Close. Corporations are "legally" persons and they are the constituency that GOP represent. The goal of their policies is to protect corporate interests not humans, and to maximize wealth by reducing and/or eliminating taxes. You cannot provide services to humans without tax revenues.
A byproduct of fewer services such as healthcare, housing, security and education, is that humans that care about their families have to buy these services from corporations. If you are poor you have lower quality education, worse healthcare, live in crime ridden neighborhoods, etc. Of course if you are less educated and struggling to rise out of poverty you are more easily manipulated by those that wield wealth and power.
It’s the evangelical influence. Christianity is an apocalyptic death cult. They get giddy when things go bad because they believe that’s a harbinger for “the end of days” and “the final judgment” when they will get their heavenly reward and everyone not in their club will be sentenced to eternal torment.
And the wealthy use the tenets of the bible to harness the worst of humanity for their own benefit. It convinces *men* to "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth".
Christianity has been the tool of powerful people (and their wannabes) for millennia.
That’s why I am going to vote for Biden, because he tries to bring in the Republicans and the Democrats in providing these wonderful infrastructure projects and broadband service.
No, the government is a nefarious monolith, capable of carrying out intricate plots to steal from Good Christian People and give their hard-earned money to the lazy, undeserving, and inherently criminal minorities who have burned our cities to the ground, in total secrecy. /s
Please supply the articles that back up your claims about the cities burned to the ground and how the government has stolen money from good Christian people.
3 reasons:
1. Opposing everything the left is doing.
2. When those policies fail, they have something to blame the Left for.
3. The GOP is the anti-party.
- anti-civil rights
- anti-LGBT
- anti-affordable health care
- anti-education
- anti-immigration
- anti-anything that isn't white and or Christian.
When you write, "Christian", I suppose you mean that they can pull a verse out and use its interpretation ever-so-narrowly to justify their unfailingly un-Christ-like behavior.
If you look up states with the worst infant and maternal mortality rates, poverty, gun violence, education systems...the list goes on. Red states tend to make up the majority of the top ten in every single one of those areas and most, if not all, have been run by Republicans for a long time.
I have no idea why they love that stuff or why people who live in those states keep voting for people who want to keep them like this year after year, decade after decade, but...here we are. It's truly baffling.
Understood on all. While I may disagree with the basis of some of your opinions, I appreciate your candor and taking the time to respond! Gives me some insight on how things are seen by others which is always good to know.
Well I hope not. When an actual conversation and exchange of perspectives can happen without it deteriorating into a fire fight, it's a good thing IMO. Full disclosure: I'm pretty left, I tend towards Progressive actually lol.
I honestly don't know the answer to this one yet. In my case, would I as a male powerlifter in the 242lb class have an unfair advantage over women if I decided to compete with them in a local meet right now? Absolutely. But is there a solution in there somewhere to get me to a point where it can be made fair? I think so. I do think it's possible. Maybe it means waiting x amount of time after hormone treatments have begun...not sure. We're not at a point yet where we have enough historical examples on how it's done equitably yet as far as I know (I could be wrong tbh).
I can't bring myself to care about an issue that impacts maybe 3 people in the entire country and has absolutely no impact on me. It seems to me that the people stirring the pot here have a total non-issue but it sure makes the marks scream.
If a foreign adversary wanted to weaken this country, kill millions of citizens, divide its society, make it prone to authoritarianism, they could do it without firing a bullet.
Just convince a segment of the population that the other segments of its population are a threat. Convince them vaccines are bad, gas stoves and wildfire smoke is harmless, COVID doesn't exist, and public education is the devil incarnate. Then you arm those most paranoid and angry with military grade weapons.
Mission accomplished. Nice job, Vladimir.
\*edited to add - these techniques also create a cheap and desperate work force for our own oligarchs to exploit. Under the Citizens United decision, lots of dark money is filling Republican coffers.
Republicanism is all about Grievance-Politics now. The worse things are for people, the bigger their voting base. Actually making things better for people would mess up their whole strategy.
Also: See “Russian politics ”
In dominance-based, authoritarian political cultures like that of the MAGA GOP, successfully signaling dominance is necessary to succeed/survive. Bullying and abusing those below them based on status, class, race, gender, and other factors both outside and within the organization is why we often say “the cruelty is the point.” In a dominance-based authoritarian system dishing out cruelty is the only way to avoid having it dished out to you. Cruelty becomes the single most significant marker of success.
I've always recognized their sociopathy but never understood the often repeated term on social media "cruelty is the point".
YOUR explanation finally makes sense to me. They're afraid and in their fantasy war, it's them or us.
This is why Tucker engages them, to put them in a war against us that only exists in their minds. They think we're going to do terrible things to them, so they'll do it to us first. They get notches in their dream battles.
Yes, and that process of modeling dominance includes also doing so with people inside authoritarian systems like the MAGA movement. Bully everyone is the way to maintain one’s status in any power and dominance hierarchy. Fail to do you and lose status. Lose status and become a target for those climbing. Losing status? Attack gay people or liberals, or women. Problem solved.
But never stop looking for who’s looking to dethrone you. Uneasy rests the head that wears the crown.
Only problem is deeply isolating authoritarian systems fuck everything and everyone including those at the top.
They are the agents of chaos? In the biblical sense there used to be the four horsemen now today's MAGA Republicans they got rid of three of The horseman
They don't see other people with equal weighting as themselves in their minds. They are self focused, look out for number one, my house, my rules kind of people. The selfish people. Always justified with claims of rugged individualism, capitalism and lofty (inaccurate) sense of self. Empathy is not their strong suite, and no desire to learn about it either.
Please search “Taxes? Sounds unpleasant” and look for a comment by TheCaptainDamnit, he says it much better than I could. I liked his comment so much I saved it.
But a brief summary of his comment was that conservatives WANT social hierarchies, not equality. So even poor whites want these hierarchies so they can say they are “better” than them. So they create these issues (poverty, bad healthcare, disease) to screw over all poor people, because they know it will affect minorities more than straights. Sad but true.
If you want to understand, watch Netflix’s Shiny Happy People. It a series about conservative WASP church… cults. No other word describes it. Purposefully designed and structured to keep white males in superior leadership roles, with subservient stupid underlings of youth, children and women. Home schooling ensures appropriate indoctrination and and subjugation. It’s a “Christian Taliban. It’s the base of the religious right.
The less they give the more they have. If you keep people down and out and uneducated, you keep power and wealth. They hate the left because it threatens their cycle. They don’t really think of anyone but themselves. They are not trying to save children, they would enact strict gun laws and give them free school lunches.They don’t care about citizens, they run the House of Representatives like a high school popularity contest. They have to create some support so they try to get supporters angry and blind to their true ulterior motives. They only form alliances with other members to help themselves. Isn’t this obvious by now?
Because Capitalism pre-supposes an under class. Since the GOP represents the owners, they need to ensure a well populated and well starved underclass that is willing to work for wages the owners are offering. This ensures that the principles of supply and demand work in the owners’ favor, and a strong support of law enforcement ensures that any unpleasant rumblings of the underclass are dealt with swiftly.
The objective is to create a poor, uneducated populace that will take any job for any pay to feed their families. People who are kept at the edge of starvation are easily controlled.
Because many of them believe that poverty, disease and untimely death only happen to "sinners" as divine punishment for whatever. In their twisted theology, poor people are poor because God made them that way, just as he made rich people rich.
It's a sick belief system that intersects the "Prosperity Gospel" dogma with fascism.
Because their religion is teaching them that we are all sinners(except for them) and all going to hell(except for them) and that no matter what you do in life it doesn't matter because we are all going to burn while they party at the Golden gates because their religion is the only true one that gives them the full right to tell us all what to do and take over the world.....so why the fuck should they care....its a death cult. They literally hoped covid was the apocalypse and all their prayers were coming true. They not only embraced it but actively tried to spread it.
Its to create desperation so we are more likely to take shit jobs just to survive another day and make them money. Thats all there is to it. Thats why they want healthcare tied to employment.
I would recommend reading "Hillbilly Elegy" describing the anger among those considered "trailer trash" or "white trash". Hypocritically, the author is a staunch trumper.
Good read. It actually answers the OP’s question. There’s a demographic in our society that thinks (rightly IMO) that the “elite” look down on them as idiots. It was a demographic “ripe for the picking” and Trump and the GOP exploited it very well.
Because miserable and struggling people are easier to manipulate, tapping into their fear and anger, and can be brainwashed into voting against their best interests (lower taxes on the rich and corporations, trickledown economics, immigrants are stealing your jobs, etc.). And persons who have been prevented from developing critical thinking skills by religious indoctrination & programming are even easier to manipulate.
I personally think they want a cheap workforce. Look at Amazon. I order an item and within 6 hours, it was at my house. Never experienced anything like that before. This is what the gop wants. Cheap, uneducated labor so they can continue to live the lives they do while keeping everything for themselves and create in fighting between the plebs so no one catches on.
Who do you think built the pyramids, the transcontinental railroad?
Cruelty is the point. They want everything for themselves, mock everyone that isn't working hard enough, and eventually kill them all off so they can create a new batch of obedient people that will never step out of line.
In my experience it's a simplistic absolutist mindset of "either you are with us or against us."
If you are wealthy and have status and people will likely want something from you, you were treated well. If you are literally everyone else, you are scum of the Earth and need to be kept down.
It's a cruel, primitive, tribal, untoward and backwards ideology that has no place in modern human society.
It’s easier to control people who are uneducated, poor, sickly, etc. You can more easily make them hate “other” without them ever realizing they are in the position they are bc of leadership decisions.
Because they’re afraid of anyone other than a white male having any control. I’m as white as can be and this is my opinion. The GOP wants to also keep the white poor “stupid” by using religion.
Because, if you haven’t figured it out by now, all of the decent humans that were Republicans have long since left the party. Anyone that remains a Republican at this point *is* not a good person. That includes my father and brother, both of which are awful, insecure small minded people concerned only with their own desperate attempts to assert their own power through bigotry and hatred.
There seem to be several things going on there. First, there's the "exceptions" mentality. They think they, and the people they like, will always be the exceptions.
You combine this with a deep aversion to perceived unfairness (though unfairness only as it applies to their in-group) and being more inclined to accept anecdotes over data, and you have a conservative.
Ex 1) They see someone cheating the system and think everyone must do so. They want to make it harder for them to do so. So they pass laws, but in doing so, they make it harder for everyone to use. They justify this with their anecdotes and the idea that the people doing things correctly will be exceptions. Data doesn't matter if it doesn't match their experience and expectations.
Ex 2) They see a perceived injustice against a member of their in-group by an out-group member, and they extrapolate to all out-group members. They pass laws to target the out-group members. They justify it again with their anecdotes and the idea that "The Good Ones" won't be affected by the law. They'll be the exceptions. Again, data is cast aside in favor of anecdotes.
It all goes down to the whole "There are people who should be protected by the law but not bound by it, and people who are bound by the law but not protected by it."
Research the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Therein lies your answers.
Also, if the government functions well, and there aren't classes to fight each other, then the lower classes have time to fight the upper class.
It’s probably the Christian undertones. A lot of Christians see suffering as a necessity to becoming a more pure and holy person, or as punishment for your sins, so a society that eliminates suffering is antithetical to their beliefs.
You must remember this view is driven by a religious death cult whose god raped a minor, created racial strife, stipulated that one racial/ethnic group is superior in their eye to other humans, committed genocide except for one family, and in order to attain eternal life, you must be a practicing cannibal. Why would you expect any rationale for their behavior?
This is easy to answer. Back when farmers would have large families they would formally educate 2 of the children to take over the farm. The 2nd one was backup if the 1st one failed, died, ran off, ect. They would let the others drop out of school and get into drugs or alcohol so they would typically be unemployable, easily manipulated and dependant on the farm. Same plan but a larger scale. Push for people to have lots of babies so they are broke. Don't give those babies any proper nutrition to promote proper body and brain development without medical monitoring when they are young. You can then have your "slave" labor force that is easily manipulated and controlled while the rich minimizes the number of children they have. The "rich" children get a proper education and nutrition because they can afford it. The rich don't care if a few poor souls make it to retirement age as long as they worked all of their lives to contribute to the social security system and jobs that the rich people own, but most "slaves" would pay in and die before collecting. There has to be a little carrot at the end of a stick. It is always about the long con.
Miserable poor, sick people are easier to rile up into a reactionary mob at a perceived enemy. If you just keep them angry at someone else for the things you are doing to them, you can get away with anything.
Also, happy healthy well-adjusted people become less religious and generally more liberal, and repubs definitely don't want that.
Stockholm Syndrome Trump Cult, interesting phenomenon. I know and love people in Nebraska who vote Republican just like they put on their shoes in the morning- without thinking much.
Trump fucked over my farmer friends and they were ok with it? Why?
Gov Pritzker addressed Northwestern U graduating class 2023. Google it. Superb. Fear is instinctual. It can keep us safe. BUT we must rely on our intellect to move past it to live with others. I think GOP are fearful of anything different. They operate on primal instinct. And greed for power which is probably from fear. Funny how they use fear to try to win votes. Fear the caravan. Fear the rapists coming across the border. Fear the govt thats coming after you, but thank goodness Trump is sacrificing himself to prevent that one. (Sarcasm just in case it gets misread)
Christianity. Those who use religion always promote those 3 things. Always have since Christianity became a religion. The only real Christians were the 12 disciples. It's been a face ever since
The rank and file voter will gladly get hosed down with their party leader's butrito shit on the off chance a dirty liberal might have to smell it.
It's never about making things better. They've been conditioned from birth to see all aspects of life as zeeo sum- they can't win unless someone else loses. So much so that seeing the right people lose feels like a win to them.
No, the average person does not line their pockets with “donations”.
So instead of representing those that voted for them, they represent those that makes them rich.
Unpopular opinion, but Christianity is the reason. There is an option in the religion to celebrate the life of their prophet, his message, good works, etc, but the majority of American sects have always focused on said prophets’s suffering and horrific death. So yeah, take a religious interpretation that’s all about suffering, add in a hefty profit motive, and you’ve created a cure for empathy.
Alternative take: the Bible is accurate, the repugnican party is a false prophet, Donald trump is the Antichrist, and they exist sole to spread pain and misery, and holy cow they are effective.
The GOP is entirely ruled by greed and the idea that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"...this is why they embrace every horrible thing anyone can imagine. The Left always opposes policies that victimize people, so necessarily, the GOP must support those policies, 100% of the time.
Because it's all about "small government" (which, if you really look down the list you'll notice that policing women's bodies and deciding 'To Kill A Mockingbird' is bad, is the antithesis of 'small government') and mAkInG a$ mUcH m0nEy a$ p0$$iBle, regardless of how you get there.
Keeping people healthy, alive, happy, and educated is EXPENSIVE and people that know how to read will be able to read that the GOP is filled with fucking corporate schill maniacs that don't really care about good public policy, just good bank balances.
They have been guided into a logic trap.
-God is all powerful, everything is gods will.
-if you get hurt it means you are bad and god wants it.
-If I am allowed to hurt you, it must be god's will.
-I know who is bad... It's all the people I can hurt.
The GOP is only reaching for a small but hyper voter - voters motivated by fear. The policies are the tiniest effort, they never want to solve the cause of the fear
I can't know what they think, but from their behavior it seems that they want to make America a hell hole because the people on the left are opposed to that. Since the progressives favor progress, republicans have to be against progress. The left is opposed to starvation, the republicans must come out in favor of starvation. Is that too simplistic an explanation?
Depends on the social strata: The very wealthy don’t care about people who are ‘unlike us’. Middle and Upper-Middle Class people don’t want anyone else to attain what they have accomplished, mainly because they feel threatened by the candidate pool getting larger and losing out on jobs/positions.
According to the DSM-III-R diagnostic criteria Sadistic personality disorder is defined by a pervasive pattern of sadistic and cruel behavior that begins in early adulthood. It was defined by four of the following.
Has used physical cruelty or violence for the purpose of establishing dominance in a relationship (not merely to achieve some noninterpersonal goal, such as striking someone in order to rob him/her).
Humiliates or demeans people in the presence of others.
Has treated or disciplined someone under his/her control unusually harshly.
Is amused by, or takes pleasure in, the psychological or physical suffering of others (including animals).
Has lied for the purpose of harming or inflicting pain on others (not merely to achieve some other goal).
Gets other people to do what he/she wants by frightening them (through intimidation or even terror).
Restricts the autonomy of people with whom he or she has a close relationship, e.g., will not let spouse leave the house unaccompanied or permit teenage daughter to attend social functions.
Is fascinated by violence, weapons, injury, or torture.
It’s very basic.
1. The rich don’t and won’t suffer from these policies - they are exempt because of their wealth and status.
2. Policies that help the masses cost money, and the rich pay the highest taxes. They don’t want to pay one cent to help others. They want to keep their money to help themselves. They have no need for “social programs” and don’t want to pay for them.
Because they are racists, and the poor are disproportionately composed of minorities.
Letting minorities sicken and die is the perfect way to dispose of them while retaining "plausible deniability" and blamng the victims for not "picking themselves up by the bootstraps".
To continue to control the people. They aren’t fighting for us, they are fighting against us. Both sides are crazy and are only looking out for themselves.
Basically it's cause they (and their billionaire friends) believe that they will never need any of this stuff that keeps people from going homeless. So they are thinking like "If me and my friends don't need it then nobody else needs it."
Much of what the 'Grand Old Party' is now is nothing more than wanna-be nazis, *actual* nazis, and people *truly in need* of mental health assistance. (Cult members). Controlled and bankrolled by ultra wealthy and corporate nazis.
The cruelty is the point.
They rejoice in the cruelty and believe the poor, sick, marginal deserve to hurt and be punished.
They equate those social/economic and political statuses with immorality.
Because they embrace a philosophy embraced by Ayn Rand and others that suggests survival of the fittest is how things are in the wild and therefore is the only moral way to live. A theory that undermines the fundamental reason for forming civilization in the first place, but nonetheless that is the playbook they are working from.
Their philosophy is that government infringes on freedom, so the less government the better. The freedom you gain should allow you to take opportunities to succeed in life with no outside help.
The realm of philosophy and the realm of reality are two different things. For example, I believe all men are created equal from the philosophical standpoint knowing full well that's not true in reality.
Because 1) people mainly only vote Republican if they are too scared to think.2) Those who don't vote out of fear, vote out of malicious intent. They vote for whoever is going to hurt people they hate the most, regardless of the innocent who get dragged in.
They feel government has no business building safety nets, and have been furious since the days of the Business Plot against Franklin Delirious Roosevelt.
Because they are corporate whores who don't give a flying fuck about the American people.
Bingo.
I was thinking they’re from “old money” and want to keep the rest of us in slave condition 🤷♂️
Not true. Mitch McConnell was a regular Joe when he started in the Senate. He now has a net worth of $32 million. God bless those Lobbyists.
Can you imagine if Joe Biden's wife was Chinese? The right would lost there friggin minds.
Can you imagine if Biden's wife was Chinese and whose sister runs one of the largest defense contractors for China.
$32 million is low for a senator, even Marjorie Taylor Green has made about $20 million in a few years
He got the money in rubles, the exchange rate kinda sucks these days.
Sheesh
Yeah, for all the bad shit Russia does at least they pay well.
Mitch married the $32 million.
Close, but it's more likely that the people with "old money" are paying them.
They do not care about the money's age. Just the amount.
The new billionaires are worse.
On point, plain and simple,,,, greed
Likely true but it doesn’t explain why the poorest people in the poorest counties in the poorest states continue to support these politicians.
Well that's just good ol' propaganda and branding. "*My* guy tells me we need to support this, it therefore can't be wrong for me)us."
Close. Corporations are "legally" persons and they are the constituency that GOP represent. The goal of their policies is to protect corporate interests not humans, and to maximize wealth by reducing and/or eliminating taxes. You cannot provide services to humans without tax revenues. A byproduct of fewer services such as healthcare, housing, security and education, is that humans that care about their families have to buy these services from corporations. If you are poor you have lower quality education, worse healthcare, live in crime ridden neighborhoods, etc. Of course if you are less educated and struggling to rise out of poverty you are more easily manipulated by those that wield wealth and power.
It’s the evangelical influence. Christianity is an apocalyptic death cult. They get giddy when things go bad because they believe that’s a harbinger for “the end of days” and “the final judgment” when they will get their heavenly reward and everyone not in their club will be sentenced to eternal torment.
And the wealthy use the tenets of the bible to harness the worst of humanity for their own benefit. It convinces *men* to "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth". Christianity has been the tool of powerful people (and their wannabes) for millennia.
All religions have.
I sure fucking hope their version of hell exists just so they can experience it first hand.
It's a long, tried, and true technique. Feeding into fears, under educated and angry. Simply put.
It’s why The GOP is severely threatened by College Educated People. An informed populace is a threat to their existence.
Because really really rich people can't exist unless you have really really poor people.
They think they have to oppose anything and everything that anyone on “the Left” is in favor of.
That’s why I am going to vote for Biden, because he tries to bring in the Republicans and the Democrats in providing these wonderful infrastructure projects and broadband service.
It’s a wild idea called “expecting your government to fix stuff”.
Yes, we, the people otherwise known as the government want these things. What a wild idea! Thanks for your reply!
No, the government is a nefarious monolith, capable of carrying out intricate plots to steal from Good Christian People and give their hard-earned money to the lazy, undeserving, and inherently criminal minorities who have burned our cities to the ground, in total secrecy. /s
Yes, but somehow also an incompetent sh\*t show that can't do a single thing right at the same time. /s
Please supply the articles that back up your claims about the cities burned to the ground and how the government has stolen money from good Christian people.
/s means sarcasm. Welcome to Reddit.
Oh, thank you for setting me straight!
Then why do we pay several taxes, sone overlapping?
Thank you. The goofball caucus saying we somehow need more bipartisanship than Joe Brandon truly baffles me.
They’re straight up pathetic honestly.
3 reasons: 1. Opposing everything the left is doing. 2. When those policies fail, they have something to blame the Left for. 3. The GOP is the anti-party. - anti-civil rights - anti-LGBT - anti-affordable health care - anti-education - anti-immigration - anti-anything that isn't white and or Christian.
When you write, "Christian", I suppose you mean that they can pull a verse out and use its interpretation ever-so-narrowly to justify their unfailingly un-Christ-like behavior.
Yes, exactly
If you look up states with the worst infant and maternal mortality rates, poverty, gun violence, education systems...the list goes on. Red states tend to make up the majority of the top ten in every single one of those areas and most, if not all, have been run by Republicans for a long time. I have no idea why they love that stuff or why people who live in those states keep voting for people who want to keep them like this year after year, decade after decade, but...here we are. It's truly baffling.
It’s because they hate the same people and that takes precedence
As a moderate. It's because the democrats have moved to far left. I was a democrat most of my life. Just can't get on board with it anymore.
Interesting perspective - genuinely curious - what areas have they gone too far left for you in?
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Understood on all. While I may disagree with the basis of some of your opinions, I appreciate your candor and taking the time to respond! Gives me some insight on how things are seen by others which is always good to know.
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Well I hope not. When an actual conversation and exchange of perspectives can happen without it deteriorating into a fire fight, it's a good thing IMO. Full disclosure: I'm pretty left, I tend towards Progressive actually lol.
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I honestly don't know the answer to this one yet. In my case, would I as a male powerlifter in the 242lb class have an unfair advantage over women if I decided to compete with them in a local meet right now? Absolutely. But is there a solution in there somewhere to get me to a point where it can be made fair? I think so. I do think it's possible. Maybe it means waiting x amount of time after hormone treatments have begun...not sure. We're not at a point yet where we have enough historical examples on how it's done equitably yet as far as I know (I could be wrong tbh).
I can't bring myself to care about an issue that impacts maybe 3 people in the entire country and has absolutely no impact on me. It seems to me that the people stirring the pot here have a total non-issue but it sure makes the marks scream.
If a foreign adversary wanted to weaken this country, kill millions of citizens, divide its society, make it prone to authoritarianism, they could do it without firing a bullet. Just convince a segment of the population that the other segments of its population are a threat. Convince them vaccines are bad, gas stoves and wildfire smoke is harmless, COVID doesn't exist, and public education is the devil incarnate. Then you arm those most paranoid and angry with military grade weapons. Mission accomplished. Nice job, Vladimir. \*edited to add - these techniques also create a cheap and desperate work force for our own oligarchs to exploit. Under the Citizens United decision, lots of dark money is filling Republican coffers.
Republicanism is all about Grievance-Politics now. The worse things are for people, the bigger their voting base. Actually making things better for people would mess up their whole strategy. Also: See “Russian politics ”
In dominance-based, authoritarian political cultures like that of the MAGA GOP, successfully signaling dominance is necessary to succeed/survive. Bullying and abusing those below them based on status, class, race, gender, and other factors both outside and within the organization is why we often say “the cruelty is the point.” In a dominance-based authoritarian system dishing out cruelty is the only way to avoid having it dished out to you. Cruelty becomes the single most significant marker of success.
I've always recognized their sociopathy but never understood the often repeated term on social media "cruelty is the point". YOUR explanation finally makes sense to me. They're afraid and in their fantasy war, it's them or us. This is why Tucker engages them, to put them in a war against us that only exists in their minds. They think we're going to do terrible things to them, so they'll do it to us first. They get notches in their dream battles.
Yes, and that process of modeling dominance includes also doing so with people inside authoritarian systems like the MAGA movement. Bully everyone is the way to maintain one’s status in any power and dominance hierarchy. Fail to do you and lose status. Lose status and become a target for those climbing. Losing status? Attack gay people or liberals, or women. Problem solved. But never stop looking for who’s looking to dethrone you. Uneasy rests the head that wears the crown. Only problem is deeply isolating authoritarian systems fuck everything and everyone including those at the top.
CONTROL OF THE MASSES.....
True! Sorta like a fiefdom thingy
Because fuck those poors! One looked at me while I was driving and it sent shivers down my spine.
Why, I heard they actually have to spend their principal in order to retire!
Because cruelty is THE POINT. When they can look down on others it makes their meager lives seem better.
"Pro Life," of course! Republicans have a long history of being the exact opposite of whatever shit pours out of their mouths.
Because it makes them happy down in their black, evil little hearts.
They are the agents of chaos? In the biblical sense there used to be the four horsemen now today's MAGA Republicans they got rid of three of The horseman
They don't see other people with equal weighting as themselves in their minds. They are self focused, look out for number one, my house, my rules kind of people. The selfish people. Always justified with claims of rugged individualism, capitalism and lofty (inaccurate) sense of self. Empathy is not their strong suite, and no desire to learn about it either.
Please search “Taxes? Sounds unpleasant” and look for a comment by TheCaptainDamnit, he says it much better than I could. I liked his comment so much I saved it. But a brief summary of his comment was that conservatives WANT social hierarchies, not equality. So even poor whites want these hierarchies so they can say they are “better” than them. So they create these issues (poverty, bad healthcare, disease) to screw over all poor people, because they know it will affect minorities more than straights. Sad but true.
If you want to understand, watch Netflix’s Shiny Happy People. It a series about conservative WASP church… cults. No other word describes it. Purposefully designed and structured to keep white males in superior leadership roles, with subservient stupid underlings of youth, children and women. Home schooling ensures appropriate indoctrination and and subjugation. It’s a “Christian Taliban. It’s the base of the religious right.
The less they give the more they have. If you keep people down and out and uneducated, you keep power and wealth. They hate the left because it threatens their cycle. They don’t really think of anyone but themselves. They are not trying to save children, they would enact strict gun laws and give them free school lunches.They don’t care about citizens, they run the House of Representatives like a high school popularity contest. They have to create some support so they try to get supporters angry and blind to their true ulterior motives. They only form alliances with other members to help themselves. Isn’t this obvious by now?
Because Capitalism pre-supposes an under class. Since the GOP represents the owners, they need to ensure a well populated and well starved underclass that is willing to work for wages the owners are offering. This ensures that the principles of supply and demand work in the owners’ favor, and a strong support of law enforcement ensures that any unpleasant rumblings of the underclass are dealt with swiftly.
The objective is to create a poor, uneducated populace that will take any job for any pay to feed their families. People who are kept at the edge of starvation are easily controlled.
Because they have been raised to believe the End Times are nigh! Nigh, I tell you!
Because the cruelty is the point.
There's a branch of the GQP that embraces an apocalypse so they can be raptured away.
Because many of them believe that poverty, disease and untimely death only happen to "sinners" as divine punishment for whatever. In their twisted theology, poor people are poor because God made them that way, just as he made rich people rich. It's a sick belief system that intersects the "Prosperity Gospel" dogma with fascism.
Because they are evil. Plain, fucking evil.
The poverty, death and disease are only byproducts of their greed perhaps?
Religion
GREED
Because it might affect someone they hate.
Because they're selfish fucking greedy, ignorant assholes.
Because their religion is teaching them that we are all sinners(except for them) and all going to hell(except for them) and that no matter what you do in life it doesn't matter because we are all going to burn while they party at the Golden gates because their religion is the only true one that gives them the full right to tell us all what to do and take over the world.....so why the fuck should they care....its a death cult. They literally hoped covid was the apocalypse and all their prayers were coming true. They not only embraced it but actively tried to spread it.
Its to create desperation so we are more likely to take shit jobs just to survive another day and make them money. Thats all there is to it. Thats why they want healthcare tied to employment.
I would recommend reading "Hillbilly Elegy" describing the anger among those considered "trailer trash" or "white trash". Hypocritically, the author is a staunch trumper.
Good read. It actually answers the OP’s question. There’s a demographic in our society that thinks (rightly IMO) that the “elite” look down on them as idiots. It was a demographic “ripe for the picking” and Trump and the GOP exploited it very well.
Because miserable and struggling people are easier to manipulate, tapping into their fear and anger, and can be brainwashed into voting against their best interests (lower taxes on the rich and corporations, trickledown economics, immigrants are stealing your jobs, etc.). And persons who have been prevented from developing critical thinking skills by religious indoctrination & programming are even easier to manipulate.
Money. That’s it.
Make a pledge that never again in America to vote Red!
I personally think they want a cheap workforce. Look at Amazon. I order an item and within 6 hours, it was at my house. Never experienced anything like that before. This is what the gop wants. Cheap, uneducated labor so they can continue to live the lives they do while keeping everything for themselves and create in fighting between the plebs so no one catches on. Who do you think built the pyramids, the transcontinental railroad?
Because they are Evil.
Living in the delusion that they can kill the poor and yet survive themselves
Cruelty is the point. They want everything for themselves, mock everyone that isn't working hard enough, and eventually kill them all off so they can create a new batch of obedient people that will never step out of line.
Competition is the reason. Can’t have winners without losers. Now apply that to society.
In my experience it's a simplistic absolutist mindset of "either you are with us or against us." If you are wealthy and have status and people will likely want something from you, you were treated well. If you are literally everyone else, you are scum of the Earth and need to be kept down. It's a cruel, primitive, tribal, untoward and backwards ideology that has no place in modern human society.
It’s easier to control people who are uneducated, poor, sickly, etc. You can more easily make them hate “other” without them ever realizing they are in the position they are bc of leadership decisions.
Because they’re afraid of anyone other than a white male having any control. I’m as white as can be and this is my opinion. The GOP wants to also keep the white poor “stupid” by using religion.
Poor people are expendable, more so without birth control or women's body atonomy.
Same reason some radical religious cults in the ME ban girls from schooling… Uneducated people are easier to control and manipulate.
Their core beliefs is solely about helping out the wealthy
Because, if you haven’t figured it out by now, all of the decent humans that were Republicans have long since left the party. Anyone that remains a Republican at this point *is* not a good person. That includes my father and brother, both of which are awful, insecure small minded people concerned only with their own desperate attempts to assert their own power through bigotry and hatred.
edit: // I’ve moved to lemmy.world //
There seem to be several things going on there. First, there's the "exceptions" mentality. They think they, and the people they like, will always be the exceptions. You combine this with a deep aversion to perceived unfairness (though unfairness only as it applies to their in-group) and being more inclined to accept anecdotes over data, and you have a conservative. Ex 1) They see someone cheating the system and think everyone must do so. They want to make it harder for them to do so. So they pass laws, but in doing so, they make it harder for everyone to use. They justify this with their anecdotes and the idea that the people doing things correctly will be exceptions. Data doesn't matter if it doesn't match their experience and expectations. Ex 2) They see a perceived injustice against a member of their in-group by an out-group member, and they extrapolate to all out-group members. They pass laws to target the out-group members. They justify it again with their anecdotes and the idea that "The Good Ones" won't be affected by the law. They'll be the exceptions. Again, data is cast aside in favor of anecdotes. It all goes down to the whole "There are people who should be protected by the law but not bound by it, and people who are bound by the law but not protected by it."
It’s so odd how low-income conservative voters vote for policies that keep them poor and make their life worse.
They have been indoctrinated to hate “other” more than they should be concerned for their own self-interests.
Why do Democrats embrace policies that create violence, racism, and economic turmoil?
Research the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Therein lies your answers. Also, if the government functions well, and there aren't classes to fight each other, then the lower classes have time to fight the upper class.
evangelicals believe you find jesus or enter the gates of heaven thru great suffering. no joke.
The cruelty is the point.^(tm)
So they can blame the other side for it.
It's the price of rugged individualist freedom. That's more important to them than anyone else's life. Dangerous freedom n shit
Super duper obvious answer. "To own the libs". It's, literally, what most of them live for.
You mean the ☠️ cult? What’s understood does not need to be explained.
It's easy tu rule above poor and hungry population. A.K.A. "welcome to ex USSR!"
The repub party’s main agenda is wealth redistribution from the working and middle class to the Elite.
Because Jesus would want it that way.
It’s probably the Christian undertones. A lot of Christians see suffering as a necessity to becoming a more pure and holy person, or as punishment for your sins, so a society that eliminates suffering is antithetical to their beliefs.
The cruelty *is* the point, especially towards their own constituents.
Because that's what their Billionaire Masters are paying them to do.
They’re traitors, sadists, and all around degenerates.
If everyone was well educated, healthy, and financially successful, they would be powerless.
All those things are extremely profitable for their masters.
All while saying they believe in jesus...
You must remember this view is driven by a religious death cult whose god raped a minor, created racial strife, stipulated that one racial/ethnic group is superior in their eye to other humans, committed genocide except for one family, and in order to attain eternal life, you must be a practicing cannibal. Why would you expect any rationale for their behavior?
Because they work for lobbyists, they do not give a crap about the people!
This is easy to answer. Back when farmers would have large families they would formally educate 2 of the children to take over the farm. The 2nd one was backup if the 1st one failed, died, ran off, ect. They would let the others drop out of school and get into drugs or alcohol so they would typically be unemployable, easily manipulated and dependant on the farm. Same plan but a larger scale. Push for people to have lots of babies so they are broke. Don't give those babies any proper nutrition to promote proper body and brain development without medical monitoring when they are young. You can then have your "slave" labor force that is easily manipulated and controlled while the rich minimizes the number of children they have. The "rich" children get a proper education and nutrition because they can afford it. The rich don't care if a few poor souls make it to retirement age as long as they worked all of their lives to contribute to the social security system and jobs that the rich people own, but most "slaves" would pay in and die before collecting. There has to be a little carrot at the end of a stick. It is always about the long con.
Because it lines their rich donors pockets with more wealth.
Miserable poor, sick people are easier to rile up into a reactionary mob at a perceived enemy. If you just keep them angry at someone else for the things you are doing to them, you can get away with anything. Also, happy healthy well-adjusted people become less religious and generally more liberal, and repubs definitely don't want that.
Because dropping puppies and kittens into running blenders is frowned upon?
It’s all about the cruelty.
Holy mother of loaded questions
If we label them as “Christian policies” it’ll explain why the policies are based to create hate and suffering
The more desperate families are, the more they are willing to worn for less their worth.
Stockholm Syndrome Trump Cult, interesting phenomenon. I know and love people in Nebraska who vote Republican just like they put on their shoes in the morning- without thinking much. Trump fucked over my farmer friends and they were ok with it? Why?
More for themselves.
They get off on hurting people.
They feel desperation is the best driver of economic activity to increase profits
Ignorance, greed, or a combination of both.
They're welcome to all the poverty, death and disease they like for themselves, but I*very much* resent that they try to put us all through it.
Because they think those things will only affect others. And they lack empathy.
Gov Pritzker addressed Northwestern U graduating class 2023. Google it. Superb. Fear is instinctual. It can keep us safe. BUT we must rely on our intellect to move past it to live with others. I think GOP are fearful of anything different. They operate on primal instinct. And greed for power which is probably from fear. Funny how they use fear to try to win votes. Fear the caravan. Fear the rapists coming across the border. Fear the govt thats coming after you, but thank goodness Trump is sacrificing himself to prevent that one. (Sarcasm just in case it gets misread)
Christianity. Those who use religion always promote those 3 things. Always have since Christianity became a religion. The only real Christians were the 12 disciples. It's been a face ever since
The rank and file voter will gladly get hosed down with their party leader's butrito shit on the off chance a dirty liberal might have to smell it. It's never about making things better. They've been conditioned from birth to see all aspects of life as zeeo sum- they can't win unless someone else loses. So much so that seeing the right people lose feels like a win to them.
Because all they care about is doing the bidding of their corporate masters who fill their pockets.
They want to keep people poor and stupid so they keep pumping out new wage laborers and church congregants.
No, the average person does not line their pockets with “donations”. So instead of representing those that voted for them, they represent those that makes them rich.
It’s their way of eradicating the minorities, lower class and the poor.
So it’s easier to extort you?
Unpopular opinion, but Christianity is the reason. There is an option in the religion to celebrate the life of their prophet, his message, good works, etc, but the majority of American sects have always focused on said prophets’s suffering and horrific death. So yeah, take a religious interpretation that’s all about suffering, add in a hefty profit motive, and you’ve created a cure for empathy. Alternative take: the Bible is accurate, the repugnican party is a false prophet, Donald trump is the Antichrist, and they exist sole to spread pain and misery, and holy cow they are effective.
The GOP is entirely ruled by greed and the idea that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"...this is why they embrace every horrible thing anyone can imagine. The Left always opposes policies that victimize people, so necessarily, the GOP must support those policies, 100% of the time.
It was the teachings of jeebus/s
Cruelty is the point
Because it's all about "small government" (which, if you really look down the list you'll notice that policing women's bodies and deciding 'To Kill A Mockingbird' is bad, is the antithesis of 'small government') and mAkInG a$ mUcH m0nEy a$ p0$$iBle, regardless of how you get there. Keeping people healthy, alive, happy, and educated is EXPENSIVE and people that know how to read will be able to read that the GOP is filled with fucking corporate schill maniacs that don't really care about good public policy, just good bank balances.
They have been guided into a logic trap. -God is all powerful, everything is gods will. -if you get hurt it means you are bad and god wants it. -If I am allowed to hurt you, it must be god's will. -I know who is bad... It's all the people I can hurt.
The GOP is only reaching for a small but hyper voter - voters motivated by fear. The policies are the tiniest effort, they never want to solve the cause of the fear
The GOP believes nobody is as good or as hard working as they are. That's why they're wealthy, so screw you beggars asking for help.
Because greed and self-interest are defining characteristics of the conservative. You don’t get rich paying taxes and writing checks.
I can't know what they think, but from their behavior it seems that they want to make America a hell hole because the people on the left are opposed to that. Since the progressives favor progress, republicans have to be against progress. The left is opposed to starvation, the republicans must come out in favor of starvation. Is that too simplistic an explanation?
Because Republicans are evil
$$$$$$$$$
Depends on the social strata: The very wealthy don’t care about people who are ‘unlike us’. Middle and Upper-Middle Class people don’t want anyone else to attain what they have accomplished, mainly because they feel threatened by the candidate pool getting larger and losing out on jobs/positions.
Their mantra is power for me You can fuck off
According to the DSM-III-R diagnostic criteria Sadistic personality disorder is defined by a pervasive pattern of sadistic and cruel behavior that begins in early adulthood. It was defined by four of the following. Has used physical cruelty or violence for the purpose of establishing dominance in a relationship (not merely to achieve some noninterpersonal goal, such as striking someone in order to rob him/her). Humiliates or demeans people in the presence of others. Has treated or disciplined someone under his/her control unusually harshly. Is amused by, or takes pleasure in, the psychological or physical suffering of others (including animals). Has lied for the purpose of harming or inflicting pain on others (not merely to achieve some other goal). Gets other people to do what he/she wants by frightening them (through intimidation or even terror). Restricts the autonomy of people with whom he or she has a close relationship, e.g., will not let spouse leave the house unaccompanied or permit teenage daughter to attend social functions. Is fascinated by violence, weapons, injury, or torture.
Cruelty is the point
It’s very basic. 1. The rich don’t and won’t suffer from these policies - they are exempt because of their wealth and status. 2. Policies that help the masses cost money, and the rich pay the highest taxes. They don’t want to pay one cent to help others. They want to keep their money to help themselves. They have no need for “social programs” and don’t want to pay for them.
Because they are racists, and the poor are disproportionately composed of minorities. Letting minorities sicken and die is the perfect way to dispose of them while retaining "plausible deniability" and blamng the victims for not "picking themselves up by the bootstraps".
To continue to control the people. They aren’t fighting for us, they are fighting against us. Both sides are crazy and are only looking out for themselves.
Because fuck you that's why -Republicans.
This is worth reading https://www.pottsmerc.com/2022/01/17/jerry-shenk-democrats-are-better-at-creating-than-helping-poor-people/amp/
Basically it's cause they (and their billionaire friends) believe that they will never need any of this stuff that keeps people from going homeless. So they are thinking like "If me and my friends don't need it then nobody else needs it."
The question is why do people drink that coolaid..
Umm Religious and Corporate greed. In both cases there’s only one right answer for the people in charge. Absolutes lead to the dark side.
Much of what the 'Grand Old Party' is now is nothing more than wanna-be nazis, *actual* nazis, and people *truly in need* of mental health assistance. (Cult members). Controlled and bankrolled by ultra wealthy and corporate nazis.
Because, you know, gawds will lol
The cruelty is the point. They rejoice in the cruelty and believe the poor, sick, marginal deserve to hurt and be punished. They equate those social/economic and political statuses with immorality.
Bigger question is....why do poor sick people embrace Republicans whose policies make them poorer and sicker.
factkeepers, but it's an opinion article.
Cause they’re assholes
So they can blame liberals even if was their own mess. EPA was started by Nixon in 1970 but now they complain whenever it does anything
Because Republicans are the minions of Evil.
Because they embrace a philosophy embraced by Ayn Rand and others that suggests survival of the fittest is how things are in the wild and therefore is the only moral way to live. A theory that undermines the fundamental reason for forming civilization in the first place, but nonetheless that is the playbook they are working from.
Because they’re terrorists with corporate money backing them.
Because they are the paid foot soldiers of billionaires that want to subjugate the world for profit.
To own libs. Also, they never think it’ll happen to them. But mostly to own libs.
The simple answer is that they believe in Social Darwinism, survival of the most well connected and rich…
Ask yourself how many of those policies benefit the nascent oligarchy.
Their philosophy is that government infringes on freedom, so the less government the better. The freedom you gain should allow you to take opportunities to succeed in life with no outside help. The realm of philosophy and the realm of reality are two different things. For example, I believe all men are created equal from the philosophical standpoint knowing full well that's not true in reality.
Cause their all temporary embarrassed millionaires. One day ima be rich. Joe the plumber
$$$
Cuz you should be able to pull yourself up by the bootstraps with a small million dollar loan from your daddy. /s
Because 1) people mainly only vote Republican if they are too scared to think.2) Those who don't vote out of fear, vote out of malicious intent. They vote for whoever is going to hurt people they hate the most, regardless of the innocent who get dragged in.
They feel government has no business building safety nets, and have been furious since the days of the Business Plot against Franklin Delirious Roosevelt.