If I find out you voted for Trump in 2016, I will judge you but I could forgive you.
If I find out you voted for Trump in 2020, I will judge you and will have a hard time forgiving you.
If I find out you voted for Trump in 2024, you’re dead to me. Friend, family, doesn’t matter.
I wish I could say the same but I can’t bring myself to cut my dad out of my life. Yesterday ended our 2 year streak of talking every day.
He learned years ago not to bring up politics with me because he knows I will destroy all of his arguments and bring receipts. He’s let a comment or two slip at a family gathering but he knows my phone’s coming out of I’m within earshot… No, dad, he was definitely friends with Epstein - here’s a quote saying so from the 90s.
I’ve thought a lot about bringing it up or at the very least what my response would be if he does. I want to tell him that he has 20 years left at best but I have to live in the world he voted for a lot longer. I want to tell him that I think my sister would be right to never speak to him again. I want to tell him that she may be young, but in 15 years my niece is going to rightfully resent him for what he supported.
But what I think I’m going to actually tell him is that he fucked up so bad that I HAVE to assume he truly does not understand the implications of this if I ever want to be able to look him in the eye again.
And every single time Trump does something shitty as president, I will be texting him what it was and why it’s bad whether he likes it or not.
My father and I became estranged about a decade before he passed, for reasons other than but similar to politics. Our world views just did not align and in ways that I could not ultimately forgive. We did not really ever reconcile before his passing and I don’t regret it to this day. I don’t believe in unconditional love and he did not earn mine, imho. I am estranged with most of my extended family for similar reasons. I’m not really willing to compromise certain morals.
This might sound bad but I wish I had a similar level of resolve. I tolerate far too much insanity from people in my family.
I’m cutting them out completely. I can’t stand people who sit back and do nothing or support fascism.
This will be the first year in almost 20 years that I simply don’t visit the family for christmas, with the exception of the pandemic.
From now on, if you’re a trump supporter or you “sat this one out”, I’m not wasting any effort on you, continue sitting this one out.
That’s fine. I have no contact with his entire side of the family except one cousin for that very reason, but my dad isn’t like them. I don’t think he understands that he votes R because his family has always voted R. His vote is really the only thing I dislike about him.
The good fight. Keeping majority voters accountable for the choices they impose on everyone else is as much a part of democracy as anything else, especially with candidates who actually deliver on the promises they make during elections.
God speed. I hope you can be reunited with your family again.
My dad died young. He was only 52. I like to think he wouldn’t have been brainwashed by the qult, but honestly who knows? He was running in circles that are now full of trump clowns. He ran a construction company and was a registered Republican, but gave up on them after W and voted for Obama twice. I wonder how he would have reacted to this shit. I like to think he’d have been logical and stayed on the Dems side, but I always wonder if he’d have gone to the dark side. There’s a real chance I wouldn’t be talking to him right now if he did. I’m glad I never had to deal with it because I was very close to him. I feel for you OP.
I am fortunate that there is no real family divide for me. I do have a few relatives who voted Trump, but I am not close to them.
Given that the rest of the family has cut them out (it was already underway, but this was the last straw), it’s really nothing for me to do so as well.
I did in 2016. I was younger and angry at the world. That judgment is deserved. By 2020 I realized that I had made a terrible mistake and was sure not to repeat it. It’s good to read that you can at least understand the perspective of how someone could have at that time.
Some people never learn. This would appear to be the case for most Americans.
I think issues are too complicated for uneducated voters to understand when lectured to. People can learn, but many often only in hindsight when they experience something first hand. The educated/uneducated divide sheds light on this so obviously. Which is why it is so frustrating. Not suggesting being educated makes people smarter, but I think people who pursue education are more accepting of lecture. Obviously.
Democrats have to stop and realize this. It’s why there is no debate to be had with many Republicans. They don’t think about issues through rational extrapolation and curiosity. Everything is an emotional response to the now. They are just wired that way.
I talked with my wife about this a few days ago. Education and economic issues have a huge influence on this.
If you have issues with the huge complexity of the world around you (because of functional illiteracy) or cannot spend some time to form your own opinions (because of economical insecurity and long hours, kids make it even harder), you don’t have the capacity to engage with messsages more complex than “immigrants bad” or “Eggs expensive” - stuff that you process emotionally, not intellectually.
I think that’s what made Obama’s campaign so powerful - everything boiled down to the simple one word message “Change”.
What made you change your mind?
This may not be a satisfying answer, but I went through some hard times between 2016 and 2020 and gained more compassion for how close any of us are to destitution. It became really difficult for me to be as selfish after those years because, well, I appreciated that happens to good people and we don’t have a social safety net.
Experience showed me you can make the right choices and still get fucked. I just wish there was a way to teach that lesson that’s a little less uh painful.
That’s something I think about a lot. These people need to be humbled, big time. I don’t wish them all the bad there is in the world, I don’t want them to suffer and die. But I want that fucking selfish arrogance and the entitlement slapped out of them. Experience their fragility.
That’s fair…
I just feel like after a public rapist becomes president, twice, there’s no hope for Americans. It really is hopeless by now.
child rapist, Kate was 12
The DOJ had four years to prosecute him under Biden and they dragged their heels.
The Southern District of New York had ample reason and opportunity to prosecute him as a mobbed to businessman in the '00s and '10s, but he was friends with the mayor so they didn’t.
The Clintons certainly knew about Epstein in the 90s and could have busted that whole thing up 30 years ago. But the donations were too sweet, so they didn’t.
Trump is a creature of consequences.
But also much like most consequences at scale, those that pay the most of the price are not those who brought the consequences on
agree, no argument, just clarifying.
Think about it this way, if you disqualified politicians who engaged in some kind of sexual assault there would not be many left to govern.
It is accepted and now normalized. If you are rich you can rape and do whatever you want.
The problem for me is I grew up in a country that I thought was beyond that. I was apparently wrong.
there would not be many left to govern
Good. There is not that many positions to fill anyway.
It’s not normal that a criminal record that would make it almost impossible to find an entry-level grocery packer job is completely OK for a politician.
a criminal record that would make it almost impossible to find an entry-level grocery packer job is completely OK for a
politicianfucking president of a huge country
If you are rich you can rape and do whatever you want.
This is why I hate capitalism so much. Extreme power disparity is the heart of tyranny and the extreme disparities in wealth that capitalism creates only leads to extreme disparities in political power.
I fear that the US went past a breaking point and that the US will fully be an oligarchy after Trump is done
Oligarchy if we’re lucky…
I refuse to think about it that way lol. Quantity does not equal acceptance for me. We have to hold our countries’ representatives to a higher standard than being outright criminals, guilty of many, serious offenses. If there are only a handful of politicians left after such a sift, then so be it.
Thank God I’m not in the USA. But it’s not like this doesn’t fuck over the rest of the world too.
There would absolutely be men who would qualify, as well as a lot of women. Why do you think everyone is sexually assaulting everyone else? Let’s not allow violent criminals (which rape is both violent and a crime, it is torture via sexual acts) to be in office. At a minimum.
The GOP has normalized this shit, sadly. That’s why.
if you disqualified politicians who engaged in some kind of sexual assault there would not be many left to govern.
I’ve heard arguments to the effect that politicians who are too clean simply don’t succeed, because people don’t want to give you big campaign checks unless they have Compromat on you.
So you get invited to the Eyes Wide Shut party, your rich friends catalog your debauchery, and this is what keeps you loyal.
I guess it didn’t work on Tim Walz or Bernie Sanders?
Seems pretty easy to avoid.
And Bernie took his goddamn honeymoon in the USSR, I imagine they could have bugged every room he entered if they wanted to.
I guess it didn’t work on Tim Walz or Bernie Sanders?
Both are about as loyal as any Dem foot soldiers you could name. Sanders, in particular, has been at least as zealous on Israel as Biden throughout his career.
Bernie disagrees with the Neoliberal rhetoric and wants to save capitalism from itself. But he’s staunchly partisan.
If anyone could use some Compromat its Manchin
It’s time for Josh Duggar to run for office
Bring out R Kelly
The two of them together make the dream team
The problem with disqualifying anyone based on any crimes is that it would enable the current ruling party to stick crimes on the opposition to eliminate the competition.
Just in case to clarify, I’m not defending child rapists who most surely did commit the crime in question, just saying it’s a dangerous concept.
The problem with disqualifying anyone based on any crimes is that it would enable the current ruling party to stick crimes on the opposition to eliminate the competition.
As an example, Trump didn’t get elected because he was convicted of 34 felonies.
Oh wait, maybe the possibility of false crime accusations don’t fucking matter when real ones aren’t a hurdle to getting elected.
Lol right? Let’s stop pretending sexual assault or even pedophilia allegations do ANY HARM when the FUCKING PRESIDENT IS ONE. Let’s stop silencing victims’ stories of abuse out of concern for their abuser since it doesn’t matter anyway, it doesn’t hurt the perpetrator clearly, and just helps the victim to let them share. It also helps other victims be informed. I’m so fucking done with that line of speech now.
it would enable the current ruling party to stick crimes on the opposition to eliminate the competition.
Don Siegelman was the last Dem governor of Alabama. Pursued on spurious charges in 2004, which were immediately thrown out by the judge of the case, then again in 2006 by a Bush appointed Judge who was more friendly with Republican prosecutors.
I expect a lot more of this in 2025 once Trump takes office and starts settling scores.
Perhaps they’ll fragment after he dies? A lot of dictatorships don’t survive the death of the supreme leader
You should already be hopeless considering the current administration is aiding genocide.
Still at it… She lost, dude. Go away.
Yes, we were already hopeless, but we recognized that there was one option (out of the four: Trump, Harris, third party, or abstention) that provided a possible chance of ending the genocide, while the other three were a guarantee of not only the complete elimination of the Palestinian people, but the expansion into a much larger conflict across the Middle East and possibly the world.
I hope that moral superiority makes you feel better when you see the what the difference between the Democrats and Republicans in Gaza (and beyond) will be. Assuming you actually give a shit.
Pardon my ignorance as a non-American, but which out of the four was the option for (possibly) ending the genocide?
This might come as a surprise, but the people opposing the genocide did not magically disappear. Almost like they were not a Russian troll farm but real people with morals and values.
but we recognized that there was one option (out of the four: Trump, Harris, third party, or abstention) that provided a possible chance of ending the genocide
You hoped, “we” didnt “recognize”. If Harris was going to end it she would have said so in the few days before the election. She proved pretty thoroughly that was never going to stop taking that AIPAC money.
They should, yes. (I’m not American.)
they had every right to be frustrated with how things are, but this will not fix anything and they will find out very quickly. its a shame.
The problem with simply being “frustrated” about current material conditions is that frustration is unproductive. You have to channel it into something. If that “something” is fucking fascism, you’re an evil person without morals. So while I understand how it happens I cannot absolve people of the crime of voting for an open fascist.
The problem with simply being “frustrated” about current material conditions is that frustration is unproductive.
In this case it is not just unproductive, it’s destructive. American voters, especially those who voted for Biden last time chose to stay at home.
Biden administration was stumbling so the voters gave the keys to someone who’s going to cut off both legs.
they will find out very quickly
If they were going to realize it, they would’ve realized it after the first Trump term (and 2020 especially). They’ll continue to eat up lies that blame whatever marginalized group they’re hating that day.
The shame is that they won’t care. These people will just find another scapegoat and punt the ball down the line.
This tweet assumes people care about OPs opinion, or histories opinion. It’s a toothless threat trying to invoke some Boogeyman of future retribution. Anyone who voted for Trump is going to be doing the Jennifer Lawrence “ok” reaction to this.
I’ve family that voted for Trump. Had plans on spending Thanksgiving there. Told them I’m not coming, and told them why. Explained that I’ll be happy to apologize if the next four years goes well. Otherwise, I’m holding them accountable. I love them, but I will not associate with them.
I’m done with the “they’re family, you have to accept them.” Bullshit.
I warned my wife if her dad makes the mistake of showing his bitch ass face to me again he’s dead, she was smart enough to already know
Fucker already literally threatened my life twice before on top of all the other horrid shit he’s done, and now he knows hes not allowed near his favorite daughter or he’s pig food
Sounds like there’s more there than just voting wrong
