comment: >
  
  Seriously though. Alienating so much of the country that you claim to serve does not seem like an effective winning strategy
context: All they have is made up culture war bullshit, and nothing is working so they have no choice but to double down.
  Drag Queens isn't working. Multiple attempts.
  Vaccines isn't working. In fact, it killed a lot of their votes. Multiple attempts anyway. 
  Books with scary history isn't working. Multiple attempts.
  Some dudes laptop didn't work. Multiple attempts.
  Abortion is back on the table. Use to work, now its not. Lets give it more attempts.
  Maybe a migrant caravan will do the trick this time? >
  
  Right now they're on to task forces entering their homes to take their gas stoves. >
  
  Ah yes, I forgot about gas stoves (which most republicans probably don't even have).
  Real issues here. >
  
  Honest question: Why don't Republicans have gas stoves? Is it because they rent and most rentals have electric stoves because they are cheaper to install?
  Also, sauce please. >
  
  Possibly because of all the fossil fuels, NG is the least damaging to the environment? More likely because it's often the cheapest alternative for heating and cooking, and more progressives take the time to actually evaluate long term financial costs. >
  
  Also racism, homophobia, transphobia. Pretty much bigotry and othering minority groups in general. >
  
  It’s crazy that any woman would vote Republican. It’s obvious that their platform has no desire to improve women’s quality of life.
  Edit: also minority, person in lgbtq, chronically ill person, person with a conscious, etc. >
  
  My lesbian friend voted republican in the last election, and I just can't wrap my head around it. She voted for people who would wish for nothing good for her.  My only theory is that we live in a very blue state, and she's got a habit of going against the grain just for the sake of being contrary. It boggles the mind. >
  
  Can’t imagine voting against my own interests like that. >
  
  I've come to the conclusion that it's a low self esteem thing.
  They'd rather hurt people they hate more than improve their own lives, partially because they've been trained to believe hatred is all that's left to their lives. This is partially because they've been abused by the GOP's systems for so long. You can find this cycle consistently among just about anybody on the right, save many of the very wealthy who are simple unempathetic sociopaths who stomp on others to be selfish because it's worked for them.
  It's the psychological cycle of abuse playing out in the worst ways possible. Of course, these people would break some of that if they choose to be better, but the sheer levels of propaganda the GOP pushes out there makes that choice much less likely. Their ego gets boosted in all the wrong ways by grifters. They are fed hatred and their brains are trained to be hooked on those highs, rather than empathy and helping others. >
  
  It's also that the average American is... Ignorant about politics. Like, shamefully ignorant - often on purpose. "I just don't care about that" is something I hear a lot. They can name every single actor in The Last of Us but they can't name their representatives in Congress. They've seen all of the Marvel movies, but they don't understand how X thing that happened affects their daily lives.
  While protesting the removal of Roe v Wade, I had a sign that said "PROTECT ROE - PROTECT WOMEN." During the day, I talked to a woman in her late 20s - early 30s who saw my sign and sincerely asked me who Roe is. She had no idea. I told her about the case and she looked completely confused, "Wait, who got rid of abortion?" She had no idea that this shit had even happened. 
  Worse, it's not just ignorance but also a lot of "my team should win" competitiveness.
  I talk to Republicans regularly in a pub I visit (it's the only place I've found the ability to reach out without it devolving into anger) and they tell me about how the Trump tax cuts helped them. I explain exactly how it was the single biggest transfer of wealth (deficit spending to give tax cuts to richest Americans that now the average tax payer has to pay back and how the average person lost any tax break now) and they were horrified... They mostly didn't believe me until after several meetings and them "researching it" afterwards and me slapping down each and every argument about how it might somehow be Biden or the Democrats' fault why they lost their tax breaks the last couple years. I bring receipts. They start understanding and seem to get it. ...And then they still vote Republican because of some other issue that they now think is the most important. >
  
  
  And then they still vote Republican because of some other issue that they now think is the most important.
  
  You aren't going to convince me to buy a different brand of cereal by showing me the nutritional benefits of your brand, I already like the taste of mine.
  It's this. >
  
  The taste of republicans should be revolting, but changing taste buds ranges from insanely hard to impossible. >
  
  Let’s all go out for abortions to celebrate the GOP’s death spiral. First round is in me. >
  
  
  First round is in me. 
  
  Idk if that was a typo or deliberate, but it was great either way. >
  
  It was a typo, but a damn good one lol >
  
  Dammit, you had my hopes up and my pants down already. >
  
  Misogyny is a key value for them. They can’t have a fascist state if women are equal. >
  
  It is simple, we have a minority rule. The Supreme Court can flip cases, the House can do whatever. While they lost the presidency, the GOP can keep pushing crap out because to Supreme Court. McConnell played the long game and won. >
  
  They took back the house! The gop nuked roe and still took back the house! 
  They didn't lose. The senate was a testament to changing realities in some places but Holly Molly y'all got some work to do. 
  Go take Texas for real. >
  
  They barely won after gerrymandered maps, when a year ago they were projected to win by 40-50 seats. As boomers die, people move, and gen z comes of voting age the house will shift back blue. >
  
  Accelerate it by getting young people to vote. 
  Make voting online a thing. >
  
  Online voting is a TERRIBLE idea. You want to talk about making our democracy vulnerable? That’s a easy way to do it. >
  
  Because having people wait in line for hours, without water, armed nutbags screaming at vote counters, all kinds of shenanigans about whether or not a box has been sufficiently marked or not, mail delays... Has been so good for democracy. 
  Btw Estonia has been doing it for years. I never heard of any issues. Have you? >
  
  I think trying to compare Estonian and US elections is pretty misguided. Estonia has roughly 880,000 registered voters, the US has roughly 170,000,000 spread across a ton of space. It would just open the door further to claims of “fraud” within the election system particularly if you’d be able to vote online from home. Just not a feasible plan at this time for US elections. >
  
  You've described why voting online is more feasible in the US vs all the issues with physical voting. 
  More people, in more places, with different rules, in different time zones - seems like there would be more abuse in person. >
  
  You haven’t explained to me how we can make it secure enough to actually rely on? Sure in a utopia this would be perfect, seem to be ignoring all of the factors that make this a laughable proposition at this moment in time. >
  
  What's not safe? If Estonia can do no it, Americans can do it. If you can file your taxes online and do banking online, why is voting so much more critical?
  In Canada we can use banking credentials to access government websites to file taxes or anything else. I'm not going to describe federation and IAM architecture. We know how to secure websites and operations. No reason voting can't be integrated as well. >
  
  It's 110% to keep the political discussion away from economics, wealth inequality, and social support. Abortion bans aren't even aligned with their voter base. It's a talking point manufactured at the top to keep the public fighting for very basic rights instead of being able to worry about other provisions (health care and wealth equality and what-have-you). It works on both sides of the table as well, as it pushed Democrat talking points in this grim direction. >
  
  Bingo. Pretty much all of the ongoing culture war rhetoric exists to avoid talking about real pocket book issues and prevent people from thinking about why they can't afford child care or health insurance. >
  
  Because they aren't looking to win elections anymore, they are looking to get rid of elections. >
  
  Exactly! Whether the country wants them or not! They quit listening to their constituents a long time ago! They only listen to their $$$ friends! >
  
  I think it is misogyny veiled by a pretend concern for children. They have no interest in helping actual children at all, for fear of socialism or communism. They don't want to be made to spend a penny to help someone else, even if they'll die. They look down on sexually active women, but believe men are entitled to sex with women. They want no repercussions for the man if he gets a woman pregnant, and in some cases support a man's right to abortion, whether it's forcing the woman into one or financially absolving themselves. The woman must never get a say in what happens to her. It echoes less developed societies in the world and it's time we moved past such antiquated ways of thinking. >
  
  Misogyny, racism, and homophobia is what the GOP is motivated by. Everything else is a means to the end of hatred and violence. >
  
  Yup. Whenever I hear someone say the GOP believes in nothing and are only after power, I wonder how it’s possible they haven’t noticed they very much believe in straight white male supremacy. The fact that they are so determined to maintain this dominance they would throw out democracy to not only prevent equality from being fully realized, but to reverse the progress that’s been made. >
  
  I feel the same when I hear people saying the GOP has no platform.  Oh, they have a platform, and it's entirely oppressive to any but white male Christians. >
  
  Because they’re incapable of acknowledging that people don’t want what they want. >
  
  They are “good people” and are against abortion ergo abortion is bad and only “bad people” would want abortion.  The leakage of prosperity gospel can be seen in the cracks of all of our fabricated cultural wars.  What I mean by that is the belief that if one is “good” whatever that person does is “good” and if they are rich it’s because whatever they did to be rich was also good; therefore emulating that person will make you rich, too.  If you don’t become rich, it’s because you’re bad, not that the “good””rich” person is an utter fabrication, derelict, and parasite. >
  
  It really is pervasive, this notion that if I feel like a good person, I am a good person. Damned if they ever have to fucking prove it. This is why they won't address their latent racism, sexism, xenophobia, fascist tendencies etc. Because when you call them out, they immediately retreat to this identity of being a "good person", and they couldn't possibly be any of those things because that would mean they're a "bad person" and they don't feel like a "bad person" they feel like a "good person". 
  Shit, this isn't even exclusive to Christians. We have this weird strain of moralized identity, where people identify as morally good without any sort of empirical support for that identity. My mother is like this; she's not a monster or anything, but she certainly doesn't really do any good for anybody. Wouldn't guess it hearing her talk, you'd think she was a saint martyr ready to sacrifice her life for some noble cause. She just sits around getting drunk and watching TV. But she's convinced she's a great person, so when you point out her drinking problem or penchant for lying, it becomes an attack on her identity as a "good person", then she cries and stops listening. 
  IDK where the fuck this idea came from, but my contrarian ass avoids it by contending that I and everyone else is a piece-of-garbage, immoral bastard until proven otherwise. >
  
  Are you my brother? My mom is the same person.  “Why do I always get the shit end of the stick? I’m a good person!” Sure mom, you are, sometimes, and you’re not Stalin, that’s true.  But you’re fuckery over the last 50ish years is legendary “sometimes I think you guys make that stuff up” … the axe forgets but the tree remembers, mom
  Edit : it’s easy to avoid because good people usually don’t try to sell themselves as a good person.  I am always just trying to be better. >
  
  Desantis is going for a full 6 week ban without exception for rape or incest. 
  I’m terrified for young girls. But I’m also terrified for myself. Im perimenopausal. I have a disability. I could die if I get pregnant. 
  This is going to greatly harm so many women and girls. >
  
  Fascist movements are always sexist movements.
  -
  GOP want to own slaves. 
  Women in the home, and PoC in the fields/factories.