Donald Trump anchored his bid to win a second White House term next week on searing anti-migrant fear at a rally at Madison Square Garden, doubling down on his promise for a massive deportation program on Day 1 to reverse an “immigrant invasion.”
It is, in part, because the WW2 generation is dead. They’re no longer here to offend. They’re not here to yell at anyone and shut them down for the level of disrespect they express, all around, with their bigotry. They are memory, and that war was their memory, so a lot of the social constructs around the causes of and the winning of that war have faded.
The last political interaction I had with the WW2 generation was my grandma. Born in the 30s.
Trump caught Covid.
I told her that probably the best thing that could happen for the entire country and its future would be if he died from it.
He’d be dead, his movement would at least be stymied for a while from his loss, possibly lead to more moderate, less QAnon Repubs ending up as most influential in their party…
… it would expose him and other MAGA people (all freaking out over how Covid wasn’t real of whatever, masks are bad) as moronic hypocrites, killing themselves over insane nonsense beliefs…
…and it would have the benefit of removing Trump without direct intervention of an assassin or something, making a reactionary martyrdom movement around him less likely.
She’s a liberal. Watches Bill Maher.
She pearl clutches. How could you be so crass as to wish for the death of a political opponent?!
I explain that he is a fascist, fueling a violent fascist movement that will persist for decades at best, which will result in the end of democracy, and horrific violence and poverty very soon, at worst.
She throws up her hands. Ridiculous! How can you say that, they’re fringe, this will all fizzle out once he’s gone, Biden will fix all this!
I say Biden, if he wins, won’t have both the Senate and the House, he’ll only be a marginal stabilizing force, but he’s too moderate to do anything like a New Deal which is what we need.
Also, you are very, very much underestimating the amount of people spewing increasingly violent right wing rhetoric online… you don’t know about it because its on the internet, the news you watch and read downplays it, isolates it, or just misses it entirely. Here, I can show…
Oh, well, my dad is a through and through MAGA Q Anon person, who builds ghost guns with his own machining equipment in his garage. Ghost gun meaning no serial number in the receiver. As in, they’re all inherently illegal.
Any time I’d best him in a debate, oh suddenly he isn’t interested in politics anymore.
Except he’s been listening and watching the same total wackos the whole time, and lying about it, because he comes out of nowhere with some insane claim I’ve never heard of, then I spend a day tracking down that, yep, here’s the source of that claim, nutjob #839, just saying shit with no evidence and presenting it as if its a fact, or wildly, wildly mischaracterizing a story by leaving out key details and intentionally misunderstanding important procedures and mechanisms the story relies on.
Last time I talked to him he was convinced Tom Hanks’ son killed, raped and ate babies for their adrenochrome, making up stories about being assaulted by racial minorities at WalMart, attempting to convince my other friends and family that I am schizophrenic and need to be locked into an asylum.
Immigrants, queer people, women, the disabled: all right here to offend, to their faces. But bigots don’t care.
I’ll accept that bigots in some way care about who they offend when you don’t get black bigots who hate black people, woman bigots who hate women, immigrants bigots who hate immigrants, queer bigots who hate queer people, and so on. There are people who talk to the kinds of people they are offensive about and towards every day, and they don’t care. “I’m right,” they say, “you’re just triggered.”
I’d make the guess that a lot of family members that would have been offended because they served or at least remember experiencing WW2 are no longer around Ref.
It’s easier to disregard an opinion of someone as an “outsider”, even younger family members. But I’d guess that excluding grandpa/Grandma would be a lot harder when they tell you in vivid detail exactly why they fought what you’re voting to have.
There was a status to being a WW2 vet because of the direct experience. Because it was lauded time in American history. And because when you look someone in the eye who has been in a concentration camp, be it the victim or the liberators/witnesses to destruction (gramps wouldn’t give details, it was his job to take his team from camp to camp to liberate, but he implied there was usually little left to liberate.) it’s hard to spout your disconnected nonsense and not get punched in the face.
Now we’re all on equal standing in terms of not a single one of us was there. This is likely how history repeats, this process we’re witnessing right now.
This is the paradox of tolerance in action. In a world where bigotry is a tolerated political position, you will allow people to vote for bigotry.
It is, in part, because the WW2 generation is dead. They’re no longer here to offend. They’re not here to yell at anyone and shut them down for the level of disrespect they express, all around, with their bigotry. They are memory, and that war was their memory, so a lot of the social constructs around the causes of and the winning of that war have faded.
They aren’t here to punch Hitler apologists in the face.
I’m pretty sure that’s what u/zephorah said.
Yeah but ceenote said it more eloquently.
With blackjack and hookers
The last political interaction I had with the WW2 generation was my grandma. Born in the 30s.
Trump caught Covid.
I told her that probably the best thing that could happen for the entire country and its future would be if he died from it.
He’d be dead, his movement would at least be stymied for a while from his loss, possibly lead to more moderate, less QAnon Repubs ending up as most influential in their party…
… it would expose him and other MAGA people (all freaking out over how Covid wasn’t real of whatever, masks are bad) as moronic hypocrites, killing themselves over insane nonsense beliefs…
…and it would have the benefit of removing Trump without direct intervention of an assassin or something, making a reactionary martyrdom movement around him less likely.
She’s a liberal. Watches Bill Maher.
She pearl clutches. How could you be so crass as to wish for the death of a political opponent?!
I explain that he is a fascist, fueling a violent fascist movement that will persist for decades at best, which will result in the end of democracy, and horrific violence and poverty very soon, at worst.
She throws up her hands. Ridiculous! How can you say that, they’re fringe, this will all fizzle out once he’s gone, Biden will fix all this!
I say Biden, if he wins, won’t have both the Senate and the House, he’ll only be a marginal stabilizing force, but he’s too moderate to do anything like a New Deal which is what we need.
Also, you are very, very much underestimating the amount of people spewing increasingly violent right wing rhetoric online… you don’t know about it because its on the internet, the news you watch and read downplays it, isolates it, or just misses it entirely. Here, I can show…
She isn’t interested .
…
Some months later, Jan 6th happens.
How could this happen?
I hope you realize how lucky you are to have a grandma who is merely deluded into thinking the MAGAts aren’t a threat.
Oh, well, my dad is a through and through MAGA Q Anon person, who builds ghost guns with his own machining equipment in his garage. Ghost gun meaning no serial number in the receiver. As in, they’re all inherently illegal.
Any time I’d best him in a debate, oh suddenly he isn’t interested in politics anymore.
Except he’s been listening and watching the same total wackos the whole time, and lying about it, because he comes out of nowhere with some insane claim I’ve never heard of, then I spend a day tracking down that, yep, here’s the source of that claim, nutjob #839, just saying shit with no evidence and presenting it as if its a fact, or wildly, wildly mischaracterizing a story by leaving out key details and intentionally misunderstanding important procedures and mechanisms the story relies on.
Last time I talked to him he was convinced Tom Hanks’ son killed, raped and ate babies for their adrenochrome, making up stories about being assaulted by racial minorities at WalMart, attempting to convince my other friends and family that I am schizophrenic and need to be locked into an asylum.
I hope his mechanical heart valve fails.
Sounds like our dads could be friends.
You have my condolences.
Immigrants, queer people, women, the disabled: all right here to offend, to their faces. But bigots don’t care.
I’ll accept that bigots in some way care about who they offend when you don’t get black bigots who hate black people, woman bigots who hate women, immigrants bigots who hate immigrants, queer bigots who hate queer people, and so on. There are people who talk to the kinds of people they are offensive about and towards every day, and they don’t care. “I’m right,” they say, “you’re just triggered.”
I’d make the guess that a lot of family members that would have been offended because they served or at least remember experiencing WW2 are no longer around Ref. It’s easier to disregard an opinion of someone as an “outsider”, even younger family members. But I’d guess that excluding grandpa/Grandma would be a lot harder when they tell you in vivid detail exactly why they fought what you’re voting to have.
I’m old enough to have met extremely right-wing WWII veterans who voted for racist policies. “It’s not fascism because I like it.”
There was a status to being a WW2 vet because of the direct experience. Because it was lauded time in American history. And because when you look someone in the eye who has been in a concentration camp, be it the victim or the liberators/witnesses to destruction (gramps wouldn’t give details, it was his job to take his team from camp to camp to liberate, but he implied there was usually little left to liberate.) it’s hard to spout your disconnected nonsense and not get punched in the face.
Now we’re all on equal standing in terms of not a single one of us was there. This is likely how history repeats, this process we’re witnessing right now.
I feel like a major point of modern media is to foster disconnected nonsense.