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Brammymiami's avatar

That’s how I explained my voting for Trump to the tone policers in my life: I didn’t love the man but I agreed with the message. The bigger problem that will remain is the generation of young people who have been marinating in the woke nonsense for so long. How can we deprogram an entire generation?

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Brian Katz's avatar

Deprograming will be difficult.

The only way, in my opinion, is for reality to smack them in the face, hard.

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Lynne Morris's avatar

I think reality is doing that.

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Brian Katz's avatar

Let’s see if this reality is harsh enough.

I am skeptical.

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Sierras23's avatar

I had the exact conversation with a friend this weekend...that I had voted in the past two elections based on policies and not personality. Unfortunately, she cannot get past her

D = Good/ R = Bad blindness.

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Karla Miller's avatar

At this point, convincing most Democrats to vote for anything but a Democrat is like convincing devout Christians to vote for a Satanist. Their political label is deeply embedded in their identity.

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Lynne Morris's avatar

These are the young people raised by the village (the US education system) with or without the complicity of parents. They do as told so if the village is re-aligned they will be as well.

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Tim Amyx's avatar

Well said, Brammy.

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Mo Diddly's avatar

Agree about the problem, disagree about the solution. Curing wokeness with Trump is like curing a grease fire with kerosene.

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Sara Allard's avatar

Sorry you don't have more likes on this one, because you deserve it! The rhetotic of Trump and his biggest fans is what has pushed me more to the center since 2020. Before COVID, I was a solid Trump supporter and read the Daily Wire everyday. All the Conservatives on there and in my church always posted about how they'd be willing to pick up a gun and die for their country/community if any threat came their way. Then they were asked to wear masks in public, and they completely lost their minds. My mom had immunity issues, coughs for 3 months after even a simple cold, and definitely could've died from the harsher strains of COVID. So we masked up and kept our distance from the church to protect her. And what did my church friends do? Accuse another sweet family of child abuse because their kid wore a mask to church. Make posts comparing masks to swastikas. Call my mom a literal FOLLOWER OF SATAN. And also generally mock everyone who was legitimately concerned for their families. I was like, "so I'm supposed to believe you're willing to die for my country when a piece of cloth makes you hate me?" Because of that, I started becoming more sympathetic to liberal talking points then I ever thought I would be (while also relying more on God than political talk show hosts).Now I'm definitely still a Conservative voter, and 10/7 has reminded me the Left has NO RIGHT to claim the moral high ground on anything. But Trump's cult of personality has done real harm to Conservatives and the country as a whole. Instead of actually getting things done, Conservatives now just fight to see who can tell the loudest, be the most brazen, "own the libs" the most. How's that working out for the Speaker of the House?

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RickMcKC's avatar

I'm sorry that you experienced that from your church. God and country "religion" too often produces that unfortunate side-effect. (I'm a conservative voter and a pastor).

Peace

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Brigid LaSage's avatar

As a moderate surrounded by ultra blue woke craziness in a Northeast college area, I appreciate your perspective. Trump supporters around here are mostly pragmatic second ammendment fiscal conservatives, not far right or evangelical, so I forget how crazy the other side can be. Seems both left and right extremes are going completely off the rails. A sane, centrist current is hard to fathom.

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Oct 23, 2023
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Mo Diddly's avatar

Horseshoe theory in action. The MAGA perspective is ultimately the same as the Bernie Bro perspective: burn it all down.

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Missy's avatar

Some folks want to burn it down. Trump's agenda was not "burn it down," however, and it had the full-throated support of his voters (and in parts, the support of those who didn't vote for him). It still does.

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Bruce Miller's avatar

So easy to see the foolishness. When Trump wanted to build the wall he's an irredeemable "racist." Then Biden mumbles that maybe the answer to the tsunami of illegal immigration under his mismanagement is a border wall and....... crickets. Only clowns and fools act this way.

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Mari's avatar

The problem with Trump's vision of the wall was that he wanted it to build it along the entire border, which was a logistically challenging and expensive symbol to rally the crowds. Money would be better spent on other methods, with a wall only where needed.

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Lucy's avatar

Well there’s all that money sent to Ukraine....

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Bruce Miller's avatar

Quibbling. He built the wall where it was needed and more needed to be done. In contrast, the Senile Imbecile invited in the invaders, buses and flies them all over our nation and showers benefits on them. How about a pledge to refrain from voting for any candidate who won't vow to deport every single person illegally in the United States?

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Lynne Morris's avatar

And sold the wall materials for pennies on the dollar.

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Reese Vaughn's avatar

I still oppose the wall -- it is a 19th century solution to a 21st century problem and would be useful only if we are willing to shoot those who try to cross it. What no one is willing to discuss is enforcing restrictions on hiring, because no politician is willing to take on big corporations, constructions trades, meat packing etc. We have E-verify. Why don't we use it?

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Shifra's avatar

Agree with your point about hiring and e verify but also believe we still need a wall. Walls don’t work 100percent but they work!

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Sherry 1's avatar

I say a DMZ Zone, like the one between North and South Korea might do the trick.

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Dean R.'s avatar

Can we mine it too?

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Sherry 1's avatar

That would certainly be an effective deterrent.

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Elizabeth's avatar

Most every sector of Immigration Law is currently suspended. Low enforcement or non-enforcement are the orders from the top. Stand down is the slogan and everyone employed by Homeland Security knows this. Tough immigration laws have been passed, enacted, codified and enforced. The laws are still there. It is the Biden Administration’s demand and the HS Secretary’s loyalty to it that has exposed our Country to danger. The risk is extremely high that “evil intended individuals” are already settled among us. We have no idea where they are. Lock your doors and stay vigilant.

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Bruce Miller's avatar

Walls work. And we don't have to fire on them. We just have to detain and deport them. Every last one of them.

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Sierras23's avatar

You are spot on about E-verify but the masses pouring in now are not candidates for those types of jobs. The wall absolutely is an important part of the solution. Do you have a front door that you lock at night or when you leave? Law enforcement recommends making your home more challenging to break into as a deterrent because it works. The wall is one piece of a multi-part puzzle.

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Lynne Morris's avatar

That West Bank wall seems to be a pretty solid deterrent.

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Chuck's avatar

Walls are still around because they work.

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RJ's avatar

All I’d ask is: do you lock your doors at night? If so, locks are no less antiquated than a border wall and you, too, could instead opt for sensors on your doors and windows and motion detectors for your safety while you sleep.

No, I’d bet my home that your doors are locked securely at night. And if you live in an urban area, you likely have more than one lock, so they’re locked and locked well. Because the fact of the matter is detection post-entry is great, but like anyone else you don’t choose to simply hope that only nice people who wish you well will enter your home uninvited.

Of course, the rote response to this line of conversation is to accuse someone of being racist. That’s narrow minded, but hey, it generally works, so why argue rationally? Why be surgical in a rhetorical response when one can just drop the nuke of racism over and over again without consequence?

It’s no more rational to expect everyone crossing your unprotected border to come with goodwill than it is to expect that’d happen at your own doorstep. Only the scale - and therefore the adverse consequences - differ.

Lastly, as for E-verify being a solution, you presume all those crossing want to work and work legally. I’ve no doubt many, many, many do...but not all of them. Perhaps initially all came for work, but the longer the border is open, just as would be the case with your front door, the more likely it is that those who wish you harm will enter.

In any event, if tomorrow we magically had 100% compliance with hiring, what then? Well, if recent history is any indication, those suddenly unemployable would, I don’t know, maybe be housed, clothed, and fed by the government? Seems likely...unless we’re willing to let everyone in, stop them from working, and thus drive them to support themselves by means illegal (by definition).

This is the problem with many who call themselves progressive. They have laudable goals, but don’t take the time to extrapolate possible outcomes. How many times do you hear politicians like AOC say that we need to rethink this or that, come up with new ways, be more creative...all well and good, but maybe, just maybe, do just that before you destroy what was there already?

Lastly, as for 19th-century solutions, it’d be helpful if everyone weren’t quite so fast to presume all we’d done in the past was primitive, barbaric, or just plain wrong. Because you know what else is a 19th-century solution? Pasteur’s vaccines. (Actually, primitive forms of vaccination were done as early as the 10th century.)

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KAM's avatar

The power of “AND.”

The wall AND….

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Elizabeth's avatar

Yes, yes, yes Rob....Excellent retort. I like walls and I like locks and they have endured through the ages.

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Casey Jones's avatar

With respect, such as walls a locks are an entry-level deterrent without which all else is rendered useless. Sorry. Otherwise, you be preachin' to the choir.

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Mark's avatar

Fire is a 1.5 million year old solution to a 21st century problem; still seems useful.

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Missy's avatar

Businesses shouldn't have to do the government's job. Anyway, plenty of welfare is being handed out to illegals who don't work, their children are being educated, etc., so even if E-verify was universal (and it never would be) it wouldn't solve the problem. They come by the millions because they know they can get in, not because they are guaranteed a job.

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Casey Jones's avatar

Expecting businesses to know who they're hiring is doing the governments work? Really?

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Missy's avatar

Keeping illegals out is the government's work. The government should do it. The burden of making the country inhospitable to illegals shouldn't be transferred to businesses. Yes, we hope they don't hire illegals and we hope they use E-verify. And there can be penalties for knowingly hiring illegals. But that is not a substitute for border enforcement.

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Casey Jones's avatar

I never suggested that it was. To the contrary....

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Lynne Morris's avatar

At this point, yes it is. I am a US citizen and received more scrutiny re-entering the country this summer than the folks crossing the Rio and turning themselves in. And the folks just entering and not turning themselves in receive no attention.

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Casey Jones's avatar

Apples and oranges, I submit, m'lady.

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Bruce Miller's avatar

May be apples and oranges but it is beyond infuriating to see long lines of hardworking American citizens being made to stand in line and be asked inane questions by gun toting "border guards" at our international airports when nobody is guarding our Southern Border and millions - including killers, rapists, child traffickers and terrorists - are crossing it with impunity. Beyond maddening. A complete charade - just like the presidency of Joseph Robinette Biden - the man with the bird name and the bird brain.

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Casey Jones's avatar

Yes. What astonishes me is the perception that employers need not play (mandatory E-verify, et al) for the sole reason that (I don't think I'd seen his middle name before and I won't look it up just in case it ain't really so) the Current Occupant opened up the border. The simple fact is that employers who are even pretending to follow the law are withholding sums on behalf of various entities from the IRS and SSA on down. To what accounts are they sending the money if they don't know who they've hired?

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Lynne Morris's avatar

Yes and no. Logic dictates that employers should know about the people they hire if for no other reason than to assure quality emplyees. But as a practical matter in the age of DIE is it reasonable that they do not? Can an employee be in DIE conformity and inquire about immigration status?

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Casey Jones's avatar

You're pushing back on the basis of DIE nonconformity? PLEASE say it ain't so....

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Lynne Morris's avatar

I am neither an adherent of nor advocate for DIE. But I hear it is pretty impactful in employment circles. Do you deny the possibility of impact?

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Casey Jones's avatar

No. I deny its relevance to the matter at hand.

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KTonCapeCod's avatar

Well when we are cold, hungry and truly living in 1984..maybe then?

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