump’s vice presidential pick pressured regulators to let police access the records of people who cross state lines for abortions. Just a passing whim, really. Nothing for anyone to worry about. > **[Missouri tracked patients' periods in GOP anti-abortion effort](https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/missouri-tracked-patients-periods-in-gop-anti-abortion-effort-72554053786)** > > Rachel Maddow reports on the lengths to which Missouri's health director, Randall Williams, has gone to pursue the Republican agenda of eliminating the last abortion-providing clinic the state, and the trauma suffered by Planned Parenthood patients... Hey, remember when the GOP-nominated SCOTUS Justices insisted that Roe v Wade was “settled law”? Boy, sure glad there was nothing to worry about there either. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/4548 "2025-04-03T18:19:30Z")
Trump has shown America who he is, and whether they admit it or not, many if not most of his supporters are fine with his behavior, including his treatment of women. Add this to the long history of misogyny in the Republican party and elsewhere and ISTM that it’s extremely reasonable to be concerned they want to effectively reduce women to property status (among many other bad things). Even if there’s only a 1% chance of this, that would warrant plenty of concern. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/4549 "2025-04-03T18:21:52Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Yes, there are a lot of things you don’t see. They _want_ to treat women as property. And they _are_ indicating that clearly. Again - perhaps you should pull your head out and look? Oh, gosh, you angrily insisted you’re right, you must be correct. Oh, wait, no, you’re just a fucking idiot. > [@Gyrate](#): > > Your caps key issues aside, your argument that they don’t think of women as property, they just want to strip them of as many rights as they can is not as compelling as you appear to think. Or are you going to claim that isn’t happening either? My caps key is working perfectly fine, it’s a representation of what you sound like when you whine that “rPuBlIcAnS wAnT tO mAkE wOmEn PrOpErTy”. And now, I don’t think “stripping women of rights in general” is a big MAGA motivator, or a major part of their agenda. > [@Gyrate](#): > > If you were a “normal person” using your eyes and ears, you wouldn’t have ignored all the cites I provided that supported my position and demonstrated that yours is bullshit. You angrily asserting that your cites support your position doesn’t magically make it so, you dumb motherfucker. Yeah, a _normal person_, like the shitload of politically disconnected normies who either didn’t vote or voted for Trump - enough of them to give him the popular vote. Maybe you think all those people are just chomping at the bits to enslave women, including all the women who voted for Trump; but I find it more likely that your breathless claims about what MAGA wants to do are bullshit, and unfortunately that bullshit costs votes. Thanks to idiots like you and Der Trihs screeching “fAsCiSt” since Bush, the vast majority of the American public doesn’t properly grasp the severity of _actually fucked up stuff_, like January 6. > [@Gyrate](#): > > Oh, now you’re a mind reader and can tell “where the final place they want the needle to go to is”? Or are you just a gullible idiot believing what the GOP _say_ while ignoring everything they _do_? No, I’m just observing what the GOP actually does rather than your screeches about what you _think_ the GOP does. Plenty of it is incredibly fucked up and damaging to our institutions, but no one _cares_ because it’s drowned out by hysterionics about women being property and a trans genocide. > [@Gyrate](#): > > Of course, the reality is that they are perfectly fine with pre-marital sex **when boys and men do it** , [even when it’s rape](http://goprapeadvisorychart.com/). Did you link the wrong link? I’m very confused. > [@Gyrate](#): > > Unless you look at **everything else they’re doing**. But please keep carrying their water - it’s going great. Jesus fucking Christ you’re a stupid and bad faith motherfucker. I’m not _carrying their water_. What I want is for us to _attack them in ways that actually resonate with people, so we can get those fuckers out of office._ But instead, our side will screech and purity test and shit itself until we are completely defeated. > [@Gyrate](#): > > How many of them do the DNC invite to speak at their convention? Thankfully, this time around, the DNC was a lot better about that! They got a bunch of shit flung at them for it though. > [@Gyrate](#): > > Not yet. But they’re willing to platform it and see how it goes over anyway. 🙄 Next the fact that they don’t support it will be proof that they secretly support it. > [@Gyrate](#): > > You think that’s just “virtue signalling”? And when you keep insisting that it is, and normal people use their eyes and ears and decide you’re crazy, that’s how we end up with idiots who claim to be reasonable centrists who don’t like MAGA but who will rationalize every damn thing the GOP do. Man, I wish I was that self righteous; seems like a _hell_ of a high. > [@Gyrate](#): > > Because you don’t want it to be? Oh look - a meme! Because it’s not a thing that happened, numbskull. Hey, look, a bunch of links to articles, exactly _none of which_ show people being prosecuted because of their menstrual apps. The only article I thought _might_ be related was the Rachel Maddow video; but of course, it isn’t. The government agent in question wasn’t tracking women’s periods, with an app or otherwise; rather, they were taking a bunch of records _from a Planned Parenthood office_ to try and shut it down, and those records included PP’s estimated date of last period, on a spreadsheet that had a bunch of other data as well. The real headline is that Missouri tried to drown Planned Parenthood in red tape to force it closed at a time when abortion was still a constitutionally protected right in the United States. The problem I have with this is simple. IT IS NOT FUCKING EFFECTIVE. We have tried this approach since the 2010s. It DOES NOT WORK. the facts are _on our side_ here. What Republicans are doing is shitty, it’s opposed by the majority of Americans when actually presented to them in a factual manner, it is hurting our country. But instead of using the facts, we make up utterly ridiculous bullshit. Republicans want to make women property; they want to genocide trans people; they want to force everyone to be Christians. It’s delusional, and worse, it’s highly ineffective. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/4550 "2025-04-03T18:27:46Z")
Is arguing about how evil the fascists are at all useful to those of us opposed to them? ---
**Author:** ![BippityBoppityBoo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bippityboppityboo/32/5745_2.png) [@BippityBoppityBoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BippityBoppityBoo)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/4551 "2025-04-03T18:29:28Z")
[quote=“puzzlegal, post:4545, topic:991532”] > [@Babale](#): > > we are still far beyond where we were even a few years ago. Societal attitudes are much more progressive today then they were then. XXXXXXXXXXX I messed up my quoting formatting. Below is puzzlegal’s post, which I strongly agree with. When i was growing up, in the 1960s, it was totally legal to end a pregnancy that posed a physical risk to the mother. Now, in a bunch of states, it’s not. That’s worse than “a few years ago”. XXXXXX NOW MY POST BELOW… @babale, unless you are a woman living in the US, please don’t presume to tell how much better off we are now. I readily survived an ectopic pregnancy in 1980. If that happened to me now, in the state I live in now, I could easily die or have to marshal the agency and resources to travel hundreds of miles to receive lifesaving care and far too many can’t. Women’s reproductive freedom is far worse “than a few years ago” in not just a few states but in a lot of states. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/4552 "2025-04-03T18:30:09Z")
Are you arguing that Trump and Republicans _don’t_ want to effectively reduce women to the status of property, or about rhetorical strategy? ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/4553 "2025-04-03T18:42:31Z")
> [@BippityBoppityBoo](#): > > @babale, unless you are a woman living in the US, please don’t presume to tell how much better off we are now. 🙄 Telling people that they aren’t allowed to speak unless they are a member of X minority group is _precisely_ the kind of bullshit nonsense we have to stop doing if we ever want to win elections again, thank you very much. > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Are you arguing that Trump and Republicans _don’t_ want to effectively reduce women to the status of property, or about rhetorical strategy?. It’s not an effective rhetorical strategy because it isn’t true, and people can tell when you’re full of shit. And then they don’t listen to you even when you aren’t full of shit. You seriously think Trump voters, like the mom of the kid who goes to dance class with my daughter, want women to be property, and that’s why they’re voting for Trump? ---
**Author:** ![BippityBoppityBoo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bippityboppityboo/32/5745_2.png) [@BippityBoppityBoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BippityBoppityBoo)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/4554 "2025-04-03T18:46:22Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > Telling people that they aren’t allowed to speak unless they are a member of X minority group is _precisely_ the kind of bullshit nonsense we have to stop doing if we ever want to win elections again, thank you very much. And didn’t **you** just tell me what I was allowed to say? ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/4555 "2025-04-03T18:47:22Z")
> [@BippityBoppityBoo](#): > > And didn’t **you** just tell me what I was allowed to say?. No, I didn’t - are you fucking stupid? Here’s my post again: > [@Babale](#): > > Telling people that they aren’t allowed to speak unless they are a member of X minority group is _precisely_ the kind of bullshit nonsense we have to stop doing if we ever want to win elections again, thank you very much. I didn’t _tell you_ to do anything. I pointed out the _consequences_ of our side acting like you do. If you don’t want us to win elections, you can keep being a sanctimonious prick. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/4556 "2025-04-03T18:48:59Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > the facts are _on our side_ here. Which facts? The ones that show voter fraud is virtually nonexistent? The ones that show late term abortions are vanishingly rare? The ones that show transwomen don’t attack women in bathrooms? The ones that show immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native born Americans? The ones that show the economy does better under Democrats than Republicans? The ones that indicate the risks of global warming? Republicans lied persistently about all these things and are now in charge. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/4557 "2025-04-03T18:50:44Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > Which facts? The ones that show voter fraud is virtually nonexistent? The ones that show late term abortions are vanishingly rare? The ones that show transwomen don’t attack women in bathrooms? The ones that show immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native born Americans? The ones that show the economy does better under Democrats than Republicans? The ones that indicate the risks of global warming? Yes, precisely - those facts. Because instead of running on those facts, we ran on bullshit like “Trump wants to make women property, gas migrants, and genocide trans people”. ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/4558 "2025-04-03T18:51:07Z")
If I may: > A vector is a quantity with both magnitude (size or length) and direction. Much like Fascism, Autocracy, or Authoritarianism, it’s hard to argue that Trump isn’t taking us _in that direction._ The more arguable issue is how far and where it ends. Ditto women’s rights: where we’re headed ain’t good for women. Not by a damn sight. Where we are is fairly clear. Where it ends is far less so. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/4559 "2025-04-03T18:54:41Z")
If Babale still has any admirers after the Gaza threads, he’s doing his best to piss off the rest of them now. It’s especially ironic that he’s trying to argue that we alienate potential voters with our approach, while alienating everyone in the thread. Let me put it in language he can understand: QuIt bEiNg sUCh aN AsShoLe [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532.md?page=212) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532.md?page=214)