Politesse
Lux Aeterna
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2018
- Messages
- 12,484
- Location
- Chochenyo Territory, US
- Gender
- nonbinary
- Basic Beliefs
- Jedi Wayseeker
I said nothing about moderates being Trumpists. People who support Trump and his politics are Trumpists. Moderates are playing a dangerous game when they urge patience and compromise with fascist politicians though, that I certainly do believe. Ultimately, his faction does not honor nor intend to honor any deal they make with their own moderate wing let alone the Democrats, and they make the offer - at all - with declining frequency. As the recent scrap over the House Speakership aptly demonstrates. The Republicans, be they radical or moderate or "classical liberal" or whatever they might be called did not freely choose their current House leadership. They were blackmailed, plain and simple, by parties that knew what they were doing and intended to do it.You know what the problem is, Poli? It's that you claim to hate Trumpism... but you simultaneously define anyone who isn't a true-blue-every-day-democrat as being a Trumpist. You seem incapable of separating the myriad of conservative and moderate positions in the world from your imagined frothing-at-the-mouth "trumpist". And then you wrap that up with your febrile fantasy of political jihadists wanting to literally kill people who disagree with them. It's nothing more than the rhetoric you wrap around your own brand of hate so that you feel righteously justified in treating other people with a truly disgusting level of disdain and contempt.So you think I'm overeducated, but also suppose that I have never heard of the concept of the "ivory tower"? Yes, I know it's a metaphor. A stupid metaphor. No, earning a Master's degree, and later living in the Bay area for a whopping four years, did not and indeed could not have erased my memories of growing up in the countryside, or my ability to empathize with those who have done likewise. I despise Trumpism because it harms those he promises to champion, not because I hate the people he's screwing over. That's like arguing that I must hate lions if I oppose lion hunting. Trump and his minions hate the rural poor more than anyone alive, if you measure hatred by impact rahter than rhetoric. Rightwing neo-fascism will not benefit a single farmer in all of food-producing North America, It just won't. It's a false promise, a lie knowingly and cynically told. And far less of the population even buys into that lie than the Republicans would have you believe. There are plenty of good people, wherever you go in this country. But the people screaming in the streets about how much better things would be if they were just allowed to line up their political enemies and let a Smith and Wesson sort the good from the bad aren't the good people. And believe it or not, I never believed that they were. Before I ever earned a degree in any subject. Before I ever stepped foot in the town where I live. I always rejected the rhetoric of hate and suspicion, and I always would have, no matter what profession I had landed in or what town I came to live in.
Look, you and I have had some interesting discussions over the years. And some interesting disagreements. But the one area where I really dislike interacting with you at all is when it comes to politics. Because you have repeatedly shown that you have zero compassion for "those people" and you tend to just ooze scorn and hate when you talk about "those people". And you're amazing quick to lump damned near anyone into the bucket of "those people" that you look down on so very, very obviously.
If it takes the sting out of it any, you're far from alone in that category. There's a reason that I have long tended to avoid most political discussions. It's because political ideologues are damned near zealots, and I just don't have the patience for that kind of hate.
Do you believe that Mike Johnson empathizes with, understands, and wishes well the rural folk of America, Emily? Because I sure as hell don't.