• jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works
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        2 years ago

        My personal experience essentially echoes what you’ve said. I’ve usually found that when I actually ask Trump supporters, which is probably most of the people I know, what they think and why, they are pretty candid about it. They will also voice frustrations, many of which I can understand or even agree with them on. There is a lot more common ground there than you might think.

        The problem is that most of the issues are complex and nuanced. Not that surprising. Issues that impact the population of an entire country, or even a sizeable chunk of it, are bound to be pretty complex. Here’s where things go off the rails.

        Kind of like you said, Joe Blow from Louisiana is often uneducated at best or a complete moron at worst. Joe Blow does not understand all the complexity surrounding the issues he’s upset about and figures that if he doesn’t understand it, neither does anyone else. He’s also a little too proud to admit he doesn’t understand it.

        This is why Republican party completely abandoned an issues bases platform, aside from completely fabricated pearl clutching social issues like those scary tRaNs PeOpLe or AboRtIoN. They know full well that they have nothing when it comes to meaningful solutions to actual problems and if they did, the few supporters they have with functioning brain cells would start to ask to many pesky questions. A divide and conquer strategy is much simpler and more effective; albeit incredibly destructive.

      • RunawayFixer@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        This is also something that many people outside of the USA don’t understand: 49% of the americans are not voting for the Trump/republican shit show that they see in their foreign media, but rather for a heavily editorialized image of the person and party.

        • irreticent@lemmy.world
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          2 years ago

          49% of the americans

          More accurately, 49% of voters. Out of all of the eligible voters in the 2020 election only 66% actually voted. And, that election had the highest turnout in over a century.

          So when trying to calculate how many eligible voters voted for Trump in 2020 you’ll have to take the statistics above into consideration.

          49% of 66% is 32% if my math is correct. 32% of eligible voters voted for Trump.

          Sorry for being pedantic but it annoys me when people say that half of America supports Trump when it’s just not true.

            • obviouspornalt@lemmynsfw.com
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              2 years ago

              Well you should subtract out the kids. I’m not going to get irritated about someone under the age of 18 not voting. That’s why it should be eligible voters, not Americans.

            • irreticent@lemmy.world
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              2 years ago

              33%, but yeah. Both are true.

              66% of eligible are voting, 33% of eligible are not voting. Of the 66% that did vote, half of those (I used 49%) voted for Trump. Half of the 66% is 33%.

              So, of the eligible voters, 33% voted Biden, 33% voted Trump, and 33% didn’t vote.

              Or, if you want math:

              .66 * .49 = .32 or 32%

              Edit: I misunderstood the question and gave an off-topic answer. Someone else commented the correct reason: not all Americans are eligible to vote. Children, felons in certain States, etc. Since they didn’t/can’t vote they’re not counted in the “half of America” statistic often quoted.

              Half of eligible voters voted for trump, which is about 32% of America in 2020.

      • willington@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 years ago

        Forget empathy. Trumperinas do NOT vote their own interests.

        MAGAGAs (make america great and glorious again) are poor and oppressed but vote to lower the taxes on the billionaires and to raise them on themselves, vote to take away public services from themselves, vote to remove the remaining 2 regulations on the megacorps, banks, and big landlords that oppress them.

        In a world that made sense everyone in favor of deregulation should be forced to ride Boeing, and leave us, the sane folks, alone.

        They got convinced that the interests of the billionaire class align with their own. That’s stupidity. You can’t fix stupid with empathy.

        I don’t want empathetic people. I want people to rep their actual material interests, cogently and sincerely.

        Right now we have people voting for the “leopards eating faces” party get surprised when their faces get eaten, because the morons wanted to believe they were the leopards too.

        Servative trash. No mercy for the servatives. And I am tired of all the moralizing language. Kumba fucking ya. Horseshit. We ain’t gonna hug and kiss this shit all better. Morality is a fairy tale and we cannot base a world worth living in on a lie. Morality is a lie on the scale of religion. Morality is what causes people to self-restrict and self-censor. Morality is what prevents the guillotines.

        If morality were against the status quo and against the interests of the billionaires, it would have been outlawed!

        We all need to rep our material interests. Even one billionaire is a policy failure.

    • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      Is it immoral to harm them? Yes, its bad to harm anyone.

      Do I give the slightest fuck about them being victims? Hell no.

      Why?

      Because, to be short about it, my give a fuck is reserved for innocent people. Not for hateful bigots, terrorists, and enemies of the state who want to overthrow our democratic way of life in favor of having a rotten jackolantern as a mentally declining god emperor.

      Watching them get fucked in the way they’ve tried to fuck everyone else give me the same delight as watching gas station robbers be met with a shotgun from the clerk and earn an emergency trip to the surgical suite via the ER.

      I dont wish it on them, but I will take delight in it.

    • RageAgainstTheRich@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      Its hard because people can use that as an excuse to harm people they pretend is harming them.

      But in this case i just couldn’t care less. Drain them for every penny they’ve got. Hold them upside down and beat them like a piñata.

    • iegod@lemm.ee
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      2 years ago

      This is ‘the ends justifies the means’ line of thinking. Very unethical. But it can also be very cathartic.

    • flerp@lemm.ee
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      2 years ago

      They’re probably the same demographic in some ways in that they’re right wing and Trump supporters, they’re just in the upper echelon of the grifters not the grifted.

    • kingthrillgore@lemmy.ml
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      2 years ago

      A different kind of person is telling you to spare your empathy. Its the same strategy those in the MAGA camp are pulling.

    • undergroundoverground@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      I get the feeling, I really do. However, I can’t think of many things that would radicalise someone more than losing all their money or being buried under a pile of debt. Being these sorts of types, they’ll only go one way. On reflection, I’m sure you recognise the very specific and historically recognisable tinder box.

      I mean, it still might not be immoral. They can all get fucked. Just, maybe not in that specific way is all im saying.