Classic authoritarian tactics:

Target a marginalized group with an issue that you’ve framed as ridiculous or politically suicidal to disagree with, get public opinion riled up by manipulating their grievances through exploiting their internal prejudices, and make everything an extension of preserving national security. Once you’ve manipulated enough people into giving you extralegal power, simply expand the circle of ‘national security threats’.

In just a few months we’ve watched Trump:

steal the power of the purse and the power to enact tariffs from Congress,

create a precedent for the unconstitutional arrest, detainment, and removal of legal residents and dissenting citizens,

iterate his intentions to restart American expansionism into Canada and Greenland,

Successfully twist the arm of media companies, law firms, and universities into doing his bidding,

And his other executive order directs Dept. Of Homeland Security, DoJ, and DoD to create a plan for implementation of military and national security assets to “prevent crime and protect public safety”.

Welcome to the ‘find out’ stage.

How does being Mexican mean you don’t speak English? Have you never met a bilingual person in your life?

You don’t have to be stupid to follow an authoritarian. In fact, your characterization is a huge driving force in their radicalization. People with legitimate grievances watched globalization leave them in the dust in pursuit of a multicultural, pluralistic society. This left them vulnerable to narratives that espoused their “historical” superiority amongst other groups and their subsequent entitlement to world primacy. It’s more a function of a lack of diverse perspectives as a result of continued divestment from public services and goods, as well as geographical concentration of wealth and resources and other confounding variables.

I agree that the world before Trump was marginally better for these voters than the alternative they’ve elected, but your heirarchical paradigm is condescending, reductive, simplistif, obnoxious, short-sighted, and exemplifies why so many people swung that way to begin with.

Also, I can’t underestimate how incredibly dumb and dense you have to be to consider that the previous paradigm was good for anyone outside of the West who was not already someone of considerable financial means.

Man you’re really doing a lot of work to support rich oligarchs who could give fuck all about you. America has never been anything but an empire. Sure; they impose their will through softer means like foreign aid tied to a in implicit expectation of allowing American corporations to consolidate a country’s resources and labor, but an empire nonetheless. I suggest going to a library sometime. Also, wishing for the suffering of people who celebrate your pain and see you as less than is not a crime

Actually a better idea is just dumping 2-3 cups of sugar in the gas tank. Will muck up the fuel injection system and put it out of commission pronto.

Oh, right; like empathy. /s

Yeah no shit but in other countries you don’t have insurance companies and a laundry list of middlemen skimming half the revenue from your payments before a doctor even sees you.

Lol yeah the choice here is be broke or die

So close to being gay (and happy) yet too scared to admit to themselves.

Well I suppose the future will prove one of us wrong

So veganism isn’t related to or affected by agriculture? The plight of farmworkers worldwide is invalid because it’s not as traumatic as slaughterhouse workers? You keep trying to frame my argument as anti-veganism, but it’s really not. At this point I can only consider that I’ve triggered you in some ridiculous way that has nothing to do with anything we’re talking about

I mean throwing up a study about how vegans in the UK produce less greenhouse gas emissions than high-meat eaters only proves that veganism is better at producing less pollution. I never argued that it’s not.

But the study you referenced doesn’t account for worker exploitation, inequity in food distribution, or trade asymmetries. I think plant-based diets are fine, but many vegan products occupy industries that still perpetuate monocropping and resource-intensive production lines that produce massive profits for executives while leaving farmers with the short end of the stick.

I don’t have a bone to pick with vegans, I just think being vegan is a stop along the way to a healthy planet, not the destination. I’m striving to be as nuanced as I can when I offer my critique, which is essentially we need to start discussing why slaughtering animals is morally bad but exploiting workers and agriculture in third world countries isn’t. Having a healthy planet and lifting people out of poverty shouldn’t be mutually exclusive goals.

Yeah still condescending. Whatevs

To be fair you haven’t even offered anything I can respond to; you’re just flailing.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. Good luck with life.

I don’t see a need to be passive aggressive just because a stranger doesn’t agree with you. More the point: it’s only ignorant if you think you we live in a vacuum

If you can’t understand, then you’re proving my point.

Loved that movie. I guess I see where you’re coming from; but your rhetoric stinks of elitism and condescension.

Is that really your argument? If farms just increased their labor costs by 300-500%, we could all just be happily employed farmhands?

I won’t split hairs about what enthusiasm really looks like, but I’ll respond to your last point: I agree, but it is naive and dangerous to argue that the United States has even come close to acknowledging its sins. Until then, you all will bear the full weight of those sins, like it or not.