Isn’t how somebody votes one of the only things you can ethically criticize someone for?
Like, people often treat their party like it’s part of their tribe, but it’s not like you’re born into it. It’s not the same thing as race, colour, creed, gender, orientation, or any other prohibited grounds.
Voting is exercising a choice. If you can’t criticize someone because of the choices they make, what can you criticize them for?
She literally just called Trump a fascist. But like, I guess supporting fascists is like just one of those “agree to disagree” matters that shouldn’t be held against someone? They can still be good people who just want mass deportations, military tribunals of political enemies, and for trans people to just cease to exist.
I would guess that she’s trying to separate the voters from the representatives, so that when someone calls out a republican politician for being racist, they have a harder time convincing their voters that she was calling them racist as well.
Right now it seems like people see their political party as their identity, there are both democrats and republicans who do it but I’d say it is far, far more common with republicans.
You can, and should, hold your representatives accountable when they do bad shit, regardless of whether you voted for them or not, and if your party starts standing for things that are worse than another party then you should change who you vote for.
It’s a long road to get back from this division in the US, but I hope there’s a future where it’s possible.
Democrats: “Vote for Harris if you want to save the country from Trump and the Republicans!” Also Democrats: “We need a strong Republican party and we love the Cheney’s!” The Left: “WTF is going on?”
I don’t really understand your issue… She doesn’t “love” them, she’s just associating with them. Are you so drunk on Trump’s bullshit that you think we should seek only division?
20 years ago it was Bush and the Cheneys that were so bad we would have been told to vote for anyone running Blue.
Can’t wait to vote for the Democratic candidate in 2048 based on the idea that they’ll only conscript first-born children into mandatory asteroid farming and have Barron Trump’s enforcement over Megahitler.
I can’t see it being more affordable to use humans to farm asteroids than machines. Life support systems seem expensive long term. That said, I also can’t think of a resource that would be worth mining off planet in that time frame.
Trump voters are not garbage, most of them are frankly just ignorant and maybe a little dull. Calling Trump supporters garbage on the other hand would be an insult to garbage
They can be garbage and still be governed fairly at the same time.
She’s just trying to avoid Hillary’s deplorables comment. It’s true, of course, and you should absolutely cut those people from you life, but it was misconstrued and so could this.
Although, Kamala really wants a “Not all Republicans” message, so there’s that too. No use alienating those snowflakes so close to Election Day.
Would you cut out your own family members over voting choices?
Edit: not sure why am I getting downvoted, I’m genuinely curious, not a suggestive question
As a queer person I don’t feel safe around people who support killing queer people. So obviously yes.
I have many conservative family members who, misguided as they are, would be vehemently opposed to killing queer people.
Remember the bell curve. Most people are not the extremes.
I stopped talking to my grandparents not strictly because of their vote but because every single conversation turned into them screaming and ranting about the black/asian/mexican/etc menace, and saying anything in disagreement got you screamed at or sometimes threatened with violence. we could be pleasantly chatting about the wildlife in their backyard and then suddenly it’s all about how the ‘n----rs’ are ruining the country and we need to bring lynching back. these same people will loudly say they aren’t racist, somehow. they couldn’t even behave themselves in public and would talk like this at restaurants in full hearing of anyone around!
Tough question, but you spend though time online and you hear stories of abuse from Trump parents and people ghosting them. It’s not so much about the voting choices though, but who those people are— which of course is correlated.
That said, you shouldn’t think in absolutes. I certainly quarantine family to once-a-year if they’re terrible, if even that. It’s not as direct as making a pact to never see them, you just avoid unpleasant people. That just happens to be Trump supporters lately since he appeals to the worst kind of people, but before that it was my folks like my grandpa who called Obama the n word and kicked my dad out at 15.
That make sense?
Yeah, that makes sense in a normal, not batshit insane world. But I view this election as different, as we are talking about overt fascism being on the ballot (and the race is neck and neck).
When it comes to fighting against fascism, you must think in absolutes. This ideology is cancerous, and it must be completely eliminated in order to prevent the incalculable suffering and death that it promises.
Sorry if that hurts people’s feelings.
I think it makea sense and gives a fuller perspective on this. To me the key words are unpleasant people. I was thinking to make the tradeoff of suffering through listening to their opinions on matters to help arm myself (figuratively, FBI) when the next discussion opportunity comes up (or argument). I frankly don’t know if that’s effective, to be an opposing voice in their lives. And just to clarify this is aimed at misguided family members, not the ones that are outright unpleasant
It really depends.
I’m in Australia so while I detest our conservative party leader (not presently prime minister but probably one day), he’s not really as abhorrent as Trump.
If someone very close to me who I care about quietly mentioned that they voted for someone as awful as Trump, that wouldn’t be immediate irrevocable dismissable from my “inner circle”, but it would certainly change how I thought of them.
Perhaps oddly, it would be a bit like someone saying they believed vaccines were harmful or that the earth is flat. They’re not stupid (necessarily), but there’s some complex and concerning psychological stuff going on.
You will notice that it is usually Democrats who have no qualms with cutting ties with their families over trivial ideological differences.
Because the “trivial” ideological differences aren’t a two-way street. Democrats want people to be able to live as they want. Republicans are working to exterminate certain groups. As a conservative-passing liberal, (I’m pale enough to pass for white, and work in a conservative-biased industry), it’s really really hard to stay friends with conservatives; They’ll inevitably get too comfortable and drop an N-word because they think I’m safe. Or they’ll call one of our mutual BIPOC friends “one of the good ones” like it’s supposed to be a compliment.
In short, liberals aren’t an existential threat to conservatives. Liberals may have an issue with some of conservatives’ choices, but “owning guns” isn’t something inherent to your personhood. You aren’t born with a gun in your hand, and you won’t immediately die without a gun. On the other hand, conservatives are an existential threat to liberals, because they take issue with innate traits, rather than their individual choices. You can’t choose to be black, but conservatives will judge you for it regardless.
One side is saying “I’d like people to exist without judgement” and the other is saying “you don’t have the basic human right to exist.” And then the latter makes fun of the former when the former cuts ties.
