That’s part of the problem, a lot of people don’t realize they are the oppressors

Nate silver showed he was full of shit in 2016. Idk why anyone still listens to him.

I got into an argument with my dad a couple days ago about this exact thing.

I was bitching that despite being given unlimited power, Biden just fucked off and let the carion eaters have their way with the corpse of America. His response? “It’s all Biden’s fault.” He’s being sarcastic and thinks he’s making fun of maga, but he’s right. This shit is Biden’s fault. And Garland’s, and all the other bitches in Blue. He actually thinks I’m defending fucking TRUMP when i point out Dems fuckups. He goes on and on about how politics isn’t a team sport, but then he engages in fucking tribalism, just like the magats.

It’s infuriating.

Complete non sequitur, but i knew someone about 20 years ago that referred to herself as Sara Tonin. Hope she’s doing ok.

lol what a waste of money… he might as well go to her country she isn’t gonna get to come back.

You’re not gonna get an answer here. Try asking on a random Instagram APNews thread. Most of the answers you’ll get are from bots, but Republicans are taught to parrot whatever they say, so it’s basically the same thing

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.

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)

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”

I wrote a novel in reply to HarkMahlberg above.

Not even trying to be mean but probably themself or someone they know personally got hurt.

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.

Not the person you replied to but I also used to be a hardcore Christian conservative.

Honestly just talking to people with different viewpoints than me. Back when Reddit was decent I would troll with conservative BS to get a rise out of commenters, but occasionally people would reply with points I couldn’t refute. Making IRL friends helped a lot too. I realized people actually have nuance in their opinions and there’s a lot more gray area than I realized. Leaving religion was the last step for me. Once my identity was no longer my beliefs I was able to change them.

Its part of what scares me about the internet now, we all get locked in little echo chambers. Nobody’s viewpoints get challanged and there’s no honest debate any more. Defederated social media will only make it worse as there will be 10,000 different Lemmys, each one for an exactly specific set of beliefs that will never be questioned.

I wrote a novel in reply to the same question asked by HarkMahlberg above.

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.

More like “how do I make an account? I give up. Fucking immigrants ruining my signup process”.

Exluding intolerance doesn’t result in an echo chamber.

Truth

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.

I actually hope they start getting banned from reddit and make a few conservative lemmys for that reason too. The corporate centralized control is worse than them having a corner to circle jerk in. web has taken a very bad turn the last 20 years. It’s easy enough for people to block the instance

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.

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.

Then how was it that you “believed Trump’s words”?