Their side loves him for the same reason our side hates him.

[kentuck]

And never the twain shall meet.

They identify with the way Trump talks. They like the name-calling. They applaud the cruelty. They identify with the racism. They like the arrogance and hatefulness. They support the division.

They are willing to accept the sexual abuse. They are willing to accept the lies. They are willing to accept the criminal convictions.

Because he is like them. He tells it like it is, they say. They accept it in him because they accept it in themselves and their friends. They know that no one is perfect and they have no illusions about it. And if you don't like it, then screw you!

But, our side cannot accept that. It is not just about principles. It is about human decency. We cannot accept that from our own family and friends, and we certainly cannot accept it from MAGA. There is no halfway point to compromise on human decency.

If that is America, then we want no part of it. We will continue to fight for what we believe in and what we can live with. We have no other choice.

[spanone]

1. Thanks Kentuck...

well said.

[dalton99a]

2. Their darkest fantasies are realized by him

[kentuck]

3. They like him because he is like them.

They identify with him. They would drag our country to the lowest base of humanity.

[Irish_Dem]

4. Trump appeals to the darkest side of human nature.

Some people love it.
Others hate it.

Depends upon each person's level of moral development.

[kentuck]

5. There is no room for compromise.

That I can see? I refuse to participate in their crude depravity.

[Irish_Dem]

6. I agree. Going to the dark side with them is not an option.

[3catwoman3]

21. Crude depravity...

…is a spot on description.

The election of President Obama revealed how many really shitty people live in this country. I initially thought that election showed how far we had come. Boy, was I ever wrong.

[slightlv]

27. "Compromise" is the nastiest word in the dictionary to these maga types.

That's why, no matter who is ahead in Congress, no progress can be made. Progress only happens when compromise can be made. Neither side is happy, but neither side is totally written off, either. Up until Bill Clinton, IMO, we still had the ability to compromise in this country. But it seems like no matter how many of "them" were caught propositioning men in bathrooms with their "wide stance" or caught in illicit gay affairs, or charged and arrested for pedophilia... that one "cigar" from a democratic president pushed them over the edge. Add that to the audacity of electing a black president, and they fully lost their minds, their souls, their humanity. The irony never crossed their minds.

There is so much to hate them for... what they do, what they think, their overt delight in cruelty. But the thing I hate them for the most is what they did to me. It wasn't until they despoiled our Capitol on Jan 6, that I discovered what hate truly was, and how it felt inside me. Up until then, I may not have liked something or someone... sometimes, very vocally... but it wasn't until this maga coup that I learned that real hate lives inside me, too. It's shaken me to my core; it's taken away not only my love of life but the peace of my spiritual practices. For all their overt backward xtianity, they made me an atheist. I can never forgive them for taking away what peace I found in this world, nor for what they made me. And woe be unto them when enough of us feel like this and take to action, because we have no illusions of death anymore... and it's all beholding to them. (IMNSHO)

[newdeal2]

7. They are blinded by hate and lies

They trust a conman only because he wants retribution and is helping to destroy “liberal” ideology and norms.

[Orrex]

8. They're a KKKult of ignorant racist fuckheads

And they'll worship him until the last of them has died.

They ridicule our attempts to understand
They mock the idea of empathy
They scorn any gestures of outreach


Every last one of them could vanish right now and leave the world no poorer.

[mjvpi]

18. KKKult of Personality. The object only has shiny sides.

[Scrivener7]

9. Yes. Yet they will be the most furious when it happens to them.

I know it's coming. I'm as prepared as I can think of to be for it, and I know it's going to be hard. I'm braced.

They have no idea. They'll be walloped.

[Prairie_Seagull]

10. I feel a bit like the frog swimming with the scorpion on his back. nt

[Mr.Bee]

11. Couldn't Have Said It Better!

[lamp_shade]

12. Amen

[Boomerproud]

13. I agree 100% but I am constantly being told we have more in common

than what divides us so I have to reach out to the other side blah blah blah. I bought that thinking for a long time. Ain't workin'.

[GiqueCee]

38. We do not...

... meet these people in the middle. We do not compromise with evil without compromising our very souls. Quite simply, if they support a traitor, they ARE traitors. And they should dealt with accordingly, and NEVER forgiven.

[RainCaster]

14. He has made Hate socially acceptable

There are so many Republicans in my church and they all have a great love for TSF. They had no problem elections a 34 count felon to lead the Party of Law And Order. They know he has no morals, yet they insist "God put him there". They watched the debt ceiling go up by $5T and completely forgot that this came from the "Party of Fiscal Responsibility". It's all about the fact that hate is once again a popular item, just like it was in the 50s. This is the "good old days" that they have been dreaming about.

[3auld6phart]

15. Truth

You have a way with words…. …

[Escape]

16. Someone said...

"People like to think it's a struggle between GOOD and EVIL.
It's actually just between TRUTH and LIES."

[Turbineguy]

17. He drowns their children

So they save money on food.

[Tadams01KC]

19. Interesting thoughts

I always thought it was so odd they said “ he tells it like it is”. It doesn’t make sense to me.
And I remember they said about Obama “I can’t stand the way he talks”. Is it his cadence? Use of eloquent language? I could never get them to say specifically.

[haele]

34. He "tells it like it is" means he talks simply like a guy at the end of the bar...

Just pure emotional rambling from the heart.
In Vino Veratis, after all.
Obama talked about Cause and Effect. About Nuance. About complex Objective Realities; about strategies to win an objective situation rather than the quick emotional rewards of the "just do it and let Gawd sort it out" tactic to beat a problem (to death).
"Tells it like it is" is a bumper sticker, or a Team Meme (like Roll Tide! Is in Laz's family). Even the shortest attention span member of a group can understand the bumper sticker or meme.

[kentuck]

36. There's a psychological term that defines why and how they feel the way they do about Trump.

He is their Leader. They admire him very deeply. When you criticize him, they feel that you are criticizing them personally. It is a type of "transference" in psychology studies. It is also one of the defining features of a cult or someone in the cult. They attach an almost biblical, Supreme persona to the individual. They believe that he is a messenger from God.

[Heidi]

48. It's a cult. (nt)

[Mtnmama]

20. He claims to be Christian

When in reality he is anything but! Wants to wear his "Christianity " on his sleeve, for the world to see, but on the inside he is filled with everything Christ taught against.

[Tikki]

22. They are willing to accept the huddled death of children...for the price of

thoughts and prayers…move on, too soon.

They truly are deplorables.

Tikki

[LS0999]

23. It's coexistence with people like that possible?

I think we've seen it run it's end course. They will not be happy until we are dead. If they could round us all up and throw us into death camps they would do that today.

[Ol Janx Spirit]

24. One thing for us to keep in mind is that from a historical perspective, we are the outliers.

It is actually a testament to how much progress we have made over time that we perceive our position of compassion towards one another to be the mainstream from which our fellow human beings are straying, but history tells us that this is not the case.

What we are seeing from MAGA America is much more the historical norm. Flip your history book to almost any page and you will find that humans--Sapiens more specifically--wherever you find them are driven more by cruelty, racism, arrogance, and hatred, than by love and compassion.

If this were not the case then Jesus' words would have been wholly unremarkable and not even worthy of repeating.

If this were not the case then the story of Native Americans would read entirely differently; and African slaves would never have been slaves in the first place. And in these two stories we see how humans will even bend the words of a figure like Jesus to do their cruel bidding.

We never won the war against cruelty, racism, arrogance, and hatred. But we have made great progress. This is just another battle we are flung into, and if we intend to win the future we must understand the history against which we must fight endlessly.

Their fight is easier from a historical perspective for a number of reasons. Ours is harder; but just.

[GiqueCee]

39. Well said.

[republianmushroom]

25. Yup

[Moostache]

26. The death of the rule of law was the final straw for me...

I believe this nation is in a state of civil war today. Just because shots have not (yet) been fired, does not mean this will not reach that level soon.

Courts are ignored.
Judegs are flaunted and intimidated.
Citizens are being abducted and jailed (or worse).

Pretending this is all OK is a surefire path to being run over.

[slightlv]

29. Right there with you...

although I would only say shots HAVE been fired, and they've been identified as such by those doing the shooting... and have been for years. But, it's like no one wants to believe it... or feels there's no answer, even if they do believe the shooter to be sincere in his hated beliefs.

We've been in a constitutional crisis for a number of years now, brought closer to home once trump began flat-out telling the courts to go stuff themselves when they ruled against him. I firmly expect him to pull a Netanyahu and try to dissolve all the courts, or reshape them... in mass... to his design; thus dissolving one branch of our government completely. He's already done of a hell of a job on the Legislative branch.

[Martin Eden]

28. FEAR of "losing their country" Trumps all

White Christians believe the Replacement theory that hordes of brown-skinned immigrants are part of an invasion to supplant real Americans. This follows decades of the big bad government enforcing rights for blacks, empowering women, Muslims building Mosques, and acceptance of LGBTQ which horrifies them as the destruction of the moral fabric of Christian society.

All of these fears have been manipulated amplified by decades of rightwing talk radio, Faux News, and the internet. People actually believe Donald J Trump has been chosen by God to save America.

FEAR and propaganda have subverted religious faith and what passes for patriotism into a nearly unshakable belief system among tens of millions of American voters.

For me, that is the most convincing explanation as to how so many people who can otherwise be decent folks have become ardent supporters of such an ignorant, amoral, irreligious, hateful, pathologically lying con man.

[MakeThemCry]

30. What are you prepared to do about it OP?

More of the same or something new?

[kentuck]

33. First of all...

Make people aware of it. People need to know where they stand and what they support?

[MakeThemCry]

35. That's a good start.

Business as usual should be a thing of the past.

That's what I was getting at.

[democrank]

31. Very well thought out, kentuck.

I found myself nodding in agreement from the start. Thank you.

[OMGWTF]

32. My favorite sign from the June 14th protest: Radicalized by common decency

[Redleg]

37. I agree and I think they have low standards for leadership

They really seem to want a king who will attack the people they want to attack, enforce the laws agains those same people, and provide benefits to the MAGAts.

[iemanja]

40. Now they are dying

Thanks to him.

[soldierant]

42. It's a good question.

I received this today -

https://johnpavlovitz.substack.com/p/when-the-hell-did-empathy-become

On the one hand, I have to agree with Comment #24 that the right side of history is outnumbered by the wrong side - and the examples are extremely telling.

On the other side, I've seen (and this was year ago) experiments done with children under the age of three put into a room with someone (or even some animal) was struggling with something - and the tendency of the children to help the struggler was virtually universal.

Where does that go when we grow up? I think we are influenced out of it for the most part. And not even necessarily with bad intentions.

"Enabling" someone self destructive to stay on that path is a real thing, But avoiding it can be overdone. "Tough love" is also a real thing, but if it isn't founded on genuine love (and I suspect you can tell that easily - if it doesn't hurt you to do it, it isn't real love) then all it is is tough.

Parents and teachers are not always to blame - if you look at people like Stephen Miller, Paul Gosar, RFK Jr, all their families are at odds with them and a big chunk of that is really about empathy.

Also, all these people in MAGA have grievances. They all feel they hve been cheated out of something that is rightfully theirs, something has been stolen from them. What is that something? For many it is white supremacy, but that can't be true for all, and it's probably not the only thing even for whites. Gender identity is another thing they may feel is being stolen from them simply by non-binary identities' existence. Whatever ir is, it's generally something they can't put into words because that would require way too much self-knowledge.

In reality, they are all being used by people who want them to have those grievances because they can be led to do just about anything if they are aggrieved enough. And throughout history, there always have been people who are adept at using them and also at getting into power one way or another.

[RecoveringJournalist]

43. Change the game

Democrats and progressives have long worked to do things the right way, the fair way, the honorable way. But in an America where Conservatives are winning by lying, cheating, bullying, threatening and controlling the narrative by speaking more loudly and more crudely, we must ask ourselves this question. Do we want to keep doing it the right way or do we want to win?

I feel it's time to take a page from the Conservative playbook and start playing dirty, playing to win.

We can't change America for the better if we don't at first win the vote. I say winning ugly, winning dirty, is ok AS LONG AS WE WIN. When we win, THEN we can do things the right way to fix America.

[calimary]

44. You had me at "But, our side cannot accept that..."

Actually, a correction, if I may…

I’d suggest savoring the whole thing, from its title to the close: “We have no other choice.“

[BigmanPigman]

45. Ask, "Who did YOU vote for?".

That immediately shows who is a hate filled sociopath and who is not. When they start to bitch and complain keep repeating, "Who did YOU vote for". Saves a lot of time. And if they do not reply or they reply with more BS you just tune them out. They ARE a cult. They are hate filled monsters and that will never change. I hope they suffer enormously for their "choices". No pity, no thoughts and prayers and no excuses are allowed.

[Kablooie]

46. He actually tells it the way they would like.

That’s what hooks them. He lies to tell them exactly what they want to hear. It has nothing to do with the way it is.

[Nasruddin]

47. Probably right for many people

Some are still using preference falsification to hide behind eg the price of eggs.
I don't think this group "accepts" the lies, abuse, and criminality. They adore this, and are probably feeling liberated to indulge.

Then there are a lot of ignorant and hoodwinked (how do you say that in Spanish) people. They are different.