Since tomorrow is Christmas I thought I would post this in case you have any MAGA relatives who will be over.

  • umbrellacloud@leminal.space
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    3 hours ago

    I don’t think voting for or not voting for Trump would have made any difference. Trump is a billonare and your uncle or dad or mom or whatever would probably become homeless if they were hit by a car. So it doesn’t actually matter if you deprogram them.

    Secondly I think your uncle or dad or mom is probably just an asshole and isn’t in a cult or brainwashed. This is just the new thing they’re being an asshole about, because it gives them a lot of emotional gratification and it’s popular. I’ve got a relative who believes every doomsday conspiracy based on which one is trending. I think it’s like that. If I deprogrammed him from one conspiracy, he’d move onto another. If it’s not the poles shifting, it’s nuclear winter, etc, weirdly never climate change.

    But yeah. I think these ‘brainwashed’ people are just people who enjoy being insufferable and if they were given a different type of reinforcement, they’d just be insufferable in a Leftist space too. They’d be the type of person who doxes teenage girls on twitter because they think a white girl learning spanish for school is cultural appropriation or whatever. How about these people are just douchebags? That’s what I try to do when I shame them for this stuff, I try to make it about how they’re being a douchebag and an attentionwhore generally, about how they’re giving the same energy as the ex alcholic or ex con who needs to keep mentioning Jesus. At a certain point even if youre a follower of Jesus you get sick of hearing about how this ex addict is morally superior for worshipping the diety that the majority of Americans also worship, but because they always deflect onto Jesus, its hard to criticize the behavior, so you’ve got to be specific about what they’re actually doing.

    Jesus isn’t real and your vote doesn’t matter, so deprogramming them from the totally meaningless belief isn’t really the issue, the issue is that the behavior is unacceptable and disruptive.

    • KurtVonnegut@mander.xyz
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      2 hours ago

      The fact that the system is rigged does not mean that voting doesn’t matter, I would say. Apart from that, yes well said, and spot on.

      • umbrellacloud@leminal.space
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        2 hours ago

        Didn’t the electorial college elect Trump in 2016? I remember them saying that we needed a “strong Republican leader” due to the times or some bullshit, I don’t remember.