A formerly well-connected GOP donor convicted of giving teenage girls gifts, alcohol and money in exchange for sex has been sentenced to 21 years in prison on sex trafficking charges in Minnesota.
A formerly well-connected GOP donor convicted of giving teenage girls gifts, alcohol and money in exchange for sex was sentenced Wednesday to 21 years in prison on sex trafficking charges.
What all these right wing scumbags do is bad enough, but I find it infuriating that the general public doesn't really get just how many of these Republicans have ties to sexual traffickers or sexual assault cases or similar situations.
Yeah, WE see it, because we follow the news, but most regular folks don't.
Within just a year or two, Republicans have successfully tied those who support gay-causes to somehow being "groomers", but Republicans have had a sexual assault problem for decades and in all that time the left has never been able to tie the two together. Stuff like this always goes back to the fact that the left is so bad at communicating with the general public and going on the offensive against the right. Republicans should have been branded the sexual assault party 10 or 20+ years ago and completely destroy their fake image of being the "family values" party. But to average Joes, traditional old-school values is what the GOP stands for.
I don't see it as actually working. The attempts to smear LGBTQ+ people as groomers only resonate with revolting bigots who want to believe that shit anyway. Everyone else seems to be recoiling from it in horror, especially the younger generations.
Hate to break it to you, but smear attempts do indeed work.
It isn't just Fox News watchers. You repeat a lie enough times and it becomes reality - that was literally the mentality of Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels.
That's just the honest reality of our world.
The GOP knows that. Why doesn't the Left? So many missed opportunities to crucify the Right and taint their image to the general public.
What I was trying to get at is that the younger generations don't seem to be as susceptible to it, but I see your point. We need to work our asses off to make the next election an overwhelming rejection of the hateful shitheads pushing this crap.
the younger generation don't seem to be as susceptible
Hard disagree. I'd go so far as to say they are more susceptible, quite frankly. You might be surrounded by people who follow the news and track politics. Those type of people are NOT typical. At all. Like, at all at all.
Plus there have been the stories in recent days of how a large number of young (teenagers) white males are joining right wing causes. That meam theyve been bamboozled.
More? The statistics I've seen seem to show otherwise. The bigots are extremely loud and have oversized political clout due to things like gerrymandering, but I don't think they have the numbers on their side with young people.
If I'm wrong, I'd like to know, though. Do you have credible sources showing a larger surge in bigotry vs. support among young people?
Horrifying, but not exactly what I was looking for. There are, and always have been, young white men who are susceptible to the lure of fascism, and it's something we have to be vigilant against. But what I'm hoping you have - well, actually, I'm very much going you don't have this, but if you do, I'd prefer to know rather than not know - is actual statistics indicating that fascism is increasing in the younger generations, rather than decreasing.
About 48 percent of Gen Z voters identify as a person of color, while the boomers they’re replacing in the electorate are 72 percent White. Gen Z voters are on track to be the most educated group in our history, and the majority of college graduates are now female. Because voting participation correlates positively with education, expect women to speak with a bigger voice in our coming elections. Gen Z voters are much more likely to cite gender fluidity as a value, and they list racism among their greatest concerns. Further, they are the least religious generation in our history.
The difference is that the Left would have to stoop to their level to be effective at this game. It's the same reason I think we're ineffective at pushing back on rightwing violence. Only a handful of us are willing to commit violence.
While I support nazi-punchers, I myself do not punch nazis. I'd like to think I would, but I honestly wouldn't unless I feared for my safety. And for those who do it to protect the safety of marginalized groups, I applaud.
stoop to their level to be effective at this game.
I see no problems with that. Not in the slightest.
This whole limp-wristed image of liberals needs to die, but the left seems to embrace it rather than shun it. And with that, I am not surprised that the Right is so willing to bully the Left around.
Speak for yourself. As a trans person, I stopped using Instagram entirely because it got to a point where every top level comment, regardless of the subject matter, was a transphobic one (even ones not even REMOTELY related to LGBTQ+ issues).
It was never like this before the recent GOP push in anti-queer rhetoric. It's the worst it's been in my life, tbh. Worse than when my peers used to casually call things "gay" as an insult. Because this time, the rhetoric is genocidal.
I didn't mean to downplay the harm caused by the hateful garbage they're spewing. My son is trans, and sees the same stuff you do on his Instagram.
All I was trying to express is that as aggressive and awful as it is, I see a lot of hope in the fact that the younger generations seem to be disgusted by it, rather than susceptible to it.
But I'll defer to your personal experience on this, though I desperately hope the next election will be a resounding rebuke against the "groomer" shit.
I think I've seen that list and it only gets longer every year. And yet with all that information, the Left can't come up with a good attack on these guys and taint their entire party as being a bunch of creeps.
I think the Bill Clinton saga and guys like Anthony Weiner, to a much lesser degree, provided just enough ammo on this topic that the GOP was able to make a reverse argument. Not that it applies, the way they argue it. There's still a messaging problem, however, as you've mentioned clearly.
The way Democrats handle some of these issues typically only makes things worse. Look at how they bungled the Al Franken issue and forced the poor guy to step down even though he was a great communicator for the party and was one of the few Democrats that was quick on his feet to go on the offensive (not surprising since he was a comedian). Not saying the party should simply brush things under the rug, but for fucks sakes they over do things because of political correctness bullshit.