Only The Best People

Living in a southern state that is solid red - it’s just difficult to exist. Much more than half of the people I interact with would not view me as a human being if I weren’t stealth about my transness - if I didn’t pass. These people voted against my rights and safety. I’m surrounded by people who think people like me are subhuman.
- And I'll bet that every one of them calls themself a Christian. Fucking joke religion that doesn't even follow its own tenets.

The big realisation, for me, was during Covid. I haven't recovered since. My view of people, in general, has changed forever.

They’re not sending their best.

The best advice I can give to anyone regarding MAGAts is to take advantage of them.
They're letting us know how stupid they are. They're marking themselves.
So take advantage of them. Run some scams on them. They'll fall for it. Don't let Daddy Trump be the only one robbing them blind.
- I thought about running a far-right merch store selling shirts and stickers with all of their shitty little half-brained slogans on them and donating all the profits to left-leaning organizations. Make them indirectly fund the people they're trying to harm.
  
  My baby insanity wolf self already does a variation of this.
  When my conservative family and acquaintances give me gifts, I donate the gifts to charities or political groups that I know those folks would hate to support. Uncle Ben gives me a debit gift card? That's going to Bernie Sanders and the ACLU. Cousin Jen gave me a digital photo frame? That's getting sold and the money's going to Planned Parenthood.
  The fact that I repeatedly tell these people not to give me any gifts and yet they still do is the icing on the cake.
- If I didn't have scruples and lived in the States I'd be all over that.
- I was thinking about writing something for one of those alt right self publishing companies.

Yup, and the pandemic showed us how stupid and ignorant they are, too.
Leftists were hesitant with good reason and could be educated. These folks had no chance out of their own volition.

Honestly it’s not a bad thing to be able to see all these humans who are about as useful as smegma. See them, single them out, and when the time comes, well, you know lol…..

I hope that guy gets ink poisoning.

Koolaid man went crazy...

I already knew that there were plenty of awful people in the US since I studied the civil rights movement in school. Watching white people use fire hoses against Black people and white people being ok with that was a clue. For me the worst part has been watching my friends and family be brainwashed by the MAGA movement. People who I know to be otherwise wonderful people.
For me it's the answer to the zombie question. Do zombies have some part of their former personality still inside? The answer is definitely yes, and not some part, but 100% of their former selves.
I'll be talking to my Mom and she'll be her old self again for a whole conversation. Like the last decade never happened. Then something political will come up and she'll be gone again. And I'm stuck arguing with this zombie.
Fox News has taken multiple family members and I'm sure many more friends. Unlike zombies there was no attack or infection. The brainwashing happened through radio, television, and social media. And unlike zombies there is hope, because people do get out of cults.
- My neighbour is a totally pleasant lady, but she believes the craziest shit. Like that Joe Biden was replaced by an actor, or that the autodoc (like from the movie Elysium) is real. Also just goes on about how beautiful the weather in Russia must be.
  We're not even American ffs. She's getting got by second hand, like, collateral propaganda.
  
  Honestly there could be really simple autodocs like the ones from the OG The Fallouts but if they do exist they are extremely simple prototypes that can probably stitch up a wound real good at best. Something I've noticed about conspiracy types be them creationists, Alien nuts, or maybe big foot enthusiasts is that they will take the plausible and make it implausible.
  Though some of them do accidentally break the programing because they either gain the requisite knowledge that starts to disprove the conspiracy element or because they are shown enough evidence to the contrary. A good example is Lore Lodge who used to be all in on bigfoot years ago but now think that it's just wildmen, hermits, or crackheads.

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I like to look at it this way: There are not many bad people but weak people who fall for propaganda. The real bad people are just a few but those are the ones manipulating the weak.
- Glad you started this conversation. Allow me to just add: if we are to repair our republic and restore our constitution, we are going to have to find a common ground where these feeble minded followers can see that the world they reject is one that benefits them more than the dystopia they embrace.
  This is going to require restraint and tolerance on our part.
  
  You don't have to be stupid to follow an authoritarian. In fact, your characterization is a huge driving force in their radicalization. People with legitimate grievances watched globalization leave them in the dust in pursuit of a multicultural, pluralistic society. This left them vulnerable to narratives that espoused their "historical" superiority amongst other groups and their subsequent entitlement to world primacy. It's more a function of a lack of diverse perspectives as a result of continued divestment from public services and goods, as well as geographical concentration of wealth and resources and other confounding variables.
  I agree that the world before Trump was marginally better for these voters than the alternative they've elected, but your heirarchical paradigm is condescending, reductive, simplistif, obnoxious, short-sighted, and exemplifies why so many people swung that way to begin with.
  Also, I can't underestimate how incredibly dumb and dense you have to be to consider that the previous paradigm was good for anyone outside of the West who was not already someone of considerable financial means.
- I know a lot of people who are pissed off and struggling yet don’t blame minorities for their troubles while actively voting against their best interests at every possible turn. I also know people who, even if it took some time, realized that conservatism is actually fucking awful. I even know some conservatives who are just really stupid or bad at economic policy but who are genuinely good people(so long as he can see you or even just hear that you’re a friend of someone he knows my dad will give you his shirt, and he doesn’t have ill-intentions towards minorities, for example).
  Trump people are just fucking terrible. Their entire “ideology” is so rooted in being terrible that even if they were just weak morons sweat away by the propaganda I still cannot fathom how they weren’t tipped off by any of the thousands of moments which gave them the opportunity to reflect.
  
  You nailed it though. They lack the ability for introspection and self reflection
  
  All this is not new. It started with Reagan and I'm confident you will soon have it worst than Trump, given that your country managed to fall lower 3 times already.
- Too weak to have any morals? I doubt it. They are just given permission to let their inner racism out.
  
  That's too easy and excuses us from the work needed to rescue these people, content in our own moral superiority.
- Nah, a lot of people are cunts.
  
  Tetraethyl Lead has a lot to answer for, but yes, a lot of people are just selfish arseholes.

It's also amazing just how incredibly tacky the MAGA movement is.
The Nazis were evil, but at least they wore clothing designed by Hugo Boss. At least they borrowed from impressive looking Roman-style banners and eagles. They understood how to use colour, light and so-on to project strength. Even if you acknowledge that the Nazis were evil, at least you can sort of understand why the German people were drawn in.
But the MAGA movement is so weak, so tacky. Even if I were somehow 100% aligned with their beliefs, I wouldn't want to associate with them in public because their whole aesthetic is so embarrassing. I can't understand how anybody can look at Trump and see competence, intelligence and strength. I also can't understand how anybody can look at a typical MAGA rally and see anything other than a design scheme that would make even Wal*Mart cringe.
- They had propagandists that used actual skilled artisans and people actually the "best" in their fields. Not drunk Uncle Jim and AI slop.
  
  In modern day America, it seems like 99% of artists are anti-Trump. That isn't really surprising because fascism is about conformity and falling in line, whereas art tends to be about self-expression and challenging norms. So, it seems like in the modern world, very few artists or other creative people are willing to work with the Trump admin. I wonder if back in Hitler and Mussolini's time that wasn't the case.
- Oh, I'm so glad you pointed it out. I thought I was going nuts thinking they were gaudy and in poor taste and I wasn't reading anyone saying it. 😂
  The Mar-a-Lago face alone, and the gaudy golden shoes, statues, chandeliers and shit. Yuck lol
  
  I wouldn't know how to look it up, but I really wonder what the average German or Italian who didn't support the fascist governments thought about them. Did they see the governments as strong, organized and competent, but didn't support them because they trampled on people's rights, etc? Or were Mussolini and Hitler seen as clowns and their supporters as tacky idiots?
  As someone who wasn't alive back then, and who doesn't know anybody who was (at least not in those countries), it seems like they were probably seen as competent, powerful and organized. But, I really hope everyone knows that outside of the MAGA movement, they're seen as tacky, incompetent, weak, stupid and embarrassing. I would hate for a historian in 2100 (assuming humanity survives long enough for that) to be writing about MAGA saying that their aesthetic was powerful and intimidating, when it's much more reminiscent of a circus.

You just know that guy on the left has a swastika tattoo somewhere on him.
- Yeah, it's right there on his throat. It's just the v2.

It is escapable. It's propaganda. Show them different news and they are communists.
The worst part of the Trump era is the realization of just how few people don't fall for the divide and conquer manipulation.

I'll never recover, personally. The way my world-view was shattered by how many not just nameless strangers, but people I actually know and interact with, are the worst sort of hateful monsters.
My world is a different place now, and I don't think I'll ever feel the same.
- And then they wonder why I try to escape from the reality.
- I know. I have flat Werther's in my family. Real life people who think the earth is flat in 2025. Like did anyone think this is where we would be growing up.
  
  Tell me more about these flat Werther's, I've only had the Werther's Original so far.
- Not as malicious but covid opened my eyes up
- It's stupidity and immaturity more than maliciousness, at least in the case of the US lumpen. The results might be more or less the same but the reframing helps with living in this world and believing in people's 'well-meaning nature'.
  
  I appreciate this, and it does help turn the ire into pity a bit, but I do worry that unfortunately the effect sort of remains the same regardless

Without a doubt this is the worst part. It was an immediate and irreversible swing from being an optimist who believes in the good of people to the complete opposite. I now believe humanity is fundamentally flawed and will destroy itself.
Watched too much Star Trek as a kid I guess.
- I used to think similarly. The outright hatred, apathy, hostility... its sickening.
  But I stand by Mr. Rogers' message. Look for the helpers.
  Humanity has always grappled with its angels and demons. No fictional evil could ever compare to the cruelty and apathy of real humans being real shit. But despite all that, humans keep trying, and have always kept trying.
  This isn't the worst it's ever been. This isn't even the worst it's been here. This isn't even the worst it's been, here, in living memory.
  If you know someone over the age of 60, you know someone older than the civil rights act.
  Even in a life where discrimination wasn't possible so much as it was fundamental in society, John Lewis and MLK Jr. still had faith in humanity. They still believed in its potential. They still had faith in the face of all of that hatred and ignorance. Faith that a better nation and a better future could be forged in their lifetimes.
  And you know what? They were right.
  Even today, with all of these threats to return to a time when America was "great"... even now, this is still a better nation than the America of 1963. That is undeniable truth, and it is in large part thanks to heroes like them.
  If they could believe in the potential of humanity, I think it's arrogant of us to disagree.
  
  I really do appreciate the words and the sentiment. I would normally agree but right now my faith is still shattered. I think there are good and amazing people, who have done magical and wonderful things. I just think that small and petty tyrants are more common and more indicative of humanity as a whole. That the righteous have to look up from underneath the bootheel of those who deserve to be crushed under one themselves. Instead, those type get to run the show, and obviously always have.
  This weekend has been bad mentally. I hope I can find some optimism again. I’m just so tired of expecting the worst and being proven right.
  
  "John Lewis and MLK Jr. still had faith in humanity"
  Those guys were under the boot heel, and had no direction but up. I'd be more optimistic for the future of humanity if they were white dudes with everything to lose, agitating for an oppressed minority.
- I once proudly said "when the internet is cheap and easy, everyone will have full access to all information and it will be effortlessly easy for people to stop believing falsehoods and it'll start a swing towards reason!"
  I just want to hug teenage me.
  
  30-yo me was just as naive. Jesus, what have we done.
- To tie star trek into an admittedly foolish level of hope: I believe there was a catastrophic war and social failing that, eventually, led to their pseudo-utopic future... right?
  
  Well it was WW3. Which started there in 2026. Sooo.. good news?

They were always here.
I escaped from the south to the coasts, but I always tried to warn people how vile the worst of us were.
Nobody coukd believe it, but remember, Hitler wrote about the south as the model for Germany in mein kampf, and the nazis copied the Nuremberg Laws from Jim crow almost verbatim.
- They also took inspiration from the Catholic Church and the inquisition. The Church did ethnic cleansing long before the Nazis.
  
  The also took inspiration from the Catholic Church
  Not just inspiration but also direct material support.
  
  Nazi legal theorists saw the U.S. as a “pioneer” in racist legislation.
  James Q. Whitman, in his book "Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law",
  
  Wherever there is a state, there is fascism.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_religion
- It's not just the south.
  
  I've lived in much of the country, and I'm not white.
  There is racism everywhere.
  But the South is like going from Lebanon to the deepest reaches of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
  They're monsters, and proud of it.

I don't understand how the US is so prop-full of hateful, ignorant, angry people. Is it because of all the lead they ingested towards the end of the 20th century?
- Its because conservatives have actively meddled in the educational system, and kept kids from learning and practicing Critical Thinking Skills. At the same time, they used the vast Conservative Propaganda Machine to teach people to rely on Faith-Based Thinking, where they believe whatever they are told, no matter how absurd or outlandish, as long as it comes from someone in authority, such as a radio/tv talk show host, a politician, a preacher, a cop, a boss, etc.
  Thats why they went so hard after evangelicals. They have already proven that they will build their entire lives around the most bizarre mythology and fairy tales written by neolithic goatherders, so all they had to do was get them to accept their political fairy tales, too.
  Critical Thinking Skills are the most important part of any person's education, and Conservatives have actively suppressed it. That's why the Department of Education has always been one of their worst enemies. The 'liberal indoctrination" they are always screaming about are Critical Thinking Skills.
- Look around the world... It's not just the US, the US are just a big example of it
- ...the baby boomer generation were raised on television and consider it an authoritative source of information; fox news made them a captive asset...as for younger folks on the fascist train, it's likely sensationalist social media echo chambers, and unfortunately more and more countries are fostering the same pathology...
- It's because those in power will always make sure the masses are blaming the "others" and that there will always be "others"to blame. They don't want people looking too closely and seeing that it is them who make life hard.

- Disgusting
- She's damn sure old enough to know better. 😡
  
  She was probably doing it the first time too.
- loves Nazis and Hitler
  also among the first to be killed had she been living in Nazi Germany
- The hell of living as such a shitty person is far worse than anything anybody could do to her.

It didn't take Trump to make this real for me.
I remember how our country treated Muslims after 9/11. I remember how we treated people with AIDS and HIV when I was little. Right now I'm watching Nazi salutes on national TV and no one's getting punched even though the room is packed with the supposed opposition, and the people who consider themselves progressive are unironically enjoying people's families inability to afford food staples.
- Progressives are becoming more radical as a response to right wing extremism.
  I was raised republican and was completely caught up in their propaganda. During that time I would've let you starve to death while holding food if I was told you were part of the 'bad' group. You need to treat Republicans as the dangerous entity they are, don't bother being empathetic, they won't ever reciprocate.
  
  don’t bother being empathetic, they won’t ever reciprocate.
  If your statement is true, then you are evidence that we need to at least leave the door open to allow people who come to their senses a path to redemption.
- Don't forget hundreds of years of ongoing slavery and genocide.
  
  Or as Southerners call it "The Good Old Days".
  When they say "Make America Great Again", they have a very specific time in mind.
- I grew up in these toxic conservative cultures. It became very clear to me at a young age that there was something deeply wrong with them. I've heard exactly what they talk about when they only think that the people in their fucked up tribes are listening.
  These aren't potential allies to reach out to. They are enemies to overcome.
- Yeah, the aftermath of 9/11 was shocking to me as well and, in many cases, deplorable. The use of the terms "sand n-word" and things like "rag-head" were flying around all over (at least in my part of Ohio), Sikhs and others were getting targeted by racists, and the whole thing was such a surreal time.
  The small town I grew up in did have a fair amount of anti-semitism (uncool things were referred to by some as "that's Jewish") and I'm sure I heard slurs around that as well. I didn't expect the big, farther-left cities to descend into that.

How many inbred people, even trump hates

I think it's about time that the progressives start pandering to the dumbass class. Promising to do all sorts of dumbass and unconstitutional things and then supporting actual progressive policy when they get into office.
If this worked for the current Manchurian dumbass candidate - progressives can surely get their deception game in order.
- Wouldn’t work.
  That is unless they go all in and start carrying crosses around and talking about Jesus nonstop and somehow convince those folks that their opposition are all secret Satanists.
  Makes my stomach hurt.

One of the good things about living in the bay area is seeing these people on TV, it's like seeing an NPC in a video game. It's hard to believe they are real. The 1st time I saw an IRL maga hat was 2020, and I'm pretty sure it was a tourist at the beach I had to point and laugh. The 2nd time was last month, and I gave that bitch the bird. She was wearing the cringe ass Elon Dark Gothic Maga hat.

"Basket of Deplorables" -- as I'm tired of repeating, Hilary was right.
- She was. She was John the Baptist but wanted to be Jesus. Opinion on her was fully established so even if she was 45% positive you could never move the dial on the 6% you needed to push her over the top.
  She would have been an outstanding attack dog for a fresh candidate if she could have put her ego aside and accept that it wouldn't be her.
  
  She was trying to follow eight years of Obama that had primed an electorate for a radical change candidate. She was not going to be that and in fact personified that her Party would unfortunately not be the one to change.
- No, she wasn't.
  If they hadn't rigged the primary for her, we never would have had a Trump.
  
  Or in 2020 when they rigged the primary for Joe Biden. Or in 2024 when they rigged the "primary" for Joe Biden (yes, a primary did happen, and I voted for Williamson).
  
  Not sure why this is downvoted. Almost all superdelegates already lined up for her at the start of the campaign and she already had an agreement with the DNC to control the party's finances and strategy in exchange for fundraising.

To be fair, when was the last time you had as much fun as this guy?
- Pretty recently, honestly. Last Thursday the girl I've fallen in love with asked me to be her girlfriend.
  
  Congrats!
- that guy isn't having fun, he's having a manic episode with violent fantasies.
  nobody with that look in their eyes is in control of themselves.
  
  Its a funny jogge bro, he is probably influenced by the whole "lead=profit"-thing or his parents were, its murrica after all. But still, when was the last time you felt this happy? Being serious in non serious posts lowers your life expectancy, we need to laugh more even though its hard nowadays.
- See! Maybe he's just dumb! I bet he's a fun guy at the bar.
  
  He certainly looks the part, even though I don't think I'll agree with him politically.

I am born and raised in a small rural town in northern Nevada, and from my personal experience people have always been this level of unhinged in someway or another. With the rise of the Internet and Trump. It just became more easily accessible to talk to and listen to other unhinged individuals.

Dang, looks like that one guy on the left got a “TRUMP” tat on his NECK. I’m sure he won’t have any ragrets down the road.
- He's obviously not getting another turn with the communal brain cell so I don't think he'll be regretting anything.

- If that's what you think, you completely missed the message. If anyone wants to live peacefully I'll let them, that's what we all want. If anyone starts to take away people's rights, disappears people, call my neighbors subhuman, ext, I'll punch them square in the face in the face.
- Cry louder! Nazis deserve everything they get. Because unlike any of the groups the attack so aggressively, they placed themselves in the line of fire. They get attacked because they CHOSE to be inhhumane monsters.
  I have not an ounce of mercy left for these creatures!
  
  Is that maybe exactly how everyone that is pulling the strings on all this want you to feel? Just food for thought. You be you, just don't close the door on these people, we've all spent some time lost.
- I understand how you've arrived at that conclusion, but you should investigate Popper's Paradox.
- "bUt WhAt AbOuT tHe PeOpLe WhO kIlLeD nAzIs? ThEy WeRe JuSt As BaD!"
  That's you. That's what you sound like.
- you just wear a different colored hat
  You almost understand this issue 🤣
- It's retaliation and self defense on a sociological scale

When I examine my German family tree, this is the kind of shit they fell for too. The only difference, the USA had a healthy economy before Jan 2025, while Germany was a wreck.
- I think it's a different kind of unhealthy economy.
- The US were exporting dollars. That's not healthy.

Maybe Reagan shouldn't have closed down the mental institutes and facilitate the stifling of access to mental health
- Looking back, I'm starting to believe it was a long-term political calculus, not just abandoning the most vulnerable in our society...
- Libs blaming mental health? Fashy as usual. Anything to avoid blaming themselves/dems.
  
  There's plenty of blame to go around, but this is a stone cold stupid take.

- Dude looks like a Mike Meyers character.
  
  Fat American bastard, but that's redundant.

THAT has been the most demoralizing part
That half of my fellow Americans willingly embraced Nazi Fascism
- The voter turnout was very low, Trump's active supporters are more like a third of the country, which is still too much, but not insurmountable. And many of those were just one issue voting dummies. I think Trump's hardcore base is closer to 20%.

The guy with the Trump tatoo looks like the typical guy who gets a 23&ME saying he's actually part Mexican.

Face flag looks like a fun bar guy though. Maybe he's just stupid?

the kind of people who dont give the least bit of fuck about pretty horrible things until it happens to them after which they love to play the victim

Hell truly is other people.

At least you can identify them easily. Bumper stickers, license plates and hats.

they're not only awful but also so darn dense, like they never actually grew up

I can't even imagine the type of person who could proudly brand themselves with the name of a rapist, after the fact.

Unfortunately, realization is amazingly escapable.

One of the best parts. They outed themselves.

It's sad there are so many, but it's better that we know. They are the reason behind freedom of speech. If they aren't allowed to speak, then we don't know the extent of the problem. Only education can solve this problem in the long run--that is why they attack public education.