4w ago

Conservative parent is sad his daughters aren't coming for thanksgiving after voting for Trump

Originally posted on https://www.reddit.com/r/LeopardsAteMyFace/comments/1h10tef/a_lot_of_lonely_magas_throwing_themselves_a_pity/

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Visceral proof that conservatism is a legitimate mental disorder. Good on the kids, they’ll very likely have the outstanding thanksgiving they deserve.
- All he had to do was acknowledge their differences and keep his mouth shut. That’s the rule in my family. Someone brings up politics and we say, “let’s not do that.” and move on. If they insist, they end up on the porch alone, grumbling to themselves.
  
  I've always thought this was one of the most dangerous ideas ever to gain widespread acceptance, and we are currently seeing exactly why. If somebody's politics are so terrible that civil discussion is impossible, why on earth would you want to associate with them? This is how we coddle terrible ideas and let them quietly fester with a ~~vanier~~ veneer of false civility. The seeds of MAGA should never have been allowed to take root.
  
  veneer
  
  Yeah, we should just disengage from everyone, isolate them further, and vote like earlier this month.
  That’ll solve it.
  I can’t wait for all the violence and blood and gore that is coming. I really can’t. (Not accusing you for advocating for it, but goddamn I see it constantly on here).
  I really didn’t wanna type some big long thing out. Still this needs to be said.
  When I was a kid, I didn’t know anyone who wasn’t a racist. When I was a kid, I didn’t know anyone who wasn’t homophobe. I knew two openly gay people, and they were bullied and shunned by everyone.
  Those same people today are treated with respect in the same community that I lived in 30 years ago that treated them with none.
  I never heard anything positive about the people who lived on the other side of my segregated neighborhood. The neighborhood was segregated, not because of law at that point in time, but because families continued to pass these homes down. Nobody referred to the identical neighborhood across the tracks by its name. They called it n word camp.
  Do you know what changed all of that? The end of isolation.
  Take your big, bold stands against fascism. Let it fester all by itself. Talk amongst yourselves in your little echo chambers and watch civilization collapse before your very eyes.
  That is the problem. The problem is these fucking algorithms that divide the information that people receive. That is where the isolation starts, and we’re throwing our hands up in the air at half of the fucking people we live among, we give them fuel to be our enemies.
  This ancient tribal bullshit has to stop.
  Leaving people in their echo chambers Is what is causing these dangerous ideas to gain widespread acceptance.
  You’re not going to change the world by ignoring the people you don’t agree with.
  You know what? I can’t help but be a nihilist. Everywhere I look our fucking monkeys pounding their chest, gritting their teeth and demanding blood.
  The so-called “righteous” demand violence. The so-called “deplorables” demanded violence.
  Everyone you talk to demands this segregation.
  So what is the game here? What does everybody hope to gain from? Never speaking to their fucking mother again?
  Get off my nuts, world. I’m burned out with this shit.
  Someone needs to just destroy the Internet.
  
  My intention is not that we segregate, but that we not coddle bigotry and reactionary politics in our associations. Politics and interpersonal human connections are not two separate realms. Your politics and morality feed off each-other. Blurring differences beneath a veneer of politeness is just social isolation in geometric proximity. This has been the dominant social mode for decades, and it didn't stop society from getting where it is now.
  It's really easy to blame the internet, but I'm old enough to remember the before times, and the differences are mostly cosmetic. (Although I agree with your comment on social media algorithms.) Rush Limbaugh dominated talk radio a decade before most people even heard of the Internet. Even back then we all had all the same toxic people who's company was tolerated, not appreciated. The civil war obviously predated even radio, and the build up was not all that dissimilar to what we have today.
  Conservatives need us more than we need them. When it comes right down to it, rich culture is a feature of liberal or leftist thinking. There is a reason why Republicans keep using music at their rallies that gets them sued. We have the best artists, the best scientists, the best comedians, the best lovers, and the most generous people. We have creative business leaders and they have scam artists. We build technology and they abuse it. We stand up for women, and they are incels or human traffickers.

323 comments