My (sad) outlook on America, its values and now

[EnergizedLib]

Yes, I admit it. I underestimated the felon in 2016, laughed at the announcement about him running and didn’t think it would actually happen once, let alone a second time. I correctly predicted between trump and Hillary whoever got in would lose in 2020. As a Bernie supporter, I wasn’t crazy about Hillary, but I still voted for her.

What I wasn’t expecting was 2024. I gave the electorate too much credit over trump, hence my underestimation.

We all know the rap sheet about the greatest con artist of all time, a mile long by now. People decided COVID, J6, Dobbs, all the felonies weren’t dealbreakers. In fact, they felt more compelled to vote for the felon that people tried to actually hold someone rich and powerful accountable for a change. You know, like other civilized countries actually do (South Korea, UK, Brazil, etc.).

And more and more people are waking up to what we’ve spent years screaming from the rooftops. They thought it would be fun to own the libs, and here they are, they’ve owned themselves. People don’t care about underage victims of sexual abuse, but those gas prices sure are getting their attention. Inconvenience a partly uninformed electorate in the slightest way and they’ll have your head, regardless of all of your transgressions. Don’t we have such wonderful values in this country? Our side might win in a bloodbath this year and two years from now. We might even exceed our performances from 2006 and 2008.

Even so, what I nevertheless find unsettling are the how and the why - not because US soldiers and Iranian schoolgirls got killed, not because all of the damage done to this country, not because of the immunity, not because of a corrupt rogue police state, but because they’re feeling some of the pain. What wonderful values we have.

And then there’s the cult. I would snap my fingers to vanish them from the planet in a heartbeat if I could. Yet, as loathsome as they are, as despicable as they are, I can’t help but find out how pathetic and pitiful they are. There was a time they at least pretended to have some principles - no war, holding child sex abusers accountable, freedom, prices, the debt, etc. Now, I see these loons willing to spend however much money to run up our debt without a care in the world, still supporting their false idol even if he did rape children, being in favor of bombing Iran and not caring about dead American soldiers or dead Iranian schoolgirls all while their cult leader disrespects our servicemen and women by saluting them while wearing his own campaign gear. They’re willing to pay more in gas over this (which tells me 2021-2025 wasn’t really about gas prices, was it?) Then they’ll point to how it was worse under President Biden, when they won’t look at the whys - why gas went up in 2021 and 2022 compared to why gas is up now.

MAGA isn’t about supporting someone who champions their values, they’re a cult around one creature and will gladly change their own values to justify their support.

We might win, we might win big. We could take both houses of Congress this year and run away with the presidency in 2028. What will change? What will actually change? And even if we exceeded our performances from 2006 and 2008, it’ll still be unsettling as to why voters voted to give us power again - to help *them* and so many being callous enough not to care for anybody else or any other injustices perpetrated by the most sociopathic White House in history.

There’s something in the water here, and not in a good way.

[gab13by13]

1. Nice post but

you need to add another group that is a cult, that will cater to and fluff such a horrible person as Donald J. Trump - the billionaires.

The billionaires who funded him, the billionaires who bought up the MSM and converted it into a propaganda machine.

The members of the Supreme Court who violated their oath and put a vile creature above the law.

Even if we take over Congress and hold investigations and indict people, Krasnov will just pardon them, The use of the pardon needs to be reformed before anyone can be held accountable.

[EnergizedLib]

2. I mean, I saw it coming back in 2015

Billionaires, especially Republican billionaires, will seek only to protect themselves and the other members of the billionaire class without a thought to the average person.

And too many of the average folk were all too happy to vote for this until it came back to bite them.

[Passages]

4. I agree completely.

It is overwhelming to me how much needs to be changed, not merely a new Congress, Senate, etc.

The executive branch is completely out of control with power and a corrupted SCOTUS....think Citizens United and more.

It will take a great deal of consistent work to reform the system and add new safeguards.

For one, the fact that a convicted felon can be president of this country is an absurd reality, and must not be allowed again.

[EnergizedLib]

6. I'm not sure what Constitutional Amendment would be approved today

That’s what’s sad. Everything has been corrupted.

[Passages]

9. The struggle will be huge.

Yet, we must proceed with an agenda that is lawful and in the best interests of a functioning democracy.

I believe the American public is hungry for it, most especially our youth.

[EnergizedLib]

12. I don't know

It seems like Nick Fuentes is building a following and a lot of youngsters are acting like him.

[Johnny2X2X]

3. Propaganda

The thing about propaganda is that it works on smart and dumb people alike. The Right absolutely has control of vast parts of the media including a lockdown on social media. Watching it all go to work in 2024 was simply terrifying. Seeing how it is still excusing the absolute nightmare we are seeing now in this country is even more terror.

It's overriding of self preservation, people are programmed to set aside their own interests because propaganda told them some wedge issue really matters. It's created millions of self immolating cynics who cannot see basic truths anymore. "Sure, I lost my health care, my job, and my house, but we got those couple dozen trans athletes out of girl's sports..."

[EnergizedLib]

5. I saw someone comment

That the trans issue is a bigger issue than the economy, which is ridiculous.

And I want to ask every MAGAt out there how many of them actually care about women’s sports and girls sports and how many of them just want to punish those who are different. Elon has turned Twitter into a massively toxic cesspool and the right is taking over more and more of the media.

Personally, on the trans playing sports issue, I think it’s something athletic governing bodies/schools should decide, not something state or federal government bodies should get into. I’d like to see more unisex bathrooms built as a compromise on the issue. Trans people dared to exist, which was too much for bigots who are now paying the price for their shortsightedness.

[Johnny2X2X]

7. Here in MI

A local sports talk radio show had the director of the Michigan High Scholl Athletics Association on the air for an interview. The host is a known Right Wing turd so of course he brought the issue up and it was hilarious the response. Paraphrasing, "Well, it's not an issue, this year there are no trans athletes competing in the MHSAA in any sport, last year there was 1, the year before there were 2, and those athletes competed without issue." They're taking a few instances of trans women competing in women's sports over the last couple decades that people think seemed unfair and making it into the biggest issue. it's insane. there have been like 5 cases that people can even point to in this country over the last decade, 5! The vast majority of cases have been without any issue whatsoever. They want to burn the country down for like 1 person competing every few years that doesn't seem fair.

[EnergizedLib]

8. Just like with the SAVE MAGA Act

They want to violate the Constitution, to heck with the 24th Amendment, suppress the vote, over voter fraud, even though fraud is seldom proven to have happened - and when it *is* proven, guess who is guilty? MAGAts!

Like I said, let the MHSAA, let the other state athletic governing bodies, let the schools deal with this issue, keep government at all levels away from this.

I would ask, how has sticking it to trans people you don’t know even exist helped your life? Exactly.

[Passages]

10. Yes, the boogie man factor.

Look over there>>>>> while gangsters like Trump loot the treasury.

[Johnny2X2X]

11. The swimmer

Yeah, and the swimmer they talk about non stop who competed in D1 college swimming, was like 5 years ago now. They're acting like it's some imminent thing, it's already in the past, no matter what you think about Lia Thomas, get over it.

[misanthrope]

13. New slogan

America: Born of war, built by slaves ruled by fear.

[BannonsLiver]

14. I love the screen name juxtaposed against the relentlessly downbeat OP.

[EnergizedLib]

15. I joined in 2022 after Dobbs

Back when I actually believed in a better America instead of Americans just showing who the truly are.

We’ll get change in this country alright, just not the kind of change I would want.

[lostnfound]

16. 'United States of Cattle'

A term coined 2 days ago as we pondered how grossly disappointing the american electorate has become and how corralled into channels it is;
Our freedoms curtailed more and more every year;
Technology piled on — which we all pay for — to track movement, surveillance over our words, extract every bit of wealth and TIME that we have, as if it has no value except to enrich and empower the 1%.
Apartment complexes and whole neighborhoods bought by private equity giants with reputations for algorithmic-price increases and fees.
Government and power companies giving tax and rate breaks to billionaires, at the expense of ordinary people.

When i was young, you might drive in your car across country, being free as a bird with no cares, park under the stars, say ‘it’s still a free country’ and be believed, and listen to rock and roll on varied radio stations, each with their own flavor. If anybody took your picture, it stayed in a photo album somewhere, a private memory of just a few people. I am sure we are one step away from a requirement to carry our phones so that surveillance and identification is constant. The government claims the right to inspect phones and social media upon entry to the country? It effectively stops many people from marrying someone of their own choosing, by erecting barriers to US residency to have a foreign spouse?

Yesterday, in old age, i spent hours trying to make sense of a thousand dollars of tolls across multiple states, charged to a family member, tolls that had been routed to private companies from each of multiple states. Toll roads were a GOP wet dream, to corral us like sheep, make sure that they can extract more money from the little people. My process was interrupted by annoying Captcha tests and websites that said you cannot enroll if-if-if, etc. etc., And an hour of parking was charged at $90. And systems kicking me out and having to start over. And paying the the knowledge that some of this might be scams or duplicates — one of the state websites said ‘if you’ve been charged by under the (xyz) state toll system for a toll already paid under an EZ pass system, call this number…’ Yeah, right. And getting 6 or 8 calls a day asking if i want to sell my house. And deleting 45 emails a day aided by the bastards of ‘Prestige Publishing’ — awful outfit that is a spam factory from multiple unrelated email addresses. And taxes that are too complicated, done on for-profit software because the GOP loves lobby money from the tax software company (which interrupts over and over to try to sell services, even after i pay $70 for their software).

They keep us running, to extract more blood from turnips. Everywhere they keep us running.

I feel angry at the public so easily swayed into giving up their dignity and freedom. Into letting them turn ‘the common good’ into a myth or a joke or a sign of communism.

Dystopian hell, or just a mundane rat cage with an exercise wheel…I really resent the theft of hours over nonsense. Advertisements in EVERY SQUARE INCH of American life. I recall a dearly loved 85 year old watching a TV program, and the sad fact that even at his age, his time had to be wasted by 25 minutes of inane advertising out of every hour.

Let life be precious.

[maxrandb]

17. The country has lost the plot

So many reasons why. Too many to mention, but here's some of my take:

- Social Media. All kinds of it, has given everyone's drunk uncle a platform to spew shit. People, like Joe Rogan, who you would never have confused as an intelligent, thoughtful, or serious human, has an audience of millions.

- Callousness: I saw this shit coming when Survivor came on the scene. A bunch of conniving, manipulative, lying, amoral people are "celebrated" and "rewarded" fir their "cunning". The spoils go to those that can best screw over others. I have never watched an episode, but please, tell me how the values of self-sacrifice, empathy, compassion and honor were "amplified" by this POS programming. Now, I just saw a promo for a new show called "Overboard", a "dating" show where the loser is literally made to walk the plank. One highlight shows a contestant crowing "the people who created this are twisted". What about the people that will watch it?

And, if I have to see one more fucking story about young men struggling with establishing meaningful relations, that is interrupted by a promo for The Bachelor, my head is going to explode.

Maybe entertain doesn't shape us. It reflects us.

[Mysterian]

19. Keep telling yourself that

If it helps with the fee-fees.