Republicans are now mad that Pete Buttigieg drives his family around in a minivan
Republicans are now mad that Pete Buttigieg drives his family around in a minivan
Chasten had the best response...
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It's because he's gay and homosexuality is a moral choice. Did that piss you off? Read on...
Credit where due, the Republicans knocked it out the park with the whole, "Anyone non-cis is an active pedophile or grooming a target!"
They kinda got fucked using gays as a wedge issue. Worked in its time, but once gays started coming out the closet en masse, and we collectively realized they were nothing to be afraid of, meh, the hate fell off the charts. Losing this issue was alarming as hell! Best they could do was drop gay rights in the culture-war bucket. Liberals and conservatives alike found the water rather tepid.
Now I don't think there was any sort of organized, cartoonish, "evil master plan", but conservatives saw they were getting attention with the groomer talk, and it snowballed, fast. Target reacquired! And man, what a perfect target. Go after a minority that the rest of us can't emotionally relate to, even given zero problems with homosexuality, and who could be anybody!
To back up the truck, remember they went after trans folks to begin this new pogrom. An even tinier minority! And those people are grooming your kids into changing into something else, just like they did to themselves! Think of the children! LOL, it's some Invasion of the Body Snatchers kinda paranoia.
Seeing some outrage on social media? ROLL WITH IT. No grandiose, back room, cigar smoking plan required. Conservatives simply roll with what works. Backed into a demographic corner, necessity is truly the mother of invention.
This is all so easy if you frame non-cis people as having made a choice. Now you can point your finger and legitimately call them bad guys. This is Fascism 101. Minorities, out groups, focus of hatred, both powerful and weak, all that.
Liberals: "But, but, but... Facts and reason and ethics and morals are on our side!!!"
What if I told you; Emotions sell, facts do not. Sales 101, first day of class, before lunch kinda instruction.
Not going to appeal to the, "I'm old, therefore wiser than you." boolshit. But I've watched all this unfold over 5 decades. It really is this plain.
I don't know the answer, but Jesus, look at the tweets in the story. We're not winning hearts and minds by being logical, moral or right.
and this is why we're not gonna make it as a species.
Meh, Cold War kid here. We likely made it past the daily threat of nuclear Armageddon, a likely contender for the Great Filter solution to the Fermi Paradox.
WWIII is almost certainly off the map, let alone an ICBM nuclear exchange. Our peoples, and more importantly our economies, are too interrelated to rage that far and wide.
Think Ireal and Palestine are setting a dangerous stage? Despite the strategic and religious importance of that land, first-world nation-states ain't gonna throw down like that. It's a proxy war.
Think Russia and the Ukraine are throwing down? Another proxy war. Writ large, yes, but still a proxy war. (And Slava Ukraini! my friends. Kill ever last motherfucking Russian you can get your hands on.)
Neither war is worth risking nukes. We old folks grew up knowing exactly what's on the table once the bombs drop. I'll grant; We do risk forgetting.
As fucked up as the world seems, and is, to young folks, we don't have two superpowers with a hair-trigger on planet-crossing, missiles capable of disgorging multi-megaton MIRVs.
Those are old concerns, as you say. But just because you survived and just because those are not realistic threats today doesn't mean all ok. There are different and even worse concerns today.
This is why we're not gonna make it as a species.
having made a choice
It's pretty hilarious that the celebrants of freedom use choice as grounds for persecution.
Now I don't think there was any sort of organized, cartoonish, "evil master plan", but conservatives saw they were getting attention with the groomer talk, and it snowballed, fast.
There's at least a tacit conspiracy between the right and Russian oligarchs to amplify this sort of messaging. It's why Elon bought Twitter and unbanned all the hate mongers.