Serious answers only. For over a year I was told that trump “doesn’t have anything to do with that”.
I honestly need to know from an actual Republican who believed trumps words and is now witnessing p2025 almost hit 50% completion with the department of education getting dismantled.
And with that; how do these people feel that public schools, daycare centers and tech schools all going to cost 3-6x as much as it does now for tuition?
Project 2025 is the most double talky I’ve ever seen Donald Trump. “Project 2025? Nope, never seen it, never heard of anything in it, but it’s got some great ideas. I’m not going to follow it and I don’t have anything to do with it but I hear it has some really good ideas, but I won’t be adhering to them.”
Reminds me of the “Unite The Right” rally where he wouldn’t really condemn anyone: “Those folks are really nasty, but also there’s a lot of good folks.”
I think this is part of his “charm”. He double talks, so if you are a fan you perk up on the positives and let your eyes glass over during the bad parts.
this was actually a key part of Hitler’s strategy. early on in the Nazi meetings they would try to pin down and give an exact agenda and set of policies.
he would yell at everyone that they’re missing the point. it’s more about the vibe than the logic. being vague and ambiguous keeps your options open.
“It is not truth that matters, but victory.” Adolph
By refusing precise definitions, you are able to retroactively decide what the ideology “always meant”. so when it’s convenient to hate against health insurance CEOs you are “against the swamp”. when it’s convenient to dismantle the government you are “against the swamp”
it can mean whatever you want it to. similar with the “enemies of the state”
nazis would use the word marxists or “degenerates” very loosely. makes it very easy to shift blame to a specific target or another when necessary
berlin’s degeneracy is because of gays, somewhere else it may be gypsies, another it’s the jews, etc.
today we see phrases like “radical leftists” “cultural marxists” “woke ideology” etc
a federal judge blocked some of Trump’s orders (Trump ignored it of course) and what does he call him? a radical left judge. something that couldn’t be further from the truth- radical left would imply some type of communist or socialist. but it doesn’t really matter because the term is vague enough it can work
Just for some perspective: in 2009 I was a Christian nationalist and I thought Obama was going to use FEMA to imprison conservative dissenters and would turn the US into a communist dictatorship. I hoped and prayed for an explicitly Christian government and an end to most federal programs. If I had the same worldview now, I would be orgasmically happy with the way things are going.
Pray tell what changed your view?
Reality
I’m going to test the character limit for a Lemmy comment.
My views on religion and politics have evolved a lot over the years. I hope I remain open enough to continue to change and grow. I can think of several touchstone moments, people, events, podcasts, and books that have influenced my departure from religious fundamentalism and political conservatism. There was a book I read as a child, a skeptical professor in college, a compassionate neighbor, a contrarian friend, a challenging podcast, an insistent and feisty little girl, spiritual slavery, and a God who didn’t listen to a community in pain. It’s a story of exposure to new ideas.
I was brought up to be a fundamentalist baptist. I was faithful to the only baptist creed: “Don’t drink, don’t smoke, I’m don’t chew, and don’t run with those who do.” Well, I suppose there were additional “don’ts “ like dancing, swearing, listening to worldly music, and watching rated R movies, but those items don’t fit into a nice little rhyme. Anyway, when I was a kid, one of my relatives had a book called The Handbook of Denominations. I found it and spent an afternoon looking at it, having my mind blown. To that point, it had never really occurred to me that there were Christians who were not baptists. This primed me to pursue relationships in middle school and high school with people who believed differently from me. I thought the heathen kids were wrong and disobeying God’s word, but they were interesting. I had friends who were LDS, Catholic, Charismatic, even atheists. I enjoyed a wide exposure to ideas while my church mates were cloistered.
In college, I took Biblical Hebrew. The professor was a secular Jew. His breakdown of the wild poetic imagery in Genesis 1 exploded my fundamentalist idea that it was literal history. Throughout the class, we were to visit synagogues and report on our observations. This exposure to a different way of worship impacted me deeply. I saw people earnestly believing and praying in a way different from me, yet with the same sincerity and conviction.
When my wife and I started our family, we had an elderly neighbors who were life-long Roman Catholics. Throughout my life, the Catholics I had met only went to church on Christmas and Easter, drank, cursed, and fornicated, and were generally indistinguishable from the heathen around me. I saw them as not-serious idol worshippers, doomed to eternal hellfire. My neighbors were different. They were the kindest, most generous people I had ever met. Even now, years later, I tear-up thinking about their sweetness toward us, a struggling young family. It was like living across the street from Jesus Himself. They brought us meals, helped with home repairs, watched our kids, bought clothes and toys, and so much more I can’t remember. Their love turned the tables on the Protestant reformation for me. I didn’t convert, but I started to realize in every group there can be shitty people, ordinary people, and beautiful people.
During Obama’s first term, as I mentioned above, I was a Christian nationalist. AS far as I can remember, one single comment from a trusted friend and mentor upset my political apple cart. After a Bible study, I asked my friend if he had seen some story about the President on Fox News. He said, “I don’t watch that crap. He’s my brother in Christ, and I don’t appreciate a bunch of talking heads telling me to hate my brother.” That was a watershed moment. My friend was politically conservative and religiously extreme. I respected him and that put a lot of weight behind his words.
Another trusted friend recommended a podcast for entertainment’s sake where the hosts talked about their shared experiences in a fundamentalist religious upbringing and current-day divergence while getting drunk. I saw how two people can keep a close friendship despite holding different views; in this case, Catholicism and agnosticism. They also spoke favorably about Obama and when 2016 rolled around, they were huge fans of Bernie Sanders. I strongly related to their experiences and their left-leaning political views were challenging at first, then contagious. In 2016, for the first time, I did not vote straight republican down the ballot.
In my adult life, I have been a member or regular attender of five different Christian denominations. Some of these changes were quite significant and involved catechism and re-baptism. I’m always searching for answers.
Once upon a time, I was an Eastern Orthodox Christian. For many years. This is a culturally conservative and religiously fundamentalist expression of Christianity. The church has strict gender roles, especially within its rituals. Women are permitted to teach the children and perform domestic duties. In some Orthodox denominations, women may serve as cantors and choir directors. Women are prohibited from serving at the altar. They cannot even enter the sacred space surrounding the altar. After services one day, a few groups of people lingered, talking. They were mostly parents, as there was to be a short altar server class. When the priest announced it was time for altar server class to begin and for all the boys to meet him at the front of the church, a girl, maybe seven years old, declared excitedly, “can I go? I want to be an altar server!” The priest, caught off-guard answered “no, I’m sorry.” “Why not?” “We can talk about it when you’re older,” the priest replied nervously, looking at her dad for backup. This little exchange stuck with me. It seemed inappropriate that a child’s enthusiasm for wanting to feel helpful and important was squashed simply because she had the wrong biological equipment. This was the beginning of the end of my religious fundamentalism.
I had exercised my rights as a male in the Orthodox Christian denomination and performed vital roles in services for many years. I’m going to be brief here because the community is small and I am protective of my anonymity online. I was pressured to serve the church and be available for every service (at minimum three per week) on a volunteer basis. Although I became exhausted and frustrated, to entertain thoughts of quitting was considered spiritual weakness. This was an especially damaging time for my spiritual life.
While I was involved with this church, a tragic incident occurred in a nearby rural community. A mother was home with her four-year-old son and put him down for an afternoon nap. She also fell asleep on the couch. When she awoke, her son was nowhere to be found. She searched the house and property, called neighbors, and eventually called law enforcement for help. By the evening, dozens of friends, family, and neighbors were out looking for the boy. It was spring and the nights were still dangerously cool for a boy in pajamas. Word spread on social media and churches prayed earnestly for the boy and his family. I was especially touched because I had young children. The boy was found two days later, dead from exposure, lying in a ditch just 100 yards from the house. Many people had probably walked right past him. I hated God for that. This was a catalyst for my investigation into whether I believed in a personal God who actively intervened in his creation.
TL;DR: My faith and politics changed over a period of 10-15 years from Christian Nationalist and religious fundamentalist to progressive agnostic through exposure to new ideas, often introduced to me by people I trusted.
Wow… That’s quite the journey. Thank you for sharing it.
It’s particularly enlightening is that the diversity of information presented to you is what helped you change. Not just one “gotcha” quote from some online commenter, one snippy remark about a noticeable hypocrisy. Not one source of disruption, but many. I think that’s fascinating, and extremely helpful for those of us with family who only get their news and opinions and politics from one place.
Again, thanks for telling your story.
How in the name of sweet baby imaginary white Jesus did you get out of that mindset!?
I wrote a novel in reply to the same question asked by HarkMahlberg above.
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What denomination, primarily, were you? Did you manage to get anyone out with you? (I was unable.)
I’ve been part of several denominations: fundie baptist, charismatic, Lutheran, Eastern Orthodox. I’m now a bit of a free agent, but I attend a UMC when I’m feeling up to it.
I’d also be interested in hearing about how you changed your views.
Not even trying to be mean but probably themself or someone they know personally got hurt.
This is very common, but was not the reason for my worldview change.
Yep. That crowd never changes until they are directly impacted somehow.
You do see that quite a bit in “ex” subreddits. Personal experience can shake anyone’s views, not just “that crowd.” Spiritual abuse played a role in pushing me away from religious fundamentalism, but there were other factors that laid the groundwork. The process took years and key elements involved a mind-expanding book, two compassionate friends, a podcast, and a local news story that showed me God was quite a bit different than I thought he was. I’ll write the book about it under another comment.
Not necessarily. In my case, psychedelics played a huge role in finally making everything click.
Oh, hey. That whole mind expanding thing really isn’t a joke. I look back, sometimes, on who I used to be.
I wrote a novel in reply to HarkMahlberg above.
Most are fine with it. Remember the people that died of covid denying it existed the whole time? That’s the type. They’re dumb af.
People who have never experienced oppression just thinking it’s business as usual.
Wearing a mask ain’t oppression either 😂
That’s part of the problem, a lot of people don’t realize they are the oppressors
The other part is the ones that do.
What do we call the Herman cain award now?
Not quite about just project 2025 but Nate Silver from what used to be 538 has Trump aggregated disapproval rating at 49.8% as of 03/20/25. That up from 40% in 2 months.
Source: https://www.natesilver.net/p/trump-approval-ratings-nate-silver-bulletin
Nate silver showed he was full of shit in 2016. Idk why anyone still listens to him.
And all of those people who had family die from covid and still thought masks were a form of thought control
i forgot about that haha.
You’re very unlikely to get a response from a Republican on Lemmy
I like it like that.
And very unlikely to get a serious response about P2025. They just have no response
Even if you got a response it will likely not be genuine. They’d rather save face than say they were wrong.
“What do you mean you arent forced into 2 sentences max and have to structure your thoughts ??2?”
More like “how do I make an account? I give up. Fucking immigrants ruining my signup process”.
Don’t kid yourself, they’re here. Make sure they know they aren’t welcome.
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Exluding intolerance doesn’t result in an echo chamber.
I don’t need dumbass opinions in any chamber I’m occupying, Republicans can stay gone for all I care
I like to fuck with em when I can. Keep the space hostile to them, it worked for punk bars it works for us.
I like to fuck with em when I can. Keep the space hostile to them, it worked for punk bars it works for us.
Heh come make a meme or 2 on !conservative@lemmy.world though I will admit it’s a tad less fun without actual conservatives to downvote, but it’s still fun lolol
I don’t mean to criticize what you’ve done with the place, but I do think it might’ve been interesting to have something that purported to be a sincere community for conservatives but that wasn’t moderated as a ‘safe space’ for them.
A honey pot?
Shout out to Turbohaüs in Montreal
Keep the space hostile to them, it worked for punk bars it works for us.
That was a confusing URL
I do have to agree with that.
It would be one thing if we were debating different ways to solve health care, education, incarceration, mental health, homelessness, wealth inequality, or something else.
While I personally think the right is wrong in their solutions I’d be happy to debate them.
But the right isn’t talking about these issues or solutions for them. You can’t have a debate when you’re talking about two completely different things.
Not just different things, but whether those things even exist
Like, I’m all about debating the best approaches to fighting climate change. I’m not about debating whether it exists.
You can’t debate solutions when you disagree about what the problem is
Especially when they think your views are the problem.
As much as I can understand your point, it’s a truth that if you can argue against your beliefs, you have a full understanding of both sides. You should be well versed in order to provide a solid understanding. Just as one side wants the other to hear reason, there has to be a common ground somewhere.
That’s fantastic advice. Every now and then you gotta check yourself. Those MAGA folks don’t know they’re brainwashed, and honestly, neither would any of us. Nobody is too smart for propaganda!
Oh great Garfield of the lasagna, share with us your wisdom.
But my government says that I am.
Those MAGA folks don’t know they’re brainwashed, and honestly, neither would any of us.
I challenge this line of reasoning. All that is required is asking the question “is that true?”, then attempting to answer that question. There are very few modern conservative talking points that cannot be riddled with holes via 10 min of googling. I understand that people of western society have had our attention robbed of us, but all that is required is a desire to know the truth. They don’t. They want to have an interesting story that triggers their emotions. I will not abide apologies for anyone still supporting the MAGA agenda.
Oh for sure. I did a deep dive into Fox News to try to understand where they were coming from and it’s all just blatant bullshit. And I honestly tried to find at least one valid argument that I probably wouldn’t agree with.
Just gotta check every now and then.
Understanding the other side doesn’t mean there will be a common ground. Understanding nazis doesn’t mean there is common ground to share with them.
The problem is literally that people keep labeling anything slightly right of genderqueer marxist-lenninist a “nazi”. There’s plenty of common ground between what Lemmy considers a “Nazi” and actual Nazis.
Did you lived under a rock for the last two months??? The Republican are literally nazis. They are doing nazi salute at their rally, Deporting people to camp, Censuring scientific paper that disagree with them, Actively trying to genocide at least one group of person, dismantling law and order in the usa, Ect…
If you think we can have common ground with these people that say a lot about your political views… (And please “everything slightly right of genderqueer Marxist leninist” was absolutely pathetic. First its completely hypocrite, people using the word nazi is too much for you but the people you dont like are Communist? And further more … I mean yeah people who think we should prevent genderqueer people from existing are at the very least Nazi aligned "
We’re not talking about the politicians here, we’re talking about individuals in society who aren’t responsible for the things you point out. Normal people who visit Lemmy.
Nobody is calling anyone communist, it was used as an anchor point for the reference in the political spectrum. Hell, the word communist wasn’t even used, you’re putting words into my mouth.
The word “Nazi” has been devalued so much because of how easily the word is thrown around. It’s slapped onto anyone and everyone who doesn’t agree with wildly out of touch values commonly put forth on Lemmy.
Politics isn’t black and white. It’s not even a fucking spectrum. It’s a multi-thorned spider graph with an incredible number of facets surrounding everything from Employment, to Belief Systems, to Social Safety, and many other things. To immediately label anyone and everyone who doesn’t hit FULL FUCKING TILT on all of your issues a “Nazi” just means you’re not mature enough to have an adult conversation about the topic and that you’re living in a bubble of unreality.
We have more in common than we disagree on. The first step is not throwing a tantrum like a god damn child.
Welllllllll, you’re probably right. I hope you’re right. But, just to be on the safe side of sane, please allow me to recommend this nicely-made retrospective about the 2001 film portraying the Wannsee conference, for your cerebral pleasure.
I don’t expect them, either, but normal people might come in and share their experiences with Republicans.
Please insert face in designated slot; the next available leopard will feast on it momentarily.
That gave me a very odd image of vend-a-leopard-eating-your-face.
I don’t know any republicans personally but I would not be surprised if, given a choice between admitting fault and feeling bad, or literally any other option including lying or violence, they won’t admit fault. If they weren’t emotionally stunted, they wouldn’t be conservatives.
I have literally stopped speaking to my parents over this and have put the ball in their court, telling them that all they need to do is re-evaluate their position about this one fucking guy and admit they were wrong.
And I guess they’re fine with just not speaking to their son instead.
This is why blaming conservatives or getting them to admit fault doesn’t work. It only makes them become more defensive and entrenched.
A better approach is to appeal to their victim complex. IE: Instead of “Trump is ruining this country and its your fault for voting for him!” try “Dude, Trump is screwing us! This isn’t the great America we were promised!” or some variation of that. Gotta use different tactics.
Yeah, you have to make them see you as a member of a shared in-group. That’s the most important thing to them (and many people, honestly. we’re all susceptible to tribalism and such)
I’m not sure it’s possible to blame Trump rather than his voters when he literally promised to make most of these changes. It might be more effective to say that Trump was misled by Musk.
Humans in general are very hesitant to admit that they were wrong. Cult members doubly so.
It’s so unfortunate too, because so many of our society’s current ills can literally be boiled down to “so and so refused to admit they were wrong”
Yeah I realized admitting fault is kind of a power move. You can just be like “oh! I was wrong. Woops” and what might have been a like hour long argument about some unimportant minutia instead just wraps up. Nothing bad happens.
Oh no, the lying liar who is best known for lying about literally everything lied and gullible people believed it (or conveniently ignored it, or didn’t care or thought it was just peachy because they thought it wouldn’t apply to them and were perfectly fine with it applying to other people)? Who could possibly have predicted that? Oh wait, I think literally every left wing person in the US predicted that.
Honestly we knew that, even if Trump wasn’t involved, the people around him were. Y’all are too gullible. Even today I see posts on Lemmy about “Elon did this, Trump did that”, pure noise draining out the real news that happens once or twice a week.
The person i was talking to about it said that he doesn’t want Project 2025 put in place, but also voted Trump and (as you said) said Trump “doesn’t have anything to do with that”.
When I went to talk to them again after the election, he had either deleted his account or blocked me after I ask about Trump appointing many involved with Project 2025.
i am guessing this would the case on an average. thanks though
At this point, I don’t know why Republicans don’t outright just say they want people who they see as less than them suffering and/or dead. That’s their only consistent political view.
Studies show that people on the left are more trusting of others in general than those on the right. It is reflected in their obsession with guns and their rejection of social programs.
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So many of them are in denial about it themselves. It’s very strange indeed.
they’re not going to “snap out of it”. what he does for them isn’t the point. he could personally fire each and every Republican and fuck every one of their wives but as long as he’s a big tough guy triggering the libz, it’s all fine. this is just 21st century politics now.
Dang. At least in Black Mirror 21st century politics got to be shadow-ruled by an animated blue dog puppet, which took a modicum of the edge off the oppression.
I remember finding that episode annoying when it first came out.
I watched it again after 2016, and boy did I view it differently.
I know a couple life-long Republicans I sometimes briefly talk about politics with (one family, one acquaintance). Neither of them like Trump, but like the idea around Project 2025. One is an evangelical Christian, the other is a Catholic.
The Catholic strongly believes government should be run like a business, and the president should be like a CEO, so he should be able to fire everyone and replace them, if needed, with workers that will execute his plans. He’s also an anti-abortion, and tough-on-crime/immigration type. However, he strongly disapproves of Trump seemingly being pro-Russian now, Trump and his cabinet’s personal lives (he’s always strangely fixated on people’s personal lives, in a moral sense, for some reason), the take-over of the FBI and CIA, and the tariffs hurting his stock portfolio.
The evangelical Christian just doesn’t like Trump as a person, and doesn’t like Russia. He’s a just-world-hypothesis, small government, women are subservient, pro-business type; but also low/lower-middle-class, and has needed, and will need the social services he opposes. I guess his opinions are pretty similar to the Catholic’s, just a little more extreme on the social side, and supports policies that have always hurt him. I mean, Republican policies hurt the (fairly wealthy) Catholic too, but at least they get to say their taxes are lower and there’s less red-tape.
No offense but your personal experience does not characterize an entire religion. 2 people do not speak for 2 religions unless one of those people is the Pope.
The reality is people often use the guise of religion as an excuse for them to act a certain way when in reality they are just bigots.
Idk I grew up as a fundamentalist. It the religion is shitty without the toxic politics.
Didn’t mean to paint entire religions. It was just a convenient way to differentiate the 2 people I was talking about, and to imply where their motivations may come from. I’ve known plenty of less right-wing Catholics and Protestants. I am an anti-theist though, and think religion does more harm than good.
He thinks the president should hire/fire anyone they want, but they dislike the people the president has been choosing.
“Government should be run like a business” sounds like a totalitarian religion.
So basically the opposite of what the founding fathers wanted with separation of powers and checks and balances, right?
I thought these people were cosplaying traditionalists.
If you want to understand them more, I think the problem is you’re seeing different aspects to what they do.
‘Large’ government with lots of power might sound more like totalitarianism, overseeing many aspects of life that - in the opinion of many - ought to be left to people’s freedom.
Running the government like a business, on the other hand, implies having pressures on it to do only what achieves its aims, and do that efficiently. And a CEO-president means the power to fix the government without being restricted by bureaucracy.
… Of course to me, by that point, it sounds like a king, exactly as you said. And running a government as a business sounds about as stupid as you can get. But these things aren’t exact, and understanding how a different perspective can make something look good helps us to understand the people with that perspective. It also helps us see things to improve that our perspective might be missing.
But it’s not about the size of the government, or the bureaucracy, it’s about whether anyone can have dictatorial power over life, death, freedom etc of others without any check on the legality of their orders.
The separation and co-equal branches of the 3 arms of government is bedrock. The government and bureaucracy can be huge or tiny without relevance to this.
I understand the appeal of being unshackled by other people’s opinions and interests.
I just don’t know how they reconcile their notional “conservatism” (they is conserving the traditions) with dismantling the actual tradition.
Yeah, these people are ignorant of and don’t care about civics. The ignorance of the one guy surprised me, because they went to a decent college, but didn’t even know what gerrymandering was. They are un-american, IMO.
And this boys, girls, and the Eldritch entity in my cupboard is why the humanities are so important, if you want other examples go watch the Behind the Bastards episodes on the Zizians.
He wants a king, not a democracy
Interesting. Thanks for the time man.
Schools won’t cost 3-6x as much stupid LIBTARD! Schools will cost 3-6x as much and your Taxes will be Raised to pay for the CEOs Mansion STUPID COMMIE!
That sounds about right
Ask the guy who had his wife deported and is still supporting Trump.
I’d prefer to never have to interact with someone that hateful and stupid.
Do you think that Project 2025 isn’t what a bunch of conservatives want? It didn’t just come from one person. A bunch of people wanted to vote for this.
ive known about it and who wrote it when it first showed up online. i know its a hardcore Christian conversion of the USA and i see it as the US turning into some sort of north korea
