Board Trump supporters

[tonman]

Also, 4.7 trillion, huh? Link? God damn, son. Have you no thinking facilities at all?

The "green new energy deals" were less than a trillion and spread out over many years. Much of that will not happen because Trump. Those investments were net positives for America -- much the same way that the Obama green-energy loans produced countless benefits for America.

And that 4.7T was a full-decade estimate. It included measures like infrastructure repair, veterans benefits, SNAP, etc.

And because Trump cut some of these spending you can't use 4.7 number....

 

[BillOfRights]

I posted this on another thread, but I'm gonna put it here, too.

I get along with my trumper friends, family, neighbors, and coworkers. I can have a beer with them, but my son reminds me that trump is a rapist, racist, liar, thief, fascist and criminal whose ignorant, cruel policies will damage the United States for decades. Either they knew that and still support him, or they buried their heads in the sand because they didn't want to know. They can be nice, friendly, charming, and charitable to me and others in their circle, but they aren't good people.

I keep trying to find the flaw in his reasoning, but I haven't, yet.

I always believed in American exceptionalism, even naively and patriotically. I wondered how the people of 1930s Germany could have allowed Hitler to gain so much power, and I *knew* it could never happen here. Well, it's happening here, and my trumper friends, family, neighbors, and coworkers, and our board Pubs are allowing it to happen, and even cheering it on. They are complicit.

I now look at America and Americans much the same as Mahatma Gandhi looked at Christ and Christians. "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." Too many Americans (and my friends, family, neighbors, and coworkers) are so unlike the America that I know and love.

tl;dr: I wouldn't tell any of them if I knew where Anne Frank was hiding.

 

[Centerpiece]

I posted this on another thread, but I'm gonna put it here, too.

I get along with my trumper friends, family, neighbors, and coworkers. I can have a beer with them, but my son reminds me that trump is a rapist, racist, liar, thief, fascist and criminal whose ignorant, cruel policies will damage the United States for decades. Either they knew that and still support him, or they buried their heads in the sand because they didn't want to know. They can be nice, friendly, charming, and charitable to me and others in their circle, but they aren't good people.

I keep trying to find the flaw in his reasoning, but I haven't, yet.

I always believed in American exceptionalism, even naively and patriotically. I wondered how the people of 1930s Germany could have allowed Hitler to gain so much power, and I *knew* it could never happen here. Well, it's happening here, and my trumper friends, family, neighbors, and coworkers, and our board Pubs are allowing it to happen, and even cheering it on. They are complicit.

I now look at America and Americans much the same as Mahatma Gandhi looked at Christ and Christians. "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." Too many Americans (and my friends, family, neighbors, and coworkers) are so unlike the America that I know and love.

tl;dr: I wouldn't tell any of them if I knew where Anne Frank was hiding.

I see where you’re coming from but your son is correct. You are flawed in your “getting along” with your Trumper “friends, family, neighbors and coworkers.” You are being complicit yourself. Sorry buddy, but you should have nipped that in the bud. Time to cut bait and move along. I did that somewhat in 2016, but then had to go whole hog in 2020 and most certainly after Jan 6 2021.

So you’re saying that you watched the insurrection on TV just like the rest of us, and you still remained “friends” and congenial with that lot?

Sad to inform you, your son is correct. In 80 years when people look back on this time… you will be one of the ones they will be scratching their heads about thinking “How could the people of 2020’s America have allowed Trumpler to gain so much power?”

 

[TarSpiel]

I see where you’re coming from but your son is correct. You are flawed in your “getting along” with your Trumper “friends, family, neighbors and coworkers.” You are being complicit yourself. Sorry buddy, but you should have nipped that in the bud. Time to cut bait and move along. I did that somewhat in 2016, but then had to go whole hog in 2020 and most certainly after Jan 6 2021.

So you’re saying that you watched the insurrection on TV just like the rest of us, and you still remained “friends” and congenial with that lot?

Sad to inform you, your son is correct. In 80 years when people look back on this time… you will be one of the ones they will be scratching their heads about thinking “How could the people of 2020’s America have allowed Trumpler to gain so much power?”

"It's a lot easier to fight for your principles than it is to live by them."

I meet Trump supporters every day that I get along fine with. It's no use discussing politics, because they come from an information ecosphere that is damned near impossible to bridge. That doesn't necessarily mean they're bad people, or stupid or ignorant, or any of that - on a case by case basis, they might be any of those things and some are. A lot are very naive. But in general they aren't my enemies.

 

[BillOfRights]

I see where you’re coming from but your son is correct. You are flawed in your “getting along” with your Trumper “friends, family, neighbors and coworkers.” You are being complicit yourself. Sorry buddy, but you should have nipped that in the bud. Time to cut bait and move along. I did that somewhat in 2016, but then had to go whole hog in 2020 and most certainly after Jan 6 2021.

So you’re saying that you watched the insurrection on TV just like the rest of us, and you still remained “friends” and congenial with that lot?

Sad to inform you, your son is correct. In 80 years when people look back on this time… you will be one of the ones they will be scratching their heads about thinking “How could the people of 2020’s America have allowed Trumpler to gain so much power?”

I appreciate what you wrote, and I don't disagree. I try to see the good in people and I try to extend grace to those who are ignorant. I have been cut off by some family, and I no longer communicate with many I had considered friends, but neighbors and coworkers has been more problematic. Much of that has probably been rationalizations.

I've marched. I've protested. I've donated. I took 2 Fridays off from work, drove to NC and knocked on about 500 doors for 2 consecutive 3-day weekends to try to help defeat trump. I should have done more. Maya Angelou said "when you know better, do better." Thanks for helping me know better.

 

[Centerpiece]

I appreciate what you wrote, and I don't disagree. I try to see the good in people and I try to extend grace to those who are ignorant. I have been cut off by some family, and I no longer communicate with many I had considered friends, but neighbors and coworkers has been more problematic. Much of that has probably been rationalizations.

I've marched. I've protested. I've donated. I should have done more. Maya Angelou said "when you know better, do better." Thanks for helping me know better.

You’re a better man than I am. I suck at playing nice with trumpers.
I’ve got one set of in-laws (cousins of my wife) with whom I can sit down and break bread or have a beer with… they’re Republicans, and they voted Trump (not sure it they did in 2024, but I know they did in 2016 and 2020) but I’m being generous and have to bite my tongue… and we never talk politics. But, I only see them maybe once per year, twice tops. So I don’t have to interact with them much.

However, everybody else I’ve cut out of my life completely. My brother, my mother, aunts and uncles, cousins, former friends and colleagues. All blocked, ignored, removed from my Christmas card list. Fortunately all of my neighbors are progressives and don’t like trump (I’ve got a great neighborhood). I’m retired so I don’t have co-workers with whom I have to put up. I’ve got my own little bubble and my echo chamber. Like you I donate, march, protest, write letters to congressmen and newspapers. And I shake my fist at the clouds on social media.

In 80 years when people look back in this time… they won’t be talking about me being complicit or part of the problem. I’m fighting like hell and trying to be a wrench in the cogs of this nazi machine.

 

[BillOfRights]

You’re a better man than I am. I suck at playing nice with trumpers.
I’ve got one set of in-laws (cousins of my wife) with whom I can sit down and break bread or have a beer with… they’re Republicans, and they voted Trump (not sure it they did in 2024, but I know they did in 2016 and 2020) but I’m being generous and have to bite my tongue… and we never talk politics. But, I only see them maybe once per year, twice tops. So I don’t have to interact with them much.

However, everybody else I’ve cut out of my life completely. My brother, my mother, aunts and uncles, cousins, former friends and colleagues. All blocked, ignored, removed from my Christmas card list. Fortunately all of my neighbors are progressives and don’t like trump (I’ve got a great neighborhood). I’m retired so I don’t have co-workers with whom I have to put up. I’ve got my own little bubble and my echo chamber. Like you I donate, march, protest, write letters to congressmen and newspapers. And I shake my fist at the clouds on social media.

In 80 years when people look back in this time… they won’t be talking about me being complicit or part of the problem. I’m fighting like hell and trying to be a wrench in the cogs of this nazi machine.

I'm sorry trump has caused so much pain and division in your family and in your life. trump has caused more damage to the fabric of America than we'll ever be able to measure. Putin sure got his money's worth and more.

 

[TarSpiel]

I'm sorry trump has caused so much pain and division in your family and in your life. trump has caused more damage to the fabric of America than we'll ever be able to measure. Putin sure got his money's worth and more.

Except I don't really think it's Trump, I think it's the info ecosystems that are run by very shrewd people on the model of weaponized propaganda.

And it's going to get a lot worse once AI starts writing the scripts.

 

[ColdBlueSteel]

In 80 years when people look back in this time… they won’t be talking about me being complicit or part of the problem. I’m fighting like hell and trying to be a wrench in the cogs of this nazi machine.

Indiana, is that you?

 

[Ramrouser]

However, everybody else I’ve cut out of my life completely. My brother, my mother, aunts and uncles, cousins, former friends and colleagues. All blocked, ignored, removed from my Christmas card list.

Damn, you're hard core. You really think that POLITICAL DISPUTES are more important than your family (Mother!), friends and colleagues? I guess if your world view is that we're living in Germany, circa 1936, then you can rationalize such a position.

I've cut no one out of my life since 2016 and I get along fine with my liberal friends (we just keep political talk to a minimum). Just this week I had lunch with my liberal gay childhood friend and dinner last night with a couple who are large Democratic donors. I couldn't imagine cutting them out of my life.

I'm having a hard time understanding your decisions. It seems that the people who are cutting people out of their lives are all on the left.

 

[finesse]

Damn, you're hard core. You really think that POLITICAL DISPUTES are more important than your family (Mother!), friends and colleagues? I guess if your world view is that we're living in Germany, circa 1936, then you can rationalize such a position.

I've cut no one out of my life since 2016 and I get along fine with my liberal friends (we just keep political talk to a minimum). Just this week I had lunch with my liberal gay childhood friend and dinner last night with a couple who are large Democratic donors. I couldn't imagine cutting them out of my life.

I'm having a hard time understanding your decisions. It seems that the people who are cutting people out of their lives are all on the left.

Your powers of discernment continue to fail.

 

[superrific]

Damn, you're hard core. You really think that POLITICAL DISPUTES are more important than your family (Mother!), friends and colleagues? I guess if your world view is that we're living in Germany, circa 1936, then you can rationalize such a position.

I've cut no one out of my life since 2016 and I get along fine with my liberal friends (we just keep political talk to a minimum). Just this week I had lunch with my liberal gay childhood friend and dinner last night with a couple who are large Democratic donors. I couldn't imagine cutting them out of my life.

I'm having a hard time understanding your decisions. It seems that the people who are cutting people out of their lives are all on the left.

1. One important reason that conservatives aren't "cutting" (if true) is that your outrage is all manufactured and you know it. There's absolutely no reason to cut anyone out of your life who supported Biden of Kamala. They weren't sending people to be tortured in violation of US and international law. There were no masked men in vans kidnapping people. There was no defiance of court orders, no gaslighting, no attempts at being a king, etc. You had nothing to complain about really.

2. But you've got it wrong. Conservatives are cutting people out -- they just do it by being an asshole. My father's communications to me largely consisted of trolling memes derogatory toward liberal women. "Oh, it's just a joke," he would say. "What's wrong, got no sense of humor?" I said, stop sending me these emails or I block you. He continued to send them. Who cut out whom?

3. And there's probably a lot more going on in most cases. For instance, my dad was an abusive POS who wreaked havoc on me as a child, and who continues to abuse my mom to this day. Occasional physical abuse, constant emotional abuse. As an adult, I tried to sort of put that all behind me (you can never put it entirely behind you, any more than you can fix a pasta sauce if you oversalt it by a factor of three), so the relationship was, shall we say, tenuous. And now it's non-existent. I'm just waiting for him to croak so he doesn't waste the value he got from home appreciation.

A substantial majority of abusive men are MAGA. I've not seen any statistics on this directly, but it's almost impossible for this not to be the case. The reason many men are MAGA in the first place is the misogyny. Also, spousal abuse is more common in evangelical households than elsewhere -- that is established by data that I have seen, going back a few years.

4. MAGAs are exhausting. There's only so many times I care to tell my father that he's completely full of shit before I decide it's not worth the effort. Maybe some of the people cutting family are doing it entirely for ideological reasons, but I'll bet that if MAGAs were nicer, less ignorant and less aggressive, they would get more of a benefit of the doubt.

 

[Ramrouser]

1. One important reason that conservatives aren't "cutting" (if true) is that your outrage is all manufactured and you know it. There's absolutely no reason to cut anyone out of your life who supported Biden of Kamala. They weren't sending people to be tortured in violation of US and international law. There were no masked men in vans kidnapping people. There was no defiance of court orders, no gaslighting, no attempts at being a king, etc. You had nothing to complain about really.

2. But you've got it wrong. Conservatives are cutting people out -- they just do it by being an asshole. My father's communications to me largely consisted of trolling memes derogatory toward liberal women. "Oh, it's just a joke," he would say. "What's wrong, got no sense of humor?" I said, stop sending me these emails or I block you. He continued to send them. Who cut out whom?

3. And there's probably a lot more going on in most cases. For instance, my dad was an abusive POS who wreaked havoc on me as a child, and who continues to abuse my mom to this day. Occasional physical abuse, constant emotional abuse. As an adult, I tried to sort of put that all behind me (you can never put it entirely behind you, any more than you can fix a pasta sauce if you oversalt it by a factor of three), so the relationship was, shall we say, tenuous. And now it's non-existent. I'm just waiting for him to croak so he doesn't waste the value he got from home appreciation.

A substantial majority of abusive men are MAGA. I've not seen any statistics on this directly, but it's almost impossible for this not to be the case. The reason many men are MAGA in the first place is the misogyny. Also, spousal abuse is more common in evangelical households than elsewhere -- that is established by data that I have seen, going back a few years.

4. MAGAs are exhausting. There's only so many times I care to tell my father that he's completely full of shit before I decide it's not worth the effort. Maybe some of the people cutting family are doing it entirely for ideological reasons, but I'll bet that if MAGAs were nicer, less ignorant and less aggressive, they would get more of a benefit of the doubt.

I'll let him speak for himself, but Centerpiece made it pretty clear that he was cutting out his family, friends and colleagues purely for ideological reasons. Your issues are more complicated but he didn't mention any "abuse" or other reasons for removing people from his life.

Your #1 cracks me up. We have nothing to complain about from the Biden Administration? Really? That's your point of view.

 

[superrific]

Your #1 cracks me up. We have nothing to complain about from the Biden Administration? Really? That's your point of view.

Nothing existentially important. Nothing like concentrating all power in the executive branch. Nothing like forced disappearances and deportations to South Sudan. Nothing that jeopardized the Republic. No attempt to destroy the civil service by firing everyone and replacing them with loyalists.

Your side are fascists. Biden/Harris are center-left liberals. You don't have to agree with everything they do to admit that nothing was remotely as outrageous. That's why I say you have no reason. It's like the confederacy. The north had a big issue with slavery. The south was offended by . . . tariffs maybe? And the attempt by the north to end their grossly immoral practices. It's a complete asymmetry.

Or to flip the script so you don't think I'm biased, in the 1950s there were Americans who were aligned with Stalin. Not as many as in the public fever dreams, and certainly not so many as to justify McCarthy's brief terror campaign, but there were some. I might have had a similar reaction had my parents been Stalinists. It's not exactly the same, because the support for Stalin and the USSR had little impact and was focused abroad, but the principle is analogous. I don't support any gulag, whether political dissidents or migrant workers.

And also, pro tip: sometimes people who have suffered abuse don't like to talk about it. I have no idea if that's true for Centerpiece; he can speak for himself. But especially in evangelical church environments, there is a lot of silent suffering. There are people who are abused, but because of upbringing and gaslighting, don't realize what they suffered rose to the level of abuse. But they are resentful just the same.

 

[Centerpiece]

I'm sorry trump has caused so much pain and division in your family and in your life. trump has caused more damage to the fabric of America than we'll ever be able to measure. Putin sure got his money's worth and more.

I appreciate the thoughts, really I do. However, I’m not too sorry nor regretful for my estrangements. You don’t get to choose your family members. Sometimes somewhere someone is born into an abusive family and there’s no way out for them. Mind you, that’s not me. My folks weren’t abusive, unless you call whipping my ass with a belt and a fly swatter when my wayward arse needed it. I don’t find fault with that.

But at the same time, we do get to choose our friends and those with whom we want to spend time and energy. At this point in my life I simply choose to NOT spend time and energy on Trumpers and I don’t care if they are family or former friends and colleagues. They can stay in their castle and I’ll stay in mine. I find their mindless Trumpism to be abusive to me and others. I’m simply getting out of an abusive relationship and for that I’m not sorry, regretful or sad.

 

[ZenMode]

I posted this on another thread, but I'm gonna put it here, too.

I get along with my trumper friends, family, neighbors, and coworkers. I can have a beer with them, but my son reminds me that trump is a rapist, racist, liar, thief, fascist and criminal whose ignorant, cruel policies will damage the United States for decades. Either they knew that and still support him, or they buried their heads in the sand because they didn't want to know. They can be nice, friendly, charming, and charitable to me and others in their circle, but they aren't good people.

I keep trying to find the flaw in his reasoning, but I haven't, yet.

I always believed in American exceptionalism, even naively and patriotically. I wondered how the people of 1930s Germany could have allowed Hitler to gain so much power, and I *knew* it could never happen here. Well, it's happening here, and my trumper friends, family, neighbors, and coworkers, and our board Pubs are allowing it to happen, and even cheering it on. They are complicit.

I now look at America and Americans much the same as Mahatma Gandhi looked at Christ and Christians. "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." Too many Americans (and my friends, family, neighbors, and coworkers) are so unlike the America that I know and love.

tl;dr: I wouldn't tell any of them if I knew where Anne Frank was hiding.

“The world is messy; there are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws. People who you are fighting may love their kids, and share certain things with you.”

~Barack Obama

 

[UNCatTech]

Damn, you're hard core. You really think that POLITICAL DISPUTES are more important than your family (Mother!), friends and colleagues? I guess if your world view is that we're living in Germany, circa 1936, then you can rationalize such a position.

I've cut no one out of my life since 2016 and I get along fine with my liberal friends (we just keep political talk to a minimum). Just this week I had lunch with my liberal gay childhood friend and dinner last night with a couple who are large Democratic donors. I couldn't imagine cutting them out of my life.

I'm having a hard time understanding your decisions. It seems that the people who are cutting people out of their lives are all on the left.

Think about that last sentence. There's possibly a reason.

 

[Zoo_View]

This is certainly the case for my neighborhood. The only household I'm aware of that sends their kids to private school is MAGA.

I remember growing up in Chapel Hill……some of the kids I swam with or against, played football or soccer with or against, went to Durham Academy……..I couldn’t figure out why……CHCSS schools were good…..real good…..

Durham Academy wasn’t a segregationist private school; it was founded in the 1930’s by Watts Hill, Sr.

By the ‘70’s, I think Durham Academy was a place that naive parents thought they could use to protect their children and it became a segregationist school. Carolina Friends was a completely other deal.

What’s funny is the DA kids sold drugs to the Chapel Hill kids……they had better drugs and more of them……and the DA kids ran the best organized keg parties in the boonies……money-making keg parties.

 

[Zoo_View]

I don't follow the news much these days, but if he's in there, why didn't Biden release the info?

Merrick Garland