It’s more than that. It’s not just about justifying personal choices, but also being able to call someone else a hypocrite if they care about anything at all, while they are not caring about everything they possibly could.
It’s not just a defense, it’s a weapon.
“Oh, you donate to the homeless? Unless you give your home away to a homeless shelter, then you don’t really care.”
If you really needed a job to support your family, and the only jobs available were working for Trump, would you? I’m not talking some high powered, high profile job—maybe you’re working on the cleaning crew in his hotel. He’s big on loyalty so maybe you’d have to “like” his page and be lumped in with the rest.
I liked the Forbes article that says McEnany and the others have basically sold their credibility and nobody should hire anybody who lies that easily.
That implies to me that there are some natural consequences for the higher-ups who wielded their position to promote the lies. High profile affiliation may turn into a real albatross as major donors pull back—and those folks have long memories. Trump’s brand has taken a major hit…that will impact him more than my personal spending, which I’m glad for. But I also think you may find some anti-Trump to patronize only to find out they go against some other values you have and then what?
If you spend a lot on something—say, crafting supplies or scientific equipment or stationery—the nod to your conscience might lie there. Research that carefully. I like shopping Aldi because as I understand it they look at sustainability, sourcing, etc.
And by the way: a couple of months ago I put something up for sale on Facebook marketplace. One of the (lowball) offers that came in added something to the effect, “Because if Biden wins, nobody’s going to have any money to spend any more.” I thought that was an interesting tack—“Sell it to me for less than it’s worth because I assume you’re a Trumper too so you might as well give a ‘friend’ a good deal.” I guess.
I’ll take their money. Most of my employees are more left leaning, so it is money going from Trump supporters to non-Trump supporters.
Interesting note, two of my clients that are pretty obvious of Trump supporters, one because he always rants about libruls, and recently about the “steal”, and the other because he drives a pickup flying Trump flags, both had appointments post Jan 6th. The one that rants didn’t have anything to say, and the other one was not flying Trump flags.
Maybe I’ll make a stop by my old gyro joint and see if he still has his Trump stuff up.
We are in a pretty weird situation here, let’s face it. This is (what I earnestly hope will prove to be) the aftermath of a direct insurrection attempt on the part of a dominant subset of one of the two major political parties.
That subset is, and has been for a long time, openly defying the principles and processes of democracy. Their attitude is that if they can’t win or retain power by playing by (some of) the rules of democracy, then the rules don’t apply to them, and they deserve power anyway, by any means necessary.
Not everybody in that party, or even self-identifying within that subset, actually endorses that seditionist and corrupt attitude. And there’s no bright-line test to tell who does and who doesn’t, just based on party affiliation or ordinary partisan rhetoric.
I think it’s fair to say that that strain of “if we lose then the rules don’t count” seditionism and corruption should not be tolerated at all in a democracy. But that doesn’t mean that deliberate personal retaliation against every individual who has bought into some of its bullshit is the way forward.
One think that I do think is unambiguously clear is the necessity of stigmatizing the rhetoric of Trumpist sedition and corruption. I want to see expressions like “I WON THIS [election | game | tournament | whatever], BY A LOT!” and “STOP THE COUNT!” and “STOP THE STEAL!” and “If we lose, then the [election | game | whatever] was rigged!” become standard catchphrases mocking pathetic sore losers in general.
I’m not suggesting that we should deliberately seek out opportunities to tease Trump supporters about their specific sore-loserdom with those mocking phrases. But that sort of disgusted repudiation of Trumpist sleazy cheating needs to be built in to our post-Trump culture as a whole. In the same way that disgusted repudiation of Nixonian sleazy cheating was built into our post-Nixon culture with jeering echoes of rhetoric like “I am not a crook” and “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal”.
The US produced 4.5 billion barrels of crude in 2019 and imported less than 200 million barrels (crude + products) from SA. How much of that ends up in your tank is a function of where in the country you live.
Of what we import, most of it comes from Canada, IIRC, so that means that we are subsidizing hockey and curling with our oil purchases.
One can hope.
I don’t tell people what to think or feel about politics or religion. I keep to myself as to what I think or believe. It ain’t worth the aggravation. My BIL thinks that if you say thing ANYTHING different than he thinks, , he dismisses you as clueless. I learned not to engage. No reasoning with dogmatic people. It’s his way or the wrong way. When we lived in the ME the Arabs thought of things differently than Western people do, doesn’t make it wrong. Not in way of thinking but not every Republican and or Democrat are Evil. They are just flawed and imperfect people.
I posted this in a related thread yesterday 01/16:
For me, I think I’m just happier at the “not engaging” level. If someone loves Trump so much that they feel the need to advertise it, I’m not engaging them. I’m not engaging them personally and I’m not engaging their business. If I see a Trump sign on the lawn I’m going somewhere else. I’m not the kind of person who gets in people’s faces. I would cut ties with them the same way I’ve silently unfriended all the crazy people on Facebook. I’ve unfollowed my own grandmother, whom I love dearly, but I’m not engaging her politically. I actually have a couple friends who voted Trump (yes, even in 2020) but they have loudly and vociferously taken Trump and Republicans to task, and one has withdrawn his support after the insurrection at the Capitol. The other one I just snoozed for 30 days and he may survive once my blood pressure drops, who knows.
If someone supports Trump despite… literally fucking everything… but is quiet about it, I can live with that. I will err on the side that they are more brainwashed than evil and try to make connections in other ways. In general I think it’s good for people to maintain ties to people who don’t think like them, but I won’t do it at the expense of my own mental health.
IMO, there is a difference between someone who had a Trump/Pence sign up and took it down soon after the election, vs keeping a “Trump, Make liberals cry again” sign up for weeks after. Or who flies a Trump flag after 1/6.
While I might agree with that as a rough principle, there are some lines that should not be crossed. Trumpists have driven past the line, are looking at it in the rear-view mirror, with their arm out the window and their middle finger extended.
When I was in the military, we were talking one day about what would cause us to disobey an order (even if lawful). An infantry sergeant I worked with said “Any officer who is not fully committed to democracy is unworthy of being followed. I would not follow any order that attempted to undermine democracy in Canada.”
I think that can be applied to citizens. Once you are anti-democracy, which many Republicans are, then you’re outside of society in my mind. You’re unworthy of inclusion until you’re ready to support democracy, and you deserve everything that comes to you as a result. And certainly, once you’re a terrorist, a seditionist, or supporter of the same, then you’re outside of society. The door is open for you to come back, but they need to leave their flawed belief systems behind.
Yes. And in this case I am talking specifically about businesses. I have a bad taste in my mouth about any business openly promoting a political candidate, but a Trump sign in particular would be the worst.
I have a buddy who owns a burger joint. He’s a moderate who despises Trump. During the election he created two delicious new burgers, the Trump and the Biden and encouraged people in friendly competition to see who would “win.” They kept a tally (Biden won.) When he made this announcement on Facebook he signed it “Love and Democracy, [FriendsName]” He didn’t spew his political leanings all over social media. He didn’t put a Biden sign up on the lawn of his restaurant. He just embraced the value of Democracy. I thought that was pretty cool.
I don’t think one Republican condoned what happened on the 6th at the Capitol. Elections have always been contested on both sides. This one was beyond the pale, I agree. I would like, but won’t get , a reckoning on what happened nation wide the Spring and fall. The billions of dollars of damage to private and public property. Injuries to the police and deaths.
Explicitly? Perhaps not. Implicitly both before and after? Oh yes. Make no mistake, the attempted coup was a Republican effort. They primed the pump for it to happen for years, and Trump got it flowing.
Hopefully, those complicit, and there are at least a dozen or so, will face the appropriate charges or some kind of consequence, e.g., removal from office.
No kidding. And that’s what we’re talking about. When it crosses a certain line, you get what you have coming to you. Anyone standing with Trump is standing with sedition. The name Trump is the new Confederate flag.
There is still an investigation on what, when and how it got out of control. I’m reserving judgement. It has been found a left wing wack a do , egged on the people wearing a Trump hat. Painting all Trump supporters with the same brush is not helping the decisive nature of what is going on now. IMO people want to get on with their lives. Congress sat on relief for eight months, then impeached Trump in 24 hours. Pox on both houses!
I drive an electric car that I charge from solar arrays on my roof. But to keep hockey and curling safe, I’ll go buy a 70s F-350 today.
Cite?
That’s quite an alternate history you have going on there. The Senate, i.e. Republicans, blocked the second relief bill.
The House of Representatives impeached Trump quickly, this is true, and they should. He incited (in the colloquial sense, we’ll see in the criminal sense) an attempted coup. If an attempted coup is not cause for impeachment, than nothing is. The Senate, i.e. Republicans, have not conducted the trial of Trump within your 24 hour time frame.
Tough. Anybody still standing with Trump is standing with pro-seditionists. Trump has been espousing violent, anti-democracy rhetoric since before he was elected. They knew what they were standing with. So tough. There are precisely zero causes that are worth being anti-democracy. Not guns. Not abortion. Not illegal immigration. None. This isn’t about political viewpoints. Yes, people can disagree on politics. This goes FAR beyond that.
This is one cite. BLM has disavowed him.