Something I’ve experienced traveling around the state is that there is a palpable fear of even letting your friends know you are a Democrat, or even in line with what Democratic politicians are doing. There’s vandalism that takes place here, and people are scared of that. Having your yard sign stolen or your flag taken down is one thing, but having your car keyed or trash left in your yard, that’s another. I know people who have been harassed after they are outed as a Democrat, and then people give them trouble. People hear those stories. They’re not fake. They’re not made up. I’ve seen and heard some really ugly language.
I’m not a Dem (I’m a Leftists), but this pretty much sums it up. The Right plays dirty. They aren’t bound by any sense of decency. I’d say the only way we can beat them is to respond with our own violence (which I, personally, detest). I don’t see us beating them because they don’t believe in rules of engagement. Sorry to be so demoralizing in this post.
I’ve actually been harassed and threatened with physical violence by family members who have looked up voter registrations of people they know so they can find out who their “enemies” are.
I have very little doubt that if Trump gets elected and establishes his dictatorship, I’ll been quickly gunned down by a family member after Trump legalizes “liberal hunts”.
They’ve been foaming at the mouth for a reason to execute Democrats with impunity for decades, and with Trump having a real chance at winning a second term it’s so close they can taste it.
Bruh you gotta go no contact or something and get a gun / self defense item. Toxic trash like that should be cast out of your life.
This was before the 2020 election and I haven’t had contact with most of my conservative family since before then, but they know my name and what city I live in so it’s trivial to look up my voter info.
And any liberal without a gun is a dead liberal.
They all have guns, and they will use them given the chance.
Literally had some Republican relatives at the last Christmas celebration I went to say that they couldn’t wait to get the order to hunt people like me (a queer lefty)
This was met at the gathering with laughs and cheers
I went no contact after that
Edit: this was back in 2018
Resorting to your own violence is exactly what the far right wants you to do. They love that. They will always be as horrible as they can possibly be about everything and then the second you sink to their level they will begin howling and screeching that they’re being treated unfairly. It’s exactly what Trump did and has done since he first ran for president. The only way to fight back is to call them on their bullshit and try to stay civil and work within the law. REMEMBER, THEY WANT YOU TO FIGHT DIRTY BECAUSE IT WILL ONLY GIVE THEM MORE POWER
This is not as solid advice as you think. History has shown the only time the status quo is rewritten is when the common people have banded together to hold their rulers accountable. Civility is only saved from villains under the watchful eye of a Nimean Lion. To throw away your anger is to be consumed by apathy.
I never said to “throw away your anger” I just mean that the right wants everyone else to sink to their level. There is a huge difference between defending yourself versus allowing someone to mold you into everything you claim to be against.
We must do more than just defend ourselves. The rot is too deep. We can’t defend against every Republican action perfectly; we must fight back to restore the balance, or more.
You’re just going to play into their game because violence and cheating is THEIR GAME. They’ve been doing it for so long that they’re pretty much always going to win when we go that route. There has to be a better solution somewhere between “doing nothing” and “mass violence and anarchy in the streets”
Maybe, why don’t you present one with supporting evidence of its efficacy?
Because from where I’m sitting the answer is definitely violence, it has always been violence, and it will always be violence. The only choice is whether that is structural violence being monopolized by the state, vigilantism by factional groups, or mass uprising by the proletariat.
No matter how you slice the pie, violence is a part of 100% of the social evolution of society. You will not be able to provide a single example to the contrary because it does not exist.
Because from where I’m sitting the answer is definitely violence, it has always been violence, and it will always be violence. The only choice is whether that is structural violence being monopolized by the state, vigilantism by factional groups, or mass uprising by the proletariat.
Congratulations, you sound just like the MAGA idiots in the January 6th insurrection
🥳
If they use the law to take power staying within the law is no longer the moral or necessary path.
But for the party of law and order, your violation of it is justification to continue to take more power and to be more militaristic.
They don’t care about justification
That would only serve to entrench them, unfortunately. Much like how WW1 did not prevent WW2, and WW2 did not prevent fascism from rearing its ugly head yet again in the modern world, you simply cannot destroy your enemy using death and destruction. All that does is create more of them into the future. Israel is learning this the hard way as we speak.
You must find another method. Any other method, because the one you propose is doomed to fail.
But appeasement doesn’t work and that can be seen repeatedly in history. Try everything you can but at the end of the day, if both sides aren’t trying for the same goal, it would be naive to not prepare for the alternative. Try for the best but prepare for the worst.
Cooperative self-defense is certainly important and valuable. Similarly, appeasement fails to establish reasonable boundaries and/or enforce them adequately, and imo is harmful and counter-productive.
That said, while Chamberlain was a little naive in how he presented things, he did buy time for Britain to militarize, which eventually helped win the Battle of Britain. I would argue that we have learned from history, which is why Europe is militarizing today and not trying to appease Putin, despite his best efforts at influencing western policies.
In the case of domestic politics, in the US at least, we outnumber the crazies by a massive margin, and any outbreak of wide-scale violence would see the gravy seals utterly crushed. This is why they resort to propaganda and terrorism and shy away from outright conflict. Since propaganda and terrorism are their current methods of choice, we would not be defending ourselves if we were to instigate any violence, we would become aggressors instead.
It’s a bit of a myth that the peaceful libs are weaklings that shy away from conflict, that’s actually a core message of far-right propaganda. We still occupy a position of great strength, and we need to keep that in mind as we play out the hand we’ve been dealt. If we can still win with the methods of Mr Rogers and mental health care, we have a responsibility to try very hard, and resist the fear that the far right tries so hard to instil.
All that said, I never have settled on my own personal opinion on the principle of always punch a Nazi. I’m very much on the fence on that one, and I think it comes down to how effectively boundaries have been communicated before enforcement begins, which will unfortunately vary case-to-case. But if a person wants to learn how to fight in preparation for the potential for future violence, I suppose I ultimately have nothing against that.
In the meantime though, we are very actively fighting an Information War. I think we should devote great resources to that, and feeling like we need to prepare for physical war, at the personal level, is still very premature, and will siphon attention and resources away from the actual battle in front of us at this very moment. This actually serves the purposes of the far right, since they are trying to win the Information War to prepare for more dire forms of conflict. It’s too soon to take any resources away from the battles of the ballot box, which are ultimately fought with words and technology instead of fists and weapons.
Unless you live in Ukraine anyway.
This is why I love this place. A very well-thought-out detailed response. I agree with you in most parts here but I do have, and I concede this could be irrational on my part, a fear of small-scale localized armed violence. It might not spread into something large but that doesn’t matter if you become the victim of it.
All that said, I never have settled on my own personal opinion on the principle of always punch a Nazi. I’m very much on the fence on that one, and I think it comes down to how effectively boundaries have been communicated before enforcement begins, which will unfortunately vary case-to-case.
I think the rhetoric/idea of “always punch a Nazi” was effective at putting societal pressure on keeping people from becoming “nazis” or at least suppressing outward expressions of hate (or at least hate we all agreed upon as being “bad”). You are right in that this is an information war but the problem with information wars is that people tend to defer to confirmation bias and actively seek out the answers that align with their existing ideology.
Also, the Irony isn’t lost on me that we are having this discussion on a site that leans very liberal so we do have our echo chambers as well.
It’s difficult out there for voters of both parties. Republicans can’t get anyone to match with them in DC on Tinder/Grinder and Democrats in some areas are dealing with being targeted for physical harassment and abuse.
Yea, I feel so bad for the republicans who can’t get dates because they are racist, homophobic, ignorant assholes. You are right, that’s directly equal to physical harassment and abuse.
I think he was being sarcastic… I hope he was being sarcastic
Seems like a spin on the old “men are afraid of being laughed at, women are afraid of being killed”
Republicans can’t get anyone to match with them in DC on Tinder/Grinder and Democrats in some areas are dealing with being targeted for physical harassment and abuse.
Why does that suspiciously match the description I’ve heard women tell me when they talk about the differences in dating challenges between men and women. As in:
Men have difficulty finding mates and fear rejection when going on a date. Women fear physical violence from their date.
Are republicans treating democrats like men are sometimes treating women?
I’m what people would call “far left” but only because I don’t think people should starve.
But I digress; I’m also gay and where I live, coming out would not be a good idea. I don’t know of anywhere within 5 States where I would feel safe to just exist.
That’s where we’ve allowed our country to go by allowing evangelicals to run roughshod unabated.
Used to work at a little pizza shop in a small town. We all got along pretty well (everyone hated the owner but that was about it) until the Trump, Biden election. One of our employees had Biden signs in her yard, which caused half the store to turn on her, violently.
I regularly heard grown ass men saying they should just shoot up her house (she has four fucking kids) or run her out of town (her father owned one of the biggest businesses in town). It was disgusting.
This was in Ohio btw.
Forgot the quote marks around “friends”.
Srs wtf If you want to live in russia, do that but everyone’s going to be part of one or more mafias, that’s how they do.
When it is impolite to discuss politics, the only voices in the conversation will be impolite.
We need to create an environment where it is OK to ask your neighbor what they think of the latest news, and have it be OK to disagree. That starts by having the conversations.
That’s why conservatives have become more violent over time. They know they are outnumbered, and they know their opinions are irrational. They cannot stand up to scrutiny, so they create an atmosphere of fear.
Don’t let them win. Ask the questions, and stand your ground.
There is no such thing as “creating an environment”. That is milquetoast loser liberal talk.
The “impolite” voices are louder because people cower and allow it. There is no other reason.
Unruly children are punished; not rewarded or passively tolerated.
The only reasonable response is greater violence and louder voices. There is no example anywhere in history of fascism going away because you were nice to them. Standing ypur ground is not enough.
How about the candidates themselves? What are some of the challenges facing Democratic candidates as they run in such a rural, Republican state?
In rural places, a candidate goes out on the campaign trail and they say that the first thing they have to do is distance themselves from the national party. Now, I don’t think they have to do that, but they feel like they have to do that. They say, “I’m not a Democrat like national Democrats.” So much news is nationalized, and there is so much news that is sensationalized. I think if you want to talk to people about local issues, that’s what you should focus on. It’s OK to bring the conversation back to the local issue. Local Wyoming officials are not going to solve the border crisis in Texas. People’s emotions run high on those hot-button issues, but when it comes right down to it, this local community does not come together on party lines. It comes together on what’s best for the community.
They need to replace this guy if that is what he really believes. He’s in denial.
You dont fight fire with fire, you fight it with water
Not always, it’s not uncommon practice in forest fires creates a “firebreak” in the treeline with a controlled burn, that controlled burn removes all the fuel preventing the fire from spreading beyond the firebreak.
Also, in certain types of oil well fires they will use explosives, there are powder fire extinguishers for small petroleum fires, and emulsifiers for grease fires, electronic fires will use CO2, and they used (certain places still do) to use Halon. Water isn’t always the best (or even desirable) for all types of fires.
Halon was invented to save expensive electronics in server rooms from water damage. It’s actually deadly to people if you’re trapped in a room with it.
I hate that these are our priorities.
Those spaces also have warning systems that go off when Halon flooding occurs, which when fighting fires from inside a structure you should have some form of SCBA as there are other chemicals and smoke that will put you down. So, unless you can put the fire out with a single extinguisher, don’t stay in the same room with an uncontrolled fire, close the door (isolate it) and retreat to safety.
Along those lines, the Soviet Union once put out a fire in a natural gas well with a nuclear weapon.
(This might be overkill for a grease fire though.)
You probably shouldn’t bring radioactive material into kitchens to begin with.
what is the “fire” in the context of political mis-information? Do we need to regulate Facebook and Shitter? Cut them off from being allowed to host any political information.
So… depoliticized zones at the borders of red and blue states?
Water of course being prosecution and jail time for undermining our democracy, right? Not just ignoring the problem?
I live in Wyoming (Jackson) and in this part of Wyoming and Idaho (Teton counties), there are a lot of openly leftist people.
I am not saying that the rest of the state(s) isn’t red, but I don’t think that Democrats should write the rest off.
Same for Kansas
The proper response is exponentially more robust response. Cowering never wins.
If you identify as an independent, I notice that they often get laughed at.
Kind of makes me wish there would’ve been more stronger opponents running that represent Independent party to show people that not everything has to be either red or blue. But, we’ve gone 171 years now without an Independent president so it’s hard to get the hopes up.
Third parties (in any form) under First Past the Post voting are actively harmful to the interests of the voters who support them.
The way to actually have viable third parties is to switch voting systems. The option that seems like the stand-out best for encouraging the growth of third parties is STAR
While this is an enormous leap forward from FPTP, it still seems like it would suffer from the same issues as STV. We need to both change the voting system, and move to some form of proportional representation, of which I tend to be a fan of Mixed Member Proportional.
I realise this thread is about the US and there are some structural differences, the over all message is the same. We need a move away from FPTP voting, and FPTP electoral systems.
There are issues with Mixed Member Proportional, but the biggest for the US is that it would require a full constitutional amendment.
Also, most implementations of MMP use some sort of Ordinal voting system as a base. This is less than ideal.
STAR is not an Ordinal system. STAR is a Cardinal system. There are also proportional versions of Score (the voting system that STAR is based on)
Anyway, for the US, changing the voting method is far easier than changing to a proportional system.
Fun fact for proportional systems, if you have a 5 member district, you need more than 80% of the population to actively vote against an incumbent to get rid of them.
I generally straight up tell people I don’t talk politics if they bring it up, and let them know they’ll be talking to themselves if they keep it up.
There is no point in listening to someone who wants to talk at you, not with you, and use you as a conversational whipping boy for whatever fucked up BS they’ve talked themselves into while they butwhatabout, JAQ, and move goalposts all over.
However, if someone is reasonable, even if they’re on a different political spectrum than I, I will unapologetically speak my beliefs and hopefully have a conversation. I never expect anything I say to change their minds.
An eye for an eye leaves the world blind.
Speak softly and carry a big stick.
In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king.
