politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
I'll thank Donald for one thing: uniting severe cases of mental illness that impacts perception of reality and morality leading to greed and bigotry under one banner.
Edit: My apologies for speaking for your own personal struggles of mental illness. Perhaps I'm better off just saying assholes. But then I'll get people saying, "I'm an asshole but not associated with them."
I have a mental illness, don’t lump me in with these jerkoffs
The severity of illness that comes to mind surpasses that which you possess to such an extent it impacts your perception of reality and morality, but my apologies for casting you a part of this group.
I love your wording
What does mental illness have to do with supporting donald trump? Very little if you ask me. The two things are not mutually exclusive, not even a little bit.
I think Lennybird may have worded that in an unfortunate way, but there is a point, the MAGAt crap is designed to exploit mental illness and nurodivergence. The thought process it takes to believe the junk that comes from them is truly magical, and that level of mental gymnastics requires an amount of breakdown of skill or deep religious belief, and while that is not All mental illness I can see where someone on the outside could look into that camp and see only mentally ill people and just put together a very very bad and frankly hurtful phrase.
It's worded worse than "in an unfortunate way". The phrase used was "all the mental illness". If Lennybird wants to be less prejudice, they can rephrase it themself.
I agree, but have hope that with the olive branch education can begin, at that may bring understanding.
Right, and it seems lennybird has edited the comment. I still don't like it, but it's not as ick.
I agree again, but the attempt was good, and the recognition of wrong doing is even better. I am in a good mood today and am exhilarated to see people given the chance to grow.
I have to say on a different day I may have had a much different response to this. I guess such is mental illness and developmental disability.
I typically get so angry to see myself placed with the likes to trump and his crowd of pathetics.
Hey, can you read my thread with lennybird? I was in a good mood too. I was hoping to get them to clearly say they understood they (inadvertently) vilified mental illness and that it was wrong. I failed. thread
That is unfortunate, with a more clear picture, this looks more like someone that has chosen to allow mental health to be an excuse for poor behavior rather than a reason for it. I would argue this is equally as bad.
I do not argue mental health as an excuse, I have my struggles and set backs in that arena but it doesn't give me permission to be an awful person, I do think there is a vulnerable population that can be prayed upon due to a tendency toward credulity, or having been relentlessly bullied that now they want to find a group to belong to, and in that group they want to find some form of secret knowledge that the masses are not aware of, like a secret shadow government that is really in charge. So when they are proven right they can have a great I told you so moment they have wanted all their life.
So again I say looking in from the outside mental illness often looks the same and is poorly understood if it is understood at all even by those that live with us and care for us. From the tone that op seems to be taking they are starting to feel piled up on and is shutting down to just definsiveness. I suggest perhaps they need exposure to more people and the stigma of mental illness may be at play. I am sure many people in their life has a struggle or even a diagnosis, but it is not appropriate to talk about so they may never know.
Sorry for rambling, just really have a lot of thought on this, and rarely get to talk about it. Very much a fascinating subject.
That's cool; I'll just ramble at you awhile. : ) I really want to say some things that I didn't say in the thread.
To anyone reading this, there was a comment more or less assigning negative things to "all mental illness and bigots". The author edited the comment after push back, but I didn't think that was really sufficient. In this essay.... (not memeing, gere we go)
What I wanted: I don't have a copy of what was said. It's gone and I should be happy. BUT, I'm not. I want some acknowledgement that it is understood why that wording was awful and some assurance that attention will paid in the future. I'm basically describing an apology. It's not, apologies have an acceptance stage that I'm willing to skip. I do not think it's reasonable to hope all those with a mental illness accept the apology.
I did not explicitly ask for what I wanted. Honestly saying my piece and getting silence was expected.
What I got:
Ok, but you did not discuss it. You made a sweeping statement. It was worthless at best. Not a discussion. Why even say this to me.
The post continues by adding extraneous groups to the discussion. So now we have bigots, trumpers, the mentally ill, people exposed to lead, drug addicts, people with genetic conditions.
Now, I have no idea what to expect. I made a fuss about making sweeping statements about general groups, and now we have more people to vilify. I genuinely cannot tell if they simply not reading what I said, or are they listing people to line up against a wall? Only the author knows. I strongly suspected it's the former. I still do, but less so.
But I did get confirmation, that no, they do not see my point. They do not realize how easily they are vilifying those with mental illness. Here's what was said:
Is it wrong for a group to have a high concentration of people with mental disorders? I don't think so. In fact, do you know what group has quite a high percentage? Therapy groups. Are they evil? What is that quote saying about Republicans that can't logically similarly apply to therapy groups?
My Goal:
The real issue here that I did not realize how subtly I was referring to a rhetorical trick that was at the root of my complaint. It's very similar to the motte-and-bailey fallacy. Say a hate preacher wants to convince their flock that gays are evil. (I'm going to switch to saying "homosexuals" because that's how you are likely to hear this in the wild.) So instead, he just decries horrible acts of molesters. But the preacher never simply says "child molesters"; they sub in the phrase "homosexuals and child molesters". That way, the audience will connect them. They won't realize it, but their brain will wire a connection anyway.
This is the language I was fighting. My goal was to get this person to see that they were (unwittingly?) committing this rhetorical trick. I heard complaints that should be made of bigots instead made of "mental illness and bigots". Don't lump innocent motte in with a horrible bailey.
It is pretty likely that the author didn't read my post. It seems they picked words to respond to instead of any ideas. Like I wasn't really talking about guns or gay rights, but those words are kicked off the typing. The gun tangent was understandable, but I said nothing about homosexuality per se, and they say
Which again, true and ick. I tried to stick an implied parenthetical "or implicitly either" in there to kinda fix the ick, but what does it mean for something to be implicitly wrong? But I knew better than to bring this up. Not the fight to have.
The Conclusion:
I simply wanted them to avow or disavow the paraphased comment: "It is nice that I can now identify all mental illness and bigots". I expected them to see vilification now. And I think they did. In fact, they added some more calling them "people who proudly broadcast their own ignorance and lack of appeal to reason and moral standards".
So I guess that is where they are comfortable leaving it. I really think there is something about the mental illness label that makes them afraid of people. It's sad.
But who knows. They claim they "wrote very, very clearly: Trump supporters" when I asked what group they were talking about. Obviously, they didn't mean people with mental illness, but again, they did bring up bigots, trumpers, the mentally ill, people exposed to lead, drug addicts, people with genetic conditions. So writing isn't their strong suit. You did not "write" that. It was not clear. It was not very clear. And it surely wasn't very, very clear. But keep writing "very" in there. I might be fooled that it was clear eventually. Maybe they genuinely don't see my point. But I doubt it. There is clear resentment of the mentally ill.
I can see your point, and for my part understand your grievance, however I think you are asking too much and expect to much. This is a stranger on the Internet talking to a stranger on the Internet exactly like you and I. You have absolutely no reason to care about my opinion about this, and likely won't.
I want you to know I understand, I really do and I would have the same type of reaction on other days. For some reason my wound isn't so raw today. I hated seeing that statement it was painful, just like when someone in my family uses the r word at me. I don't know if maybe the fight in me has just started to die on this one.
I am autistic and homosexual with a list of mental health conditions that come from a lifetime of masking both of them plus trauma and som other shit, wanting dignity is exhausting, I don't know your situation but I am guessing you fully understand the stress of looking over your should for fear of the consequences of someone noticing something you can't turn off.
I hope you don't think I have been trying to argue, I am more just wanting someone to talk to, if I added to your frustrations I am sorry! Truly!
Lol, that's the best part. I'm not even mad. I'm just writing words for readers. I know that my expectations wouldn't be met. Of course not. "Expecting" was the wrong word to use. It was more hope.
I just saw a transgression (hopefully a micro one), and thought, "hey, I got time and feel like writing." I just looped you in because I thought it might benefit both of our headspaces. Hope I was right.
You were very right, if only because I needed the conversation, but honestly having such a slight difference of opinions and not letting it blow way out of proportion felt good too. I don't get to really talk often.
I gained a lot today, and out of anything I hope you got something, I take heart in knowing you were not realistically expecting a whole change from them. I hope a seed was planted and perhaps a heart was softened.
Thanks for the engagement today.
That's exactly your problem. You understood that they had no ill intentions, but you still had to spend time badgering them and going after them to prove a point.
You could have chosen to interpret their post in a way that didn't offend you, but you chose to get offended, and then you try to make them look like the asshole for not bending over backwards when you "hurt yourself in your confusion".
I'm pretty sure most people, as the user who responded to you could see, could understand the intent behind the words. Admittedly it was hyperbole and mental illness in itself shouldn't be mocked; however it's not necessarily a good sign that an ideology has a woeful concentration thereof. After all, it is an illness that can impact normalized behavior, which if that is the foundation that fuels a particular ideology.. We should be concerned.
Key to note I didn't say neurodivergent. And if you have a mental illness and aren't under the trump banner then that perhaps speaks more to the severity of those who are.
I'm happy you edited you comment. I think you can just leave mental illness out. Why bring it up without anyway to address it? When we talk about guns, mental health (with no policy action mentioned) gets brought up, and it's worthless. It's worse than worthless. It's a distraction.
I'm particularly glad you lost the phrase "all mental illness and bigots". It had a clear "homosexuals and pedophiles" ring to it when it falls on my ears. Thank you.
Despite editing my comment to reflect fair points, I do believe mental illness absolutely needs to be discussed more. There is clearly a crisis going on and there's an intersect of (but not limited to):
... And these people are being taken advantage of for an ulterior motive they do not understand. Whether I say all or not, the fact remains that there is a deeper issue of mental illness that resides within the Republican ranks. And why is this important to raise? It helps explain why it's so impossible to reach these people by logic or compassion. Anyone who's seen it first-hand in a hospital understands exactly what I'm saying here.
Even in the firearm debate, mental illness is a necessary talking-point that should help fuel change: Increased access to healthcare (Single-payer, therapy, etc.), and an explanation as to how people who perceive themselves to be the "good guys with the guns" can very radically shift to being anything but.
That being said, I am going to come down hard on any Trump supporter. There is no excuse; no justification to continue supporting Trump or even the broader Republican party at this point without singling one's self out as being a combination of deeply bigoted, ignorant, or selfish.
Ok, I'm trying to give you benefit of the doubt here, but you're really digging in your heels here.
Then you should* have done that. Your comment "well I'm glad we can see all the mental illness and bigots together" (paraphased since I can't access the original) is simply bigoted. It is not a discussion of mental illness or mental illness policy. It's worthless and hurtful. After posting such trash, trying to have a thoughtful conversation after being called out is disingenuous.
Edit: I missed a word, but while I'm here, I'll add:
^This is exactly why there is push back. Paired with the original comment, this sounds like "I'm going to come down hard on any Trump supporter, the bigots, all mental illness havers, there is no excuse." It sounds just like the hate preachers deliberately tacking "and homosexuals" to any phrase that includes pedophiles.
I'm hearing a lot of words from you, but besides the fact you changed your wording, you seem to show little remorse for your actions. I don't understand. I don't think you're a troll. So either defend the phrase "all mental illness and bigots" or apologize for it. I don't want to discuss mental health with you.
It's simply a frustration of hitting one's head against the wall with a group that is causing widespread damage to society and who heeds no appeal to reason or morality. Call it for lack of better words. I've edited my comment and adjusted my words to better reflect my position and be more respectful to lumping all with mental illness in with such a group, but with that I absolutely will dig my heels in here until better reason is presented. Frankly, I think you are the one who is making uncalled accusations and outlandish claims now.
Edit: To your edit:
There is nothing explicitly wrong with being homoexual. And while there is something explicitly wrong with being a pedophile, the flaw in that is that there is an accusation of being a pedophile that is the problem -- we don't have that issue here since this entire discussion is about Trump supporters proudly announcing their identity and immorality. That is the difference.
What group is that? All mental illness havers? You must take back your words before I take you seriously. I edited my previous comment while you were replying to it.
I don't know what claim I am making besides you said that you are happy that you can now easily identify "all mental illness and bigots". If that claim is outlandish, please say so. Did you not say that? Is there an apology I missed?
As I wrote very, very clearly: Trump supporters.
That you believe it's a problem that I am able to identify and avoid people who proudly broadcast their own ignorance and lack of appeal to reason and moral standards is somehow a bad thing -- you'll have to make a very compelling counterargument.
Ok, there it is. I misjudged you. Sorry. It seems that you are in fact an asshole.
I didn't think you would go there. I thought you saw what you were doing. I don't know now. I'm done.
Okay. Have a nice day.
I don't know their point better than they do, guess they were just a little uninformed (or drunk like I happen to be, when making a snarky remarks not really knowing stuff).
I do find they don't exactly exploit mental illnesses, disorders, but their marketing campaign, akin to gambling ads, is made to leech on the liabilities we all have, some worse than others. I mean e.g. I don't think many persons on the spectrum are pro-trump that such wording implies.
But firing lying rants one after another to overwhelm and overwrite old info (adhd), playing into magical thinking and random connections (schizophenia), into baseless mix of pride and self-loathe, power and fear (narcissism), they kinda use these traits which are actually common in us. They just get classified as a disorder when it's so strong you can't handle it (in doc's opinion). There's no clean cut between being well and ill, really, even if it's a cold brain chemistry alone. Yet, I would like to put really struggling people into another box.
And these tactics were used before we even started to discover these problems and treat them. Even now, I guess, most people who were there for Jan 6 can't be classified as mentally unwell. Most nazi maneaters were completely rational opportunist and acted along their social norms, making it kind of healthier than not being a nazi, as it's judged by the commoner's thoughts.
They are mostly completely healthy people. And I think OP's just didn't care much saying that. That's kinda usual too, but tone-deaf, since I guess Lemmy have more diagnozed or just aware people than the general population - for being in that niche means they have more resources and time to educate themselves about such topics. Maybe it was worth the upvotes tho.
the venn diagram of those with a mental illness and people who support trump is just a circle containing a smaller circle.
That sort of argument only works if you define being fascist as a form of mental illness. But that's not true: being evil is not the same thing as being mentally ill. Specifically, evil people are culpable and deserve punishment in a way that mentally ill people are not and do not.
Fascists deserve to be ostracized, imprisoned, or executed (depending on how heinously they behave), not treated for mental illness.
That depends entirely on how you define evil: Are you using biblical evil? That is unscientific. Are you using "Evil" in the sense of psychopathy, scoiopathy, and a range of mental disorders that makes them deviant to mainline society? Then I believe most cases of evil can be summed up as such: a predisposition to doing something perceived by most as wrong in lieu of a mixture of nature & nurture and its impact on the physiological and mental state of the brain.
We've seen evil acts committed by shooters who after autopsy have large brain tumors impacting their state of mind. We've seen evil acts commited by people under the influence of strong drugs. We've seen evil committed by people who themselves were abused as children (survivorship bias fallacy aside).
After all, we can identify parts of the brain that deal with behavioral inhibitions; we can identify other areas of the brain associated with empathy.
I do believe that if we looked at evil as a predominantly mental disorder we'd probably be able to identify and address "evil" before it becomes enabled and acts.
People aren't born fascist. There is no such thing is biblical evil. There exists simply broken minds.
Wouldn't mutually exclusive mean that no one with a mental illness supports Trump?
I think they probably meant "mutually inclusive."
The real tragedy is knowing some of the kindest and most educated people I've met are still willing to vote for this monster. I can't tell if they have some ulterior motives or they're just willing to play dumb over loving a dictator because they believe in some fantasy that Trump's not a bad person deep down.
Very true. We've all witnessed this. I've thought about this a good bit, especially coming from a former Republican household decades ago.
1/3 are people who who may be educated or hard workers but are duped easily by propaganda because they're short on free time or not educated specifically in how to critically-think and analyze sources. They get home from a hard day's work and flip on fox news because they were roped in by sports and now stay for the pretty news anchors or the angry men telling them their paychecks are being stolen etc etc. Some of these people may be reachable if you could sit down with them for hours and hours at a time and lay it all out.
1/3 are the greedy socio/psychopaths who are aware enough to know the game being played and move the pieces accordingly to grift the gullible. (Bannon comes to mind)
1/3 are the world-burner outcasts who don't care or are simply too stupid to understand the long-term consequences of their actions. (Typical 4channers or Trump rally groupies).
The documentary, The Brainwashing of my Dad delves into this: How can kind, smart people be duped into this?
This group concerns me. I saw them in 2016 saying that they were voting for Trump in the hopes that the chaos he brought would change the system. Maybe you could have been fooled once into thinking this, but one would think seeing the result would make people realize that Trump's chaos wouldn't bring positive change.
Unfortunately, I'm now seeing people saying they'll vote for Trump in 2024 in order to somehow change the Democratic party. A vote for Trump won't change the Democratic party to make them better, though.
If Trump gets elected, he'll target the heads of the Democratic party and imprison them. He might allow the Democrats to continue to exist as an "other" to blame all bad things on. (Why did the economy just crash? It's those Democrats again!) But Trump won't allow the Democratic party to be an actual threat to his power, though.
It will be like opposition parties in Russia. They exist, but if they gain any traction, their leaders are suddenly arrested or have "accidents."
Voting for Trump in 2024 won't mean you get better options from the Democrats in 2028. It would mean you don't get any options but Vote Trump Again or Prison.
Well said. I've seen the same. Here's my hope that diminishing returns means Trump's rhetoric is losing its power. Here's hoping that at least this election will be run from the perspective of Trump NOT being in the White House to try to influence the outcome . Now we know the game being played. Now we have investigators watching.
And here's the thing: Those who are Trump supporters are and have always been. The cult is saturated while at the same time boomers continue to die off and a new generation is taking over. With Taylor Swift's push to turn out voter registration for the youth and the good signs coming out of the last midterm no less, I feel eerily-confident we should be able to avert fascism. Especially if economic trends persist (not saying economy is perfect in reality, but by all metrics that Republicans typically hit Obama or Biden on).
That’s far too broad of a brush to paint with. Don’t do that.
Also, that sword has two edges: the Nazis aren’t afraid of the rest of us anymore because they’ve realized there’s actually a decent number of latent Nazis around the country, and now they’re coordinating with each other, and that’s a problem.
The mistake is an understandable one, this man and his minions are greatly and rightfully hated. Many of us have grown up with mental illness as a boogieman myself included and still regularly hear it bandied around as an adjictive. You heard from many, correct as you saw fit and apologized. That took courage and wisdom. Thank you.