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Doesn't do them any justice to call them gullible. Majority of people on both sides are gullible. The main thing I'm trying to say is these people historically were blue. They weren't red. But what happens when you see your town falling apart, drug epidemic, all the jobs leave, crime increases, all the young people start moving away, you have trouble paying bills, hard to get groceries, etc
In your perspective, you're witnessing the disintegration of America.
Then you have someone who addresses you directly and gives you a reason why (immigrants, "marxists", china, etc) and sells you on symbolic solutions (the "Wall" tm)
You can't just chalk this all up to gullibility.
If people were having happy stable lives where their needs were being met financially and emotionally, they wouldn't vote for these proto-fascists. This is the key issue we need to address. This hostile attitude towards half the country will only further serve the interests of the fascists - by helping them justify a lot of their talk about "witch hunts" and "hoaxes" etc
How do you know that? What are you basing that off of?
I mean, I have an example of what you're talking about but its the only thing I can think of where I'm like, yeah I know for sure that was the case. And only feel comfortable saying that because there is recorded evidence of someone stating that they use to be a democratic, and then switched to vote for Bush who ran as a republican.
And as for the alt right stuff - I only feel comfortable saying what I said about that because I spent several years of my early 20's being really misguided and I was knee deep in that shit.
Trump talked about running for president since like the 90's so that was already out there as information. The alt right groups were looking for a "new hitler" as they put it and eventually pushed for Trump. They did this through social engineering. Over the course of several years.
People laugh when I talk about this but it is a real thing that happened.
It's been disintegrating for awhile now.
I'm not. Both things are at play here.
Again. How do you meet the needs of people who are filled with hatred? I'm genuinely asking since you keep bringing this up.
It's a well known thing. Was a huge part of the discussion around the 2016 election.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_wall_(U.S._politics)
I'm not making anecdotal observations here, we're talking about how a historically blue region went red. And the reason why.
Of course I remember the "meme faith" thing that was happening in 2016 and it seemed like it really worked. All those alt right pepe memes infesting everything and they picked Trump as the focus
But that alone isn't enough to secure someone an electoral win. What Trump did was unprecedented. An outsider essentially took over the GOP - we witnessed a coup and the Republicans are still trying to fight him to this day. Look at how he refused to go to the RNC debate.
I live in a liberal and wealthy area of a red state. I make good money, live comfortably, and have a diverse community of people available to me. All sorts of recreation, social events, etc.
Majority of the population of the country lives in areas similar to mine - urbanized and by the coast. These areas also tend to be overwhelmingly blue.
The country is disintegrating, but we aren't feeling it like they are. It isn't comparable. When things fall apart, the outskirts and edges get left out to dry first. Sort of like when you are in a very cold area your body will stop pumping blood to your extremities to maintain more blood around your vital organs - prioritizing the most important parts of the body.
Economic reforms. Large investments in infrastructure. A real Green New Deal - trillions of dollars spent building all sorts of modern infrastructure would require lots of labor. Build high speed rail all over America. Start programs that give companies incentive to return manufacturing jobs to the US.
These people used to live good lives when GM and Ford produced cars in the US. Now they outsourced everything to Mexico. Bring them back and people will start working again.
Raise minimum wage, introduce universal healthcare - or at least control the ridiculous prices. Debt relief programs. Subsidize mortgages and rent.
We need broad economic reforms. The hatred is because of the insecurity. If we get rid of the insecurity, we get rid of the hatred. Seriously, it's not a coincidence fascism came about right after the Great Depression. During this time period, we had fascist marches in NYC with tens of thousands of attendees.
We need to fix the economic problems by providing for our citizens. If we do this, we will eliminate the fear they hold. Without fear the fascists have no power.
Oh I'm talking about waay waaaay before 2016. I'm talking 2008. They were looking for a new hitler.
I can't agree because there is evidence of Trump talking about running for office since the 90's. We should have seen this coming but any time it was talked about, it was laughed off and ignored.
I live in a liberal area of a blue state. I make okay money and live kind of comfortable but not really and I miss out on a lot of things due to racism and having to combat culture wars because of who I am as a person.
So I'm feeling the disintegration. I get the brunt of it dealt to me first hand. People fucking hate me because I am who I am.
That being said -
I agree with this. I agree with raising minimum wage and universal healthcare - I'm even for universal basic income. I agree with a lot of what you are saying and I think it would help a lot of people.
I get that too. It's history and you can't argue against it.
But I'm telling you about a current enemy and its one I know very well - in my early 20s you could easily have lumped me in with that same group of people. I'm not anymore but I definitely was.
And even when I was growing as a person and slowly removing those ideologies on my own from myself.. I still interacted with people who are never going to stop being that way.
I don't think its all insecurity. I think some of it is just as simple as pure hatred. I'm telling you. They get off it. I don't know how anyone would change their mind when they totally want someone to go out of their way to try and change their mind. They want someone like you to try and get rid of their insecurity so they can laugh at the fact that you tried.
How do you change someone like that? How do you help someone like that?
The only reason I changed is cause I chose to do that on my own.