Millions of American voters wanted to be villains. They came to believe it’s the key to success, while goodness is weak, woke, loser stuff, done only to signal.

Offered the option of unvarnished villainy, they enthusiastically took it. Seeing others suffer more made them feel big.

And here we are.
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We had a referendum and Barabbas won.
Twice.
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Nope. Lots of help both times.
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The whole point, yes. Make others suffer more. Happy then.
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The depth of human stupidity is bottomless
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And it turns out being evil ends up impoverishing us. They won't even get their cheap treats.
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Well said

I HATE these people
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This is a clear-eyed definition of MAGA, yes.
This.
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Perversely enough, this was aided and abetted by a leftish-of-center phenomenon—self-advocacy uber alles.
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Makes you really reconsider whether we should have been glorifying bad guys and anti-heroes so much in pop culture.
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As much as they whine about "virtue signaling," they seem incapable of the basic introspection necessary to appreciate that they're constantly "villain signaling."
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💯and thus why I no longer speak to my MAGA siblings. What could we possibly talk about with this giant elephant in the room? Done being cordial…😼😼😼😼 Sorry, not sorry.
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I'm really proud of you, internet stranger. I am so grateful I haven't had to do that with my family. (all sane, and zero MAGA) But I would have crossed that bridge with no hesitation. <3
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I will never forgive Trump voters. Never. The line in the sand is drawn.
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"Democrats never fail, they can only be failed"
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says the Großer Mann.
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The world will never forgive the US. Hopefully the end of the great satan.
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Blaming voters for the failure of the candidates campaigning is not productive. It has never worked as a campaign strategy. It alienated voters that you blue magas are aware you need to win. Otherwise you would not be trying to bully voters to vote your way
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That's not what he said but way to show your ass to the whole internet
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I think a missing piece of a lot of analysis of how Trump won is just this simple. A significant number of Americans just plainly love this shit. You can't rationalize it and you can't change their hearts. All you can do is take whatever measures you have to lessen their influence
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They enjoy being evil. It makes them feel like outlaws.
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Don’t ever let them forget it either. Hold them accountable for the rest of their lives. They knew and did it anyway.
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While I’m sure it’s true that some voted for Trump because of his economic promises (basically out of greed), I’m think most people voted for him because they thought it was the right thing to do. Or because he’s a “necessary evil”, at least. We need more empathy, not more polarizing posts like this
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Hunt them down and ruin them. They are cowards. Every last one of them.
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It's tough when our role models are gangsters:
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Trump proved there is no bottom in politics and he awakened the sleeping 1/3 by showing them they could actually win if they voted.
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You mean - by showing them that they could actually win if they paid a technocrat to manipulate votes and steal an election.
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Let's not forget the millions of Americans that sat out and didn't vote. This is on them too
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The United States of Sadism
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It’s unnerving to realize those who voted for this walk among the rest of us, gleefully watching the horrors unfold.
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Its worse. A large part of the core radical Christian demographic can not wait to experience Armageddon so we can finally get Jesus back. To them it is not evil, it is just fulfilling their destiny.
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Americans are cowards.
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Exactly right!
He reached a demographic that felt left behind. He tapped into their fears and turned them into anger and hate. He gilded the gutter and brought out the worst in us.
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'Gilded the gutter'.. well said ✅️
And it's fools gold or tinsel

Now it's less healthcare, less jobs, more wars, higher inflation and (heaven forbid) higher fuel prices for these poor misled rubes
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Ayn Rand was kind of the start
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We got here for one singular reason, and that’s the bizarre impulse to give conservatives grace for behavior that would be seen as dangerously antisocial in anyone else.
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And millions of American voters did not exercise their vote because they are not familiar with something that has gone on for decades in other countries: choose the lesser evil when you do not have a candidate you would love to vote for.
Not voting helped this corrupt criminal syndicate!
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The far left is addicted to purity tests. They are a significant factor in why democrats lose elections.
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11 hours till Armageddon I’ll just say stay calm and distracted. The news is not going to be normal today. Dire new message by the madman 😡
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Can’t wait for the World Cup though.
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It’s how America works. Education is a thing of the past when contractors can make a comfortable living without it🤷🏾‍♂️
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Exactly
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This time around he made sure to surround himself with loyalists instead of people with experience in positions. He had Elon take over an existing dept, rename it Doge & illegally shut down agencies / fired people which is normally the power of congress. Inspectors General were fired too
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The only thing truly holding him back is the federal judges. And sometimes the Supreme Court
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Its an American tradition, like apple pie, baseball, and the illusion of libertarianism! What fun
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I'm not sure we can say Americans' ambitions were that high. They were happy to be henchmen to an obvious supervillain, enabling every cruel, greedy, corrupt thing he comes up with, with no benefit to themselves. The MAGA bros should get "Hench 4 Life" tattooed on their stomachs. #VentureBros
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It is disheartening, but it needs to be enraging.
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I'll also add that all those "weak" and "woke" didn't just fucking roll over either - the villians thought all this would be a cake walk and are *big mad* and hilariously surprised that there is resistance to their psychopathic actions...
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Well there have been signs and some very brave folks here in Minnesota.

Real resistance would have seen the right people bleeding out on the ground. Not Pretti and Goode.
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I am stunned and frightened by the race to the bottom. Who knew what evil lurks in the hearts of men?
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This is the thought process of people who have been convinced that it's natural to compete with others over resources.
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Um, what? It is "natural" to compete over resources... people and animals, even plants and microbes, have been doing that ever since they came into existence. Just because competition is brutal and unfair doesn't mean that it's not natural.
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You presume more thought went into it than actually did. The appeal was to an unthinking, inarticulate, primitive urge for revenge. And here we are.
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Revenge against what?!
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Wow! Talk about the

Cold, Hard Truth.
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"It takes strength to be gentle and kind." - Morrissey.
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“If you’re not cheating, you’re not winning” is the gateway drug to “villainy is the key to success."
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Seriously, what the hell is is this.
This is completely deranged, and anyone who can’t say so is a coward.
#RemoveHim #Resist
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The maj of white voters who voted

No other maj of any other race of voters who voted did

He ran a campaign built on white supremacist ideology; that white ppl SHOULD be in charge of everything cause any other way was “DEI”

And that message resonated

At least for one racial grp😶

And here we are
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The GOP created this to enrich themselves
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Themes like this fill human history
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Sickos.
Not in my name, for sure
I was all about the email lady, Pocahantas and the prosecutor who is able to laugh like a human....
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There’s nothing wrong with virtue signaling if it actually signals virtue. It may become a problem if the signal is false, inauthentic, exaggerated, or held over the heads of others as a “holier than thou” cudgel. But virtue itself is no vice. That’s true by definition.
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I'm pretty sure if they were all took the Authoritarian test, the Venn diagram would be a circle.
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America has always relied on ’might is right’. Never stopping to think if it actually is.
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💯 & tragic as hell.
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Most villains wind up in jail or dead. They should remember that. Because there will be life after Trump.
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Generally agree, but there's an even larger group (the 90 million people who didn't vote), who didn't engage in unvarnished villainy or fight against it. They didn't like him, but didn't support her either, so they handed over all power to him, thinking their hands were clean.

The banality of evil.
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America is a RIGHT WING country. It's racist, it's misogynist. 90 million people could have voted for a Black woman who was the literal Vice President against a white nationalist rapist fascist pedophile & they said "uh-uh."

That indictment should be given as well. We're the worst people on Earth.
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No they wanted a president that was as stupid as they are.
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The 21st century Nazis
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I also feel that reality TV has a lot to do with it. Even scripted movies & shows. Notice how the favorite person is always the worst one as long as they have a certain charm? People will vote for the crazy but entertaining ones. It's fun to watch their antics. So people voted for gvnt the same way.
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I ask this with sincerity, what can we do? As in regular people. Just accept that were fucked and hope we die quickly in a nuclear war?
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Yes....so what happens next?
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That there even exist millions of them is a fact that does not favor politicians and politics in the last decades.
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Exactly. Fuck every last one of them.
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They've always been villains, they were just to weak, dumb and powerless to do anything. They took the lazy way and voted for a madman.
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USian "culture" rewards psychopathy and narcissism above all else
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They saw themselves in Trump, and they liked what they saw.
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Millions of white people.
Millions of white people wanted to be villains.
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And millions more just let them do it.
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In 2016 the day after Trump won I was arguing with a fellow union worker about how bad Trump was going to be, taxes, unions, civil rights. After he couldn’t defend any of his arguments he goes ya know what, you people are all just babies and over reacting. It’s not like anyone is going to be getting
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their heads chopped off. I was like are you fucking kidding me? That’s your standard for America. Then he said, ya know what, I hope people do start getting their heads chopped off. Something drastic has to happen to start saving this country. This is how all these people think he just accidentally
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90 million eligible voters stayed home.

That's about the pop of Iran.
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Right, 90 million more failed citizens.
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True, also a significant number of people who were half paying attention (at most) came to believe that he couldn’t be as bad as people were saying because the institutions (Justice, Courts, Media) that many of those same critics were praising failed to prioritize holding him accountable.
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And where will we be tomorrow?

This is a final test of American democracy. If there are patriots left - if the entire government hasn’t been corrupted - they’d take him out of office on the 25A today.

If he’s still in power tomorrow, every shred, every pretense, of democracy will be gone.
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And yes America. This is who we are.
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This!

All MAGA ever wanted was to “own the libs.” Trump is keeping that promise.
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Many did the same back in the 1860s too - it will always be the option for an ignorant minority
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"But muh economic anxiety!"
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I think they were pissed that a black man became president as a Democrat
So much so that whatever the Republicans did was okay, even if their candidate was a child rapist, conman & grifter
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If it’s a white man, they are allowed unlimited power. That’s the entire point. If a white man does it then it’s allowed.
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Sad, yet soberingly true.😡
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Johnson you could do more than hope and pray. If you weren't spineless you and other Republicans had chances to impeach,
and to invoke Congressional opposition to this illegal war.
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This is the best description of the mess we find ourselves in that I have heard.
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Maybe now we can finally tell the centrists and consultants to fuck off, and actually be mean to these people?

Like, make them mildly uncomfortable and feel an ounce of shame for their actions? For like, five seconds, please???
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It’s imperative that they be made to suffer for this choice. It’s quite unfortunate that millions of us who didn’t share this preference or make this choice will suffer, too.
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Remember the bullies in junior high school and high school?

They're all grown up now and have their hands on the levers of power.
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Enthusiastically & Gleefully.

But this villainy can come as a surprise to no one.

It was open and apparent in 2008, only grew from there, stoked by those that would ultimately & ultimately weaponize it.
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And yet...
89% of Americans HAVEN'T been raising hell with their legislators about it.

Make the calls.
202 224 3121 call Congress
202 456 1414 call WH
Text SIGN PDRWIM to 50409
resist.bot/petitions/PDRWIM
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My Senator is Amy Klobuchar. The good one is retiring to hopefully not be replaced by a @dfl.org stooge.

The only legislator from Minnesota doing anything is Omar.

No one in government is going to save us. We need to save ourselves. We have friends everywhere.
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Well when you run a cackling dunce against him this is what you get.
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‘Black lady laughed weird’ fuck off
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They were fed bullshit by Fox etc.
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Guys, is there anyone specific that we can call today to try to stop this insanity? I call Rep senators and Don Bacon( because he seems somewhat rational) I feel like it is too late. I cannot fathom that we were living among so many cruel people.
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I'm increasingly convinced that the culprit for this cultural nightmare is Pro Wrestling. Possibly entertaining, but an incredibly bad model for a polity.
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I fear you are right that we have WWE'd our politics.
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And unsurprisingly they get fucked over too because the moment they voted for him theyve outlived their usefulness to him already
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Too right
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And they all call themselves Christians - AND THEY BELIEVE THEIR OWN LIE.
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The ring of truth
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As much as I hate Joe Rogan, he perfectly illustrates this.
He wanted so badly to be the villain. To be the alpha male.
And now he's like, Wait, am I the Villain?
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He'll flip back in a second. There is no there there.
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We can’t discount the possibility that he always planned to break with Trump to get attention.
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👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
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That’s white christianity for ya. They love to see others suffer. They live for this shit
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I used to believe they actually tried to follow jesus teachings. Until trump came along and they showed that they just use the bible to beat people over the head. They don’t give a rats ass about Jesus love. They came here to hate
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Also, millions more could not see the difference and decided not to vote. 🙄
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30-40 million rednecks are going to destroy the world.
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More than 77M Americans voted for Trump to be President.
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But they are driven by a dozen truly evil, billionaire families. Stupid, amoral, evil, and rich from generational lying and cheating.
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With not enough push back from opposition leaders.

Feeding the poor is good, actually. Migration grows economies. #DEI increases the candidate pool. The very definition of meritocracy and on and on.
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Supposedly, the “opposition” was trying to appear as moderate as possible, so as not to scare away the hypothetical moderates who comprise the enormous middle bloc of Democratic voters. Truth is, they were serving their big donors.
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It’s always always the Dems fault on here. It’s a fucking disease. They literally ran against fascism and yet, here you are with the trite and stupid comeback that keeps this stupid site going.
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My neighbors voted 3 out of 5 for trump. They aren't evil, they are just ignorant, and brainwashed.
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That’s messed up. But seems accurate.
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Hurt people hurt people.
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Yeah. They're evil and cowardly must like the people they voted into officer.
WTAF!!! SMFH!!!
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It's the Age of Belligerence.
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And many MAGA voters are still cheering
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trump et al continually inflame our baser nature
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and as of today they would make the same choice again, still
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There is definitely a psychological reason why we're here. Trump played the tf out of the it's not your fault card,and promised he would not deal from the bottom of the deck, and ppl believed him. Trump has cheated at everything he has done his entire life. It's in his DNA.
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The cool/romantic outlaw trope taken too far.
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All comes down to parenting and who people elect reflects who they are. Until the billionaires start buying who they want and corrupt politicians.
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You are correct, and it makes me sick.
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🎤🎤🎤🎤🎤💯
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Kinda baked into capitalism, ain't it?
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and no matter how bad it gets for them, they’ll gladly suffer as long as it means ‘owning the libs’.
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I believe that for a lot of the cult members it was more important to see the people they don’t like suffer than to have a good quality of life.
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Consumed with selfishness, hate, fear and a side order of racist entitlement.
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It’s a mentality and it’s as ignorant as it is destructive. So much WINNING that we have concentration camps now, a pedophile’s paradise.
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Education and propaganda, wrong ones, to the vulnerable.
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All the while calling themselves Christians!
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It always struck me that America has two faces: one beautiful, the other ugly. It also has two projects: elevating the individual to greatness, and all-ignoring selfishness.

I'm not sure how you will ever come to terms with these contradictions.
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I have never seen the beautiful face of the USia

USia is a nation of psychopaths and narcissists
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Maga pledge of Allegiance.
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The choice was as cartoonishly stark as Star Wars concept of dark side of the force and regular(?) side of the force. Or Goofus and Gallant from Highlights magazine. So, so, so many people failed a morality test set on easy mode. Many will never acknowledge their failure or the suffering it brings.
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Perfectly stated.
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Fascists always have Clergy somewhere in attendance.
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A significant amount of people said "I like this guy, he says 'You're fired'" and never stopped liking the guy is why we're here.
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Actions have consequences. Actions to prevent consequences have the biggest consequences of all.
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Precisely
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Insane that Democrats managed to lose to this. I'd like to think a capable party would have been at least able to temper the worst of the electorate's desires. Nope. Could only win after the Covid fumble. Handed it right back to a party of insurrectionists. Depressing.
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Should have sent him to jail on January 7th. To hell with decorum.
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Well said. It's why none of them should be forgiven for what they did
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The saddest thing about it is that they are also hurting, but they don't care because those they hate are suffering more. These people are just completely broken and vile.
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They don’t really know what hurting is because they have zero empathy. I think the best thing would be to give them a most excellent lesson in hurting.
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I'll keep on saying it: drained pool politics is the order of the day.
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They LOVED being called "deplorable" and I think that says it all.
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I don’t think that’s fair. People have succumbed to their fears. It’s true that fear and past trauma can make ordinary people act like villains, but I don’t think that’s fair to say they want to be villains.
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thing is our current capitalist system tends to reward anti-social traits, the less you care about morality the more you'll adapt and benefit from it
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It's the biggest lesson from The Apprentice, Survivor, etc. Winning is all that matters. The ground work was laid decades earlier.
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yep, the key to understanding all of this is the quote from an old lady in florida early in his first time, when she was complaining about him: "he's not hurting the people he's supposed to be hurting."
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ORALÉ RESISTERS
NOT OUR AMERICA! DO BETTER
UNCLE SAM BETRAYS GI JOE
DEPORTS HIS NEWLYWED WIFE!
#QuePasoUSA
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Tempting us to do bad is easy unless & until we feel the joy of doing good. Dems can win enough votes to get a mandate for good government (including our collectively doing good between elections) as long as Dems offer this unvarnished truth: The “all” in “liberty & justice for all” is everything.
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Fascism always begin with a contempt for weakness and venerating the strong. Power makes right. Like the US christian far right who believes (despite all biblical evidence to the contrary) that wealth equals God's approval.
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And how will the other americans solve the problems?

That’s who this is on now.
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That's right. I've never thought about that before. There are bad people of all kind but in comics and in certain kinds of movies the villain always embraces villainy to cause suffering to others. And that's exactly what many wanted to do.
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This is 100% spot on. They cheer for the criminals, and they know it.
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Bully Biff described perfectly
from Back To The Future .

Modeled after Schitzhispants
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Don't underestimate the impact of bad campaigning, poor messaging, and name recognition.

Biden's insistence was an open wound in the election. Harris & advisors mismanaged the campaign, but in fairness they had no time to prepare a coherent message. And you can't half-ass a Presidential campaign.
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They had one handed to them on a silver platter by Waltz and they dropped it like a hot rock! “Why are they so weird?”
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Some thought it was a video game. Others just to own the libs. But the pretend Christians and Israel First crowd want real blood. The worst of us are running the show while the sellouts cower in the corner blathrering about process.
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Such a sad but true statement about Americans.
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Owning the libs was all important.

None knew that if you don't own a billion bills, you're libs.
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How many of those were followers of Jesus? WWJD?

#WhyPeopleAreLeavingTheChurch
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The Teflon Don, Gangsta rap, Billy the Kid, etc....... sociopathic and psychotic behaviour is core to the American culture.
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Agree. They embraced the moment.
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And may they now realize that all the suffering they are NOW enduring, was completely self- inflicted. 😡💙🔥
#makesmericasaneagain
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The thing about this specific war is that both sides support it (and we know why). One side is more cynical about it but both do what their donor wants
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I have zero arguments. I was taught Greed is Good in the 80s and since then, any time I've objected, I've been called a stupid woke hippie.
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In deep Red Arizona the billboards said, “Elect the hillbilly and the outlaw.” They did.
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Sickening but true…
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Well put.
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I see people saying, "Don't blame the voters" but representative democracy is based on the premise that voters are responsible for their actions. Besides, the US has always had a huge element of religious fanaticism combined with bigotry as well as oligarchs--and now they are on the same team.
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Under the leadership of Karl Rove, the Republican party set out to end representative democracy in favor of one-party oligarchy by locking in the support of religious wackos and the hate/fear voters--and they have largely succeeded.
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Yup. The entire MAGA cult is built on attacking and victimizing (and killing) people they've been groomed to hate--even if they off themselves while doing it. It's suicide bombers, with the vote as their bomb.
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We grew angry at our institutions and the catharsis of retribution was too strong a lure for too many of us. And others just wanted cheaper stuff, morality be damned.
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Vice signalling is the thing on the right and yeah it's exactly as bad as it sounded
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The scary thing is... They'll do it again.

Just watch.
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Yes, this is exactly right. False Christians. Frauds, gluttons, barbarians.
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B-B-B-BULLSHIT!
#TrumpCheated
PERIOD
Stop blaming the voters
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Reality TV was the beginning. Shows where being a deceitful asshole was rewarded and moral and integrity got you kicked off the island
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We have had decades of worshipping anti-heroes and villains “redeemed “ without actual redemption and change of character.
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We, as a society, encourage villainy at every turn. We prop up the worst people and coddle the most selfish impulses of everyone around us.

The people who are actually villainized are the ones who point out evil and expect people to be better.
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One of the most successful reality shows on TV is Survivor. Where the goal is to do whatever you have to do so you can be the last one standing. Lie and backstab to your hearts content. Embrace being the villain and deceive others so you can win money.
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Our damn vice peckerhead is in Hungary right now, on a trip to fellate Orban, making nuclear threats to Iran in a speech
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Remember the catch line from the 80's?

"Greed is Good" Gordon Gekko.

He was viewed as a hero by way too many.
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Describing Trump voters as deplorable was too kind, in hindsight.
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We really shouldn’t have allowed them to vote again. In the most violent way.
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I think you’ve described it well - sadly.
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Given the choice between their success or others' failure, they'll choose others' failure every time
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You summed this up perfectly
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We only have a generation before they own the professionals in the military to do what is necessary.
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Well said and spot on.
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If the American people had better education and less ambition to have easy money, fame and patriotic bullshit shoved down their throats the world would be in a better place. But then would America even be America?
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They can no longer claim to be fiscally responsible or Christians! They have destroyed their previous reputation!
They worked hard to be EVIL!
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Stfu flippant white man
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