As it always is with real people, he’s a mostly really nice guy. His son is good friends with my kid. He drives a bus, good union guy. His wife is a delight. He utterly adores his kids (which I was trying to point out to him).
Unfortunately, he has also fallen down the conspiracy rabbit hole such that I can’t talk to him for more than a few minutes at a time.
Huh, must be a lot of fake people on the right, then.
I’m glad he’s mostly a nice guy to your family and his own, but that makes it all the more striking that he thinks kindness is some liberal conspiracy. Was he teasing when he asked you about the shirt, or genuinely upset? How did he express his anger? I’ve been fortunate not to have any conspiracy theorists directly involved in my life, but it makes it hard to imagine what it’s like to have a conversation with one.
We live in a small town, which means you make friends and acquaintances with a diverse group. It helps to avoid echo chambers, at least if the town is fairly diverse.
He was mad that i pointed out the absurdity of being offended by the phrase ‘be kind’. The joke is that the shirt is in all caps (BE KIND), which makes it the imperative.
This is one of the reasons I make a distinction between “college educated” and “college credentialed”. The latter does not necessarily imply the former.
Here we go again with this BS. Whether it’s the implorations of NYT “Nazi next door” articles or the calls for Rogerian non-judgemental listening or “Non-Violent Communication”, we are in fact under no obligation to give fascists, white supremacists, flat-Earthers, creationists, anti-vaxxers, or anyone else vomiting up long-discredited positions any respect. There is no common ground to be found with fascists, especially when they’re actively trying to consolidate political power in order to persecute and eliminate their enemies. Mockery and shaming are effective ways to make sure these fascist idiots keep their mouths shut.
Way to gloss over the fact that those values and the community consensus are objectively rotten from the point of view of anyone who actually tries to show respect to others regardless of their gender, sexual orientation, skin colour, ethnic background, national origin, etc.
I’m sure many people in Germany in the 1930s cherished the community consensus at the time too. How uncivil of others, especially those over-educated liberals, to criticise them! /s
Most MAGA voters are middle-class white exurbanites with post-secondary credentials who aren’t suffering from “economic anxiety”. The common factor amongst them is that they live in areas where the march of demographics toward a majority-minority nation means that they’re fearful of losing skin privilege – not something that’s owed my empathy.
Victim-blaming is not acceptable on this site.
[ETA: if your reply contains a variation of the term “I seem to have touched a nerve here” or references your own “unpopular” opinion, we’ll all see the smirk behind it.]
Those are the people who exploit the ignorant. Many of them don’t believe the message they profit from.
And?
“I’m only in it for the money” is on par with “I was just following orders”.
Anyone who enables fascists is - surprise! - another fascist.
People need to take responsibility for their own beliefs. If they’re being persuaded that POC, feminists, and the LGBQT+ community are “out to get them” then, that’s on them - they made their choice to be hateful.
I’m sick of coddling assholes who don’t give a shit about other human beings and their rights.
I didn’t suggest coddling anyone. The post is about people who are educated being less likely to fall for Trump’s obvious BS. Many people involved within his administration and many of his supporters in the Media don’t believe the BS they are selling. They’re still scum for profiting from exploiting the anger of the disenfranchised.
I don’t think there will ever be any hope of acheiving what you want until they stop their insistant belief that I am a groomer. We’re at the blood libel stage of their bigotry, they are a very real danger. I wake up every day thankful that the purging hasn’t started yet and go to bed hoping that it won’t start. That isn’t on me to fix, I doubt that I could (and believe me, If I could then I would, it would be all that I did until it happened).
So long as the reaction of racist grandpas to the revelation that they can not control their descendants as much as they like is to call for murder and genocide in this country, and to support a dictatorship to achieve it… well let’s just say that attitude doesn’t bode well for compromise. There’s really only a couple non-violent solutions to that I guess so you either put up with it or leave and that’s a personal decision that’s going to be different for everyone.
In their respective fields yes they do. This is not an opinion it is an actual fact. Experts in chemical engineering know more than I do about chemical engineering. My opinion about chemical engineering is unimportant beyond the most basic environmental arguments or ballot initiatives which I would try to inform myself about by reading things chemical engineers and environmentalists write. I acknowledge that this is challenging in an information environment flooded with noise and disinformation, and it requires a small amount of trust and humility. Sill…This is not myopic or irrational.
I’ll also add to the chorus of voices who would like to remind everyone that bigoted racist educated people exist and some of them even consider themselves “liberal” primarily because it signals that they’re not like those dirty poor conservatives and are largely able to do so simply because their privilege bubble won’t be affected anyway.
This is life, comrades!
Which, AGAIN, ignores the fact that plenty of his supports and especially his elite, major backers ARE highly educated at elite institutions. Fascism isn’t a byproduct of ignorance or lack of knowledge, it’s a problem of ideology. They KNOW precisely what he is selling and that’s WHAT THEY WANT.
That’s been in wide usage here at least for years now… I don’t know if it’s in other parts of the interwebz, but it fits…
Relevant, reposting:
…
Wooly liberals, they’re not. Redneck Revolt is a nationwide organization of armed political activists from rural, working-class backgrounds who strive to reclaim the term “redneck” and promote active anti-racism. It is not an exclusively white group, though it does take a special interest in the particular travails of the white poor. The organization’s principles are distinctly left-wing: against white supremacy, against capitalism and the nation-state, in support of the marginalized.
…
NB: my posting of this does not constitute an endorsement.
I live in Texas.
I see and have seen what an armed society–a gun culture–does to people.
I do not love guns.
Somehow I’m reminded of the Turners, who I didn’t know about until recently.
I did clarify, in the unedited original comment that echo’s the article.
‘it’s not hard to see why, in general, those who go to college and learn something see through the hate’
Sadly, although medievalism is nowhere near as bad as tech, it is not free from individual mysogynists, randites, trumpers, etc.
However, in medievalist groups that do sport combat, you have the opportunity to beat those people up.
Sigh. There are entire split-off organisations founded on the complaint that you got your woke in our Middle Ages! We want our pure pristine Middle Ages back where there were no black people or gay people or religions other than Christianity or that crawling horror we think is what Norse Paganism was.
They are, of course, toxic dumpster fires from their founding, because they were founded by people who were kicked out of the original org for being toxic.
Like the Puritans.
