I have a close friend that I’ve known 20 years who became obsessed with right-wing politics. even though I’m liberal, I don’t make it my entire personality and life. But anyway… I was talking to him this morning casually like friends do.
Me: “Hey man. Do you have off today for MLK day?” Friend: “No, I have to work today.” Me: “Damn, sorry to hear. I have off today since it’s a company holiday.” Friend: “Yeah, I work for a living. Guess that’s the difference me and people who live in an ivory tower.” Me: “Uhh I work for a living too. Idk why you’re acting like I don’t?” Friend: “I didn’t mean you specifically. But you’re off and I’m not so it shows that you get to relax at least. You should be able to handle the truth lol. There’s no shame in admitting that I’m a harder worker than everyone else. you shouldn’t be so sensitive”
Honestly, he’s not unique, either. I’ve met so many people who are conservative, obsessed with right-wing stuff, and they’re all like this. They act like they’re special and the whole world is lazy, “no one wants to work anymore” attitude.
?
“right wingers” or “decent people”
Choose one, because they are mutually exclusive.
You can still be charismatic, a good neighbor, someone who stands up for friends when things start getting rough, a caring person that worries about those around them, and still hold the most batshit insane political ideas. I happen to know multiple people like this.
People are complex, and plenty are good people who have been led to believe the most outlandish shit. They are gullible and don’t put enough thought into what they accept as truth. It is just as attractive to people on our side of the fence to paint everyone else with broad assumptions. It is the nature of Evil, because evil is ultimately a boring thing that we all do every day without thinking about it.
I think the difference is between our definitions of “decent people”, because I don’t think a person gets to be called “decent” simply because they can be nice, pleasant, thoughtful, or helpful to only the people who abide by your personal world views while actively trying to make life worse for people who don’t meet their bigoted qualifications.
Yeah, they can sure seem like “decent people” if you’re not on the receiving end of their bigoted ire.
It’s not even that they only accept people that abide by their views - it’s just that they are oblivious to those outside the scope of their lives. They are not people who hate immigrants or other minorities, they’re people who never interact with minorities at all and so get no pushback when they just passively accept the idea that they are stealing all the jobs in the US. They don’t know any trans people and so when they hear that trans people are groomers, they just go “that’s horrible! Someone should do something about that”.
We need to remember that these people are a large portion of half the US we constantly have to fight against. They’re not all just a hateful swarm, there’s variety within that mass. They’re our relatives and our neighbors. A large amount of these people are really just insanely gullible and don’t see past their own noses. That gullibility is a mark on their quality, yes. They can still be decent human beings, despite that. They can also be corrected if you get them to understand, which I’ve done before. Many others have done the same.
It must be exhausting and lonely seeing the world in black and white.
Those mental gymnastics you perform daily to justify being friends with hateful morons must be twice as exhausting.
Must be nice to be able to not be a subject of people’s bigotry and think that people who are actively trying to remove other people’s rights and even have a hand in causing people’s deaths could be considered “decent people”.
Considering you immediately turned on me for having a different opinion on who could be considered “decent people”, you are likely to be similar to them in their lack of empathy towards people who are different. Maybe you’re not exactly the most qualified person to determine who is “decent people”.
But please, prove me wrong and show me that empathy you seem to have for your so-called “decent people”. I’d suggest starting with treating me like a person and asking “why do you feel that way?” instead of spewing negative comments towards me.
Apparently you project your toxicity onto the decent (eventhough you’re a leftist) Nuance is clearly, not your forte
I can’t think of a single Conservative social talking point that would make them good people. You have to remember these are the same people who want to ban abortion, gay marriage, remove rights from minorities, and have ‘in’ and ‘out’ crowds. There’s no ‘good people’ there. They may perform good actions, sure, but their belief system is entirely about stagnation and dogma.
Left aren’t any better, they have stallin apologists for one, in your quest to “give rights to minorities” you end up marginalizing the majority for two & three your open border policy causes massive economic damage
Plus I am talking about those said good actions, also there’s a world outside of politics
You’re a naive fool if you think democrats have an “open border policy”. Go talk to your right wing business owners and suggest that if we really wanted to stop illegal immigration, we would jail business owners who hire them. Surprise surprise, those right wing owners exploit these people but don’t really want to stop any illegal immigration.
Funny because, those right wing business owners never said that They would rather employ their own people, rather than those immigrants
You’re talking about corporations, who don’t really have any political affiliation & try to suck up to anyone who is currently in charge
Again you assume all right-winger are the same, People are very nuanced & it’s naive to go “Leftists = bad & Rightists = scumbags”
Those are called tankies and nobody likes them. Especially those of us on the left.
“Marginalizing the majority”. Yeah, because white Americans are so marginalized with their hegemonic control over the state and capital.
Oh, no! The economy is tanking because Juan from Chiapas got a job picking oranges for a Dole contractor in California for less than federal minimum wage because his shitbird boss pays him under the table. Do you know how fucking stupid that sounds?
No, there is no world outside of politics. The personal is political. Choosing to associate with ignorant bigots says more about your values than any half-cocked appeal to moderation.
What hedgemonic control ? People have been losing jobs left & right
The right knows how to mask their hatred when it counts, while the left is busy virtue-signaling, Anyone half-intelligent will use whatever tools effective & honestly so will
Rightist policy of exclusion is pretty good you know, I want to exclude capitalists from society for e.g
You went pretty quickly into insulting me simply because I don’t agree that hateful bigots should be considered “decent people”.
You’ve shown plenty of evidence that you are not qualified to determine who are “decent people” and who is “toxic”. Seems I was able to determine the toxic nuance embedded in your comment just fine.
Yeah when you go Leftist good, Rightist bad, well let’s say that, that kind of dumb thinking is what makes you lose strength in the eyes of apolitical people & invites trouble , the world of politics is too murky for you behave like that
Oh & as for rudeness, you’re the very definition of hateful since you cannot compartmentalize, You have made your politics into your entire identity & as for rooting out things; Leftists have been losing a lot of potential recruits lately haven’t they (you couldn’t root out your own toxicity)