GOP Insanity Containment 2: This is the Place. This is the Time, Cowboy.

Politics & News
4897

Honestly, this is just my perspective and analysis, but it reflects a weird trend in the GOP hardliner view I’ve been noticing.

Harken back to mid to late 00’s - hating the gays was still very much in vogue. Around that time even CA had a ballot measure that went out to voters about it - prop 8. I don’t know the precise reasons for it, but acceptance/tolerance of LGBT rights, particularly for gays/lesbians, shot through the roof in a very quick amount of time (at least compared to before) - possibly bolstered by popular tv shows and characters that were LGBT which showed a lot of commercial success, which leads to what I now call the “Disney factor” in entertainment where executives finally figured out that diversity in entertainment sells better than lack of diversity (intuitively this should make sense), so you start to see a real push in those mediums towards inclusivity, which slowly changes cultural attitudes about those topics.

ANYWAY then comes along donald trump’s GOP, which, weirdly, don’t overtly seem to take many issues with the gays - possibly because Trump himself really doesn’t seem to have a strong opinion about it either way, and seems to lean towards “let em do whatever they want who cares.” so during prime trump years I think they kinda backed off this hardliner anti-LGBT stance they so comfortably used for fucking ever.

I remember early on in trumpism this was a feature to many people who were conservative leaning but had become repulsed by anti-LGBT bigotry that a lot of people really liked. Really, this pushback only comes from the evangelical right - which is actually a small minority of republicans overall, but such a critical and reliable voting sector that they always get what they want.

Anyway, I’ve been seeing a steady stream and uptick of anti-LGBT stuff that initially confused me, particularly issues like this. Who cares if a couple of kids in that mural might be gay? Well, the religious right does, and my theory is that that wing of the party has become emboldened by the constant and vicious pushing of the anti-trans hate that is still widely acceptable in the country as a whole, even among people that should know better. Trans people are good targets for them too because they make up such a small percentage of the population compared to LGBWTFBBQ part of that acronym.

So, it’s a pretty natural shift for a lot of people from hating trans people to going after the other letters, especially when you believe there’s a deep state conspiracy to groom children into becoming trans/gay for reasons - and I feel that’s gonna be an attack vector going forward, as the supreme court has seemingly decided that states rights are absolute and you can do whatever fucked up thing you want in them. I expect to see gay marriage made illegal in a lot of states in the next 5 years, which honestly would have been inconceivable to me just a couple of short years ago, even under trump.

TLDR this is just ancient religious homophobia that’s been emboldened lately. I think it’s a stupid strategy for them that’ll probably work via brute force - like, homophobia is actually tremendously unpopular with a lot of people and even in that article there’s a lady that’s like “I’m a gun loving die hard trump supporter and you people against this are fucking insane” but even to those types, the propaganda and party line will inevitably take over. Their views are actually fairly malleable as long as the right hate buttons get pressed.

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4898

I don’t really follow the MAGA fever swamp concerns closely, but I do have a couple deplorable relatives and acquaintances, and sometimes I hear what the bogeyman of the day is

Lately I have heard a lot of concerns about how the schools are “training kids to be gay” “indoctrinating” and “grooming”. So I assume the backlash to a mural like this is along those lines. Also there is a syringe which makes the anti-vaxxers furious. However I have found that actual specific concerns vary a lot from deplorable to deplorable. I usually don’t care enough to delve into the details. Mostly it’s some weird combo of religious nutsery and racist/homophobic panic.

Also they are concerned about “ramming it down our throats” (like cocks, I guess)

4899

I can’t believe these inbred morons really think schools are letting kids use litter boxes. I’ve heard it from like 5+ people now.

4900

Remember that deplorables never really think anything, they just feel things. It feels good to imagine that kids are acting this way, so they do that. They’re not reasoning from facts, they’re constructing narratives from feelings.

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4901

Thats because dumbfuck Rogan decided to signal boost that nonsense

4902

I don’t know if this has been posted before. It’s a long article about GOP’s descent into fascism. I don’t feel like MAGA’s fascination with Orban and Hungary has been covered enough, and Chait makes what I think are some good points on how DeSantis could take a similar path here.

The other model was Orbán’s Hungary. One attendee came away impressed with the “seemingly ubiquitous Hungarians.” (I now have a copy of the latest issue of Hungarian Conservative. ) These Hungarians were greeted as liberators, and Orbán’s regime, which has taken control of the judiciary, the press, and the universities while using corruption to pressure major businesses to support the government, was the object of widespread envy. The European Union recently voted to withhold funds to Hungary, which it has deemed no longer democratic. Orbán’s American admirers see this response merely as confirmation that he is making the correct enemies.

DeSantis’s liberal critics have sometimes compared his methods to Orbán’s, but at the conference, this comparison was invoked as praise. A DeSantis spokesperson pointed to Orbán’s regime as an inspiration; an Orbán spokesperson pointed to DeSantis’s government as affirmation of the Hungarian leader’s actions. That Orbán and DeSantis are both colorless functionaries ought to drive home the fact that this movement is not, as its critics often jeer, a personality cult. Many of the conference members retain an affection for Trump, but they are not hung up on him personally so much as they are mobilized to wage war on his enemies. The appeal of semi-fascism in Hungary, and its incipient version in Florida, lies not in the men but in the systems they have built, which can be replicated.

4903

“Semi”

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4904

A useful and hilarious (to me) exercise with any insane bog standard take deplorables have is to dive into what they personally think what they are saying means.

For instance, I fully anticipate the wokeness convo this thanksgiving. I am going to ask “What do you mean by woke, exactly?”

This will provoke whatever the bog standard line is, you’ll get a mix of semi-coherent answers here usually ripped straight off the tv that you can address however you want as long as you don’t call them an idiot or whatever, attempt to have a conversation about it and approach it from an inquisitive viewpoint, which lowers their guard a bit. Inevitably, when you keep digging, you will arrive at the same conclusion, that when they say “wokeness” they are referring to a culture that promotes social justice - which, when you dig into the meaning of that term, is really just equality for everyone. Which leads to the next question that breaks their brain - “Do you think everyone should be treated equally?”

The answer to that, of course, if they are being honest with themselves, is “yes, except the blacks” (or whatever their boogeyman is). The goal of the conversation is to get them to own this and say it out loud, not hidden behind all this propaganda terminology that they themselves probably don’t even understand that well. Get them to actually own it. Most won’t at all - whether because they’ve genuinely convinced themselves theyre not like that, or just out of denial, or outright lying - I can never tell and it doesn’t matter. Once you are able to ask this question, they lost, because everything they pretend to believe in states that everyone is equal under the law and most importantly to God himself.

If they outright admit it, which has happened, I’ll just say like “well, you’re not really the type of person I choose to associate with, then” and can leave it at that pretty guilt-free, or at least be content that from now on the mask is off and next time they start wailing about whatever culture war thing you can remind them what they’re ACTUALLY mad about. Most people, even to themselves, won’t proudly wear hate, and usually rationalize it away - by confronting their hate, you maaaaaybe have a chance at introspection and/or change. I’ve given up just yelling at them.

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4905

I think a lot of them will just say OF COURSE they want everyone to be treated equally, that’s the whole point, white Christian conservatives are the most OPPRESSED group in society, dontchaknow! I don’t think you’ll ever get them to the point where they’re actually peeling off the propaganda, you might be able to get them to mutter to themselves and shut up though once they realize that they aren’t getting a rise out of you.

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4906

then you can just point to numerous counterexamples where the christian right gleefully does not want people treated equally. not really a disputable point, no matter how they try to argue it, they don’t want the same rights for everyone.

to be clear I’m not saying this is gonna change hearts and minds, it just has the best chance IMO (which is like <1% to be clear), and lets you kind of “win” the argument and retain your sanity if you’re unfortunate like me and have family you aren’t going to just stop talking to over it.

4907

I’ll make this a separate post than what I was gonna edit into my last one, because it’s a hot take for this board I think, but I don’t actually believe anymore that trumpers were just “always this way” and then when trump made it cool or enabled them to speak out all of a sudden their true colors came out. Sure, they may have had some existing prejudices or biases that led them to be more gullible to the propaganda and rhetoric, but there has been this definite frog-boil thing going on in the GOP hivemind where if you had a time machine and told them about X insane thing the GOP was now doing they’d call you crazy and reject it out of hand, because it’s so nuts or hateful or whatever.

I’ve been seeing some examples of de-conversion that make me a bit hopeful for the future, I really do believe some % of them are salvageable. At least we better hope they are. Probably not if they’re above the age of 60 though.

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4908

I don’t think that take is too spicy. The racism was always there for a good portion of them, but the Trump/fox/facebook trifecta was elite at activating a whole new level of depravity in millions of people. It also opened the door for the MTGs, and the Boeberts to work their way into everyone’s home and shift the craziness Overton window massively to the right.

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4909

right, one thing this whole debacle has taught me is there are many levels of racism - like there’s a clear distinction between the “black people are lazy” racist like sorta my dad was, and the “we should re-enslave black people” racists like my mom was, but the party pushes harder and harder towards the latter and people frog-boil themselves on it.

I’m actually thankful now for the trump anomaly - it’s been a great litmus test for me for evaluating who tends to be a moron or evil. Like, I went back through my old yearbook and identified pretty much with 100% accuracy who would be a trumper based solely on how big of a piece of shit I recalled them being. It was nearly 1:1. The nicest people I ever knew, with like 1 exception, never really bought into it.

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4910

https://twitter.com/BudKennedy/status/1582856073513340928

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4911

Irrelevant man yells at cloud:

4912

That’s Future President Mr. Irrelevant to you, buddy. Pence 2024!

4913

this is like the least weird combo ever

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4914

easiest response to this is “oh wow are there pics posted of this? Kids would instantly post that stuff all over the twitters, there must be billions of pictures of it, let me see. What’s that? oh there’s not one single picture of this happening? That seems totally normal and not weird at all.”

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4915

Yeah the combo itself is not weird, it is expected, but it manifests in weird ways I might not predict like litter boxes or accusations of witchcraft and shit like that

4916

teletubbies used to have witchcraft/paganism hysteria back in the day, they’ve really been getting worked up about this stuff forever, back to the satanic panic in the 80’s, it’s just louder right now