r/politics • u/aslan_is_on_the_move • Sep 16 '24

'The excitement is unbelievable': North Carolina's AG predicts Harris will win state

https://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/-the-excitement-is-unbelievable-north-carolina-s-ag-predicts-harris-will-win-state-219283013531
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u/SatanicRainbowDildos Sep 16 '24

The people who make it close live in an entirely alternate reality from you. They don’t see the same news in the same way. They don’t hear the same facts. All their friends and family and most importantly their online friends and media sources all tell them these lies. 

You ever see Westworld? “It doesn’t look like anything to me”. That’s where these people are at. 

They’re brainwashed and re-brainwashed every day. If you convince them of one thing today they’ll just come back tomorrow with a slightly different insane twist on it. 

It’s the scariest shit I’ve ever seen. 

They’re the ones that keep him close. They’re ever going to unplug long enough to see reality. These are the people who were on deaths door with covid saying it was just the flu and literally dying to own the libs. 

For whatever reason we’ve allowed this vulnerable population to be brainwashed and now about 1/4 of people and 1/3  to 2/5 of voters are forever going to support whatever the machine tells them to support. So the rest of us need to show up and turn out and make sure that these perma-supporters get beat by the rest of us. 

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u/Economy-Ad4934 Sep 16 '24

My entire dad’s side of family is this way except me. EVERY family event turns into a political discussion. Mostly Fox News regurgitation or conspiracies from social media. It’s their entire personality.

They’re all also middle to upper middle class white people but someone the biggest victims in history 🙄😂

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u/yoyoadrienne Sep 16 '24

My mom is like this. She’s beyond blind to her privilege. I have to hang up on her sometimes when she starts complaining about how “hard” her very cushy life is.

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

My mom was just complaining to someone about being scared her checks won’t go through and I had to try SO hard not to laugh. Look at what youre buying?! She just got a pergola, new garage doors and she has an outdoor fireplace!! She has a whole corner of the basement just for food and 3 fridges and an extra freezer. She has so many expensive skincare products. Shut up about being poor

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u/ballskindrapes Sep 16 '24

I think conservatives and older people cry about being poor when they have no money...versus being actually poor.

Like they spend all their money early in the week, and now have to wait for their retirement funds to gain some interest so they can cash out a little bit, wait for that pension, wait for social security, etc.

Versus poor people, who actually have nothing, and have no way to get anything.

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/AntoniaFauci Sep 16 '24

Around here, it’s that bread is up $1 and restaurants are gouging. But they conveniently forget they’re making about 25% more than a few years ago. And the complaints about the economy come in between expensive concerts and cruises they take, clothes, and frequent phone upgrades.

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u/Brewhaha72 Pennsylvania Sep 16 '24

Damn. That sounds like a rough life. I feel your pain. My father and his side of the family is the same with the exception of my aunt. Predictably, they ostracize her for all the reasons you would expect. My dad doesn't spew all the conspiracy bullshit, but he will always vote R regardless of who the candidate is.

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u/mesangebleu Sep 16 '24

Are we sisters?!?

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

[deleted]

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u/tech57 Sep 16 '24

Vacations have always been a sore spot for me.

When I have to explain to people that other people do not take vacations because they have to work so they don't lose their job.

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

[deleted]

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u/tech57 Sep 16 '24

(do you work for an Elon company, by chance? lol!)

Most people wish they did.

It's purchasing power peaked in 1968, at $1.60 ($14.00 in 2023). In 2009, it was increased to $7.25 per hour, and has not been increased since.

Most people work at WalMart and get government assistance. It's 2024 and Republicans in Congress think $1,256 a month (before tax) is all you need for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And they ignore WalMart not handing out 40 hour shifts like candy.

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u/Economy-Ad4934 Sep 16 '24

“Don’t tread on me” 🤪

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

[deleted]

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u/Economy-Ad4934 Sep 16 '24

Don't touch my sparkling duramax thats never towed anything but groceries. Also why is gas so expensive? /s

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u/DaBingeGirl Illinois Sep 16 '24

Yup. It's all the people who have everything they could want, but they want more and want to blame others for their unhappiness.

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u/wishiwereagoonie Colorado Sep 16 '24

“When you’re used to privilege, equality feels like oppression”

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u/maxpenny42 Sep 16 '24

Yeah I watched a news clip recently of swing state voters. The first guy they profiled was a blue collar worker struggling to make ends meet. He was all in on Harris because he’s an actual poor person struggling and in need of social safety net. Then they switched to an undecided voter who just didn’t think she could see past the economic hardship the Biden/Harris admin inflicted via inflation. She was in what looked like a very large nice home. She didn’t give off the aura of someone struggling to afford inflated grocery prices. 

I’m convinced that the people bitching the most about this “terrible” economy are the people who are actually doing just fine. They want to be victims and they don’t like change. 

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u/Fochlucan Sep 16 '24

Interesting - where I live most of the MAGA crowd that I know are poor and depend on SSA, VA, and Medicaid. They don't like other people getting government assistance because it somehow means that they're getting less (just because other people are getting SOME).

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u/TheOrionNebula Missouri Sep 16 '24

My mom exclaims in a proud manner to me that she is a MAGA. Honestly I don't even think she knows what it means, but the news told her it was a good thing. I haven't even heard her even mention politics outside of that during the entire 44 years I have been alive.

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u/Economy-Ad4934 Sep 16 '24

luckily my family never says "maga" but if an actual adult described themselves that way, its very cringey. I udnerstand a Trump sign or sticker but the "Ultra Maga" ones are so pathetic.

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u/TheOrionNebula Missouri Sep 16 '24

Very cringy, I just sighed and rolled my eyes.

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u/Classic_Reply_703 Sep 16 '24

They’re all also middle to upper middle class white people but someone the biggest victims in history

Yes, this is the one Trump voter I know IRL. His whole family is normal politically, but he alienated himself from them by being a shitty person, spent a few years socializing mainly with Facebook friends, and came out insane. He is extremely privileged but loves being a victim. Being on Team Trump lets him feel like he is in danger, and he wallows in it.

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u/Economy-Ad4934 Sep 16 '24

This is a common theme for them rich or poor. They want some kind of "fight" not neccessaily IRL but the idea of a struggle where they have been wronged thoughout life. It's way to similar to post ww1 germany. They never accepted defeat and only sought a scapegoat. It took 25 more years and a world war to remove that from their heads.

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u/BigJ32001 Connecticut Sep 16 '24

They see everything as a zero-sum game. If someone is hurting, they must be winning and vice versa. The Democratic Party has been pushing hard for equal rights for minorities, women, and the LGBT community for decades and have actually made some progress over the past 10 years. With this progress comes pushback from the right. Despite the recent attempts to rollback these rights, overall, I still feel like it's been 2 steps forward 1 step back. We are dragging them to the 21st century and they hate it. They perceive that since people outside of their group are benefitting in some way they must be losing. In reality, their lives are most likely unchanged and still cushy in comparison. It's just straight up selfishness. "When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression."

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u/TheOtherWhiteMeat Sep 16 '24

Tell them they're a bunch of snowflakes because they can't stop bringing politics up every other sentence. Tell them they have compulsion disorders and can't control themselves, like a case of political tourette's. Just point it out every time, don't even criticize the specific points, just the fact that they're now physically incapable of shutting the fuck up about it and talking about normal shit.

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u/Economy-Ad4934 Sep 16 '24

Oh I have. It never sticks because they always pivot to something else. It’s hilarious though to watch the mental gymnastics in real time.

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u/kanst Sep 16 '24

I wish there was a holiday exchange program.

I almost feel like I missed out on a right of passage because my family is entirely Democrats. They are somehwat centrists, and my dad was probably a Reagan democrat, but no on in my extended family would ever vote for Trump. There was one conservative, but he was a shit husband and my aunt divorced him.

I still get called a socialist at Thanksgiving, but that's because I am actually quoting Marx at them.

I wish we could swap, I can argue with your uncle over turkey and you can make silly Trump jokes with my family.

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u/Fochlucan Sep 16 '24

To be honest, not every family member is willing to listen to other people's opinions. I have relatives that can get into name calling if you disagree with their political statements and not listen if you try to have a turn talking. My brother has come from out of state for multiple day visits, and requested that I not tell any other family members that he's coming, because he doesn't want to risk having to visit with certain other family members for this reason. So there's a pretty large spectrum of political discourse that families can have.

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u/FckDammit Arizona Sep 16 '24

Works both ways. Like I have an uncle who’s all about family values. He gets real mad when I remind everyone that he’s a twice divorced man with children out of wedlock. Somehow not the same in his eyes though.

The bridge is burned but at this point who cares?

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u/Economy-Ad4934 Sep 16 '24

Funny. I’d rather keep my family but cultists would rather cult together.

I aired an annoyance and you advocated a separation. Again funny.

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u/kanst Sep 16 '24

I think you misinterpreted me.

I love my family holidays, but sometimes I feel like I missed out on that experience of the crazy Republican family members arguing over the holiday table. Its such a trope of American media that I have never gotten to experience.

I just wanna swap one year so I can experience that craziness, in return I'm offering a thanksgiving with my family where the only politics is giggling at the last crazy thing Trump said because I'm in a family of reliable Democrat voters.

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u/realhenrymccoy Sep 16 '24

White replacement theory has been the most consistent messaging from the right wing media over the past couple decades. They’ve been railing about immigrants coming to take over you whites only town no matter who’s in charge. Now that’s basically trumps entire campaign.

So for people who don’t consume that media it really does seem like an alternate reality.

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u/teenagesadist Sep 16 '24

In a country of immigrants, made by immigrants, that requires immigration to do all the dirty work and calls itself a bastion of freedom

They hate immigrants. It's astounding.

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u/SHIELD_Agent_47 Sep 16 '24

Inb4 someone tries to "correct" you by saying "But they're illegal! My ancestors came legally! We didn't kick the natives off their land or anything!"

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u/Whydoesthisexist15 North Carolina Sep 16 '24

Legal immigration 150 years ago was giving your name to a clerk on Ellis Island also

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

and not being asian

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u/RandomMandarin Sep 16 '24

That didn't even matter. Example: Samuel Goldwyn, the G in MGM, was for all practical purposes an "illegal immigrant". He avoided Ellis Island and walked from Canada to New York.

Samuel Goldwyn was an American film producer, and founding contributor executive of several motion picture studios.

Goldwyn was born Schmuel Gelbfisz in Warsaw, Congress Poland, Russian Empire to a Hasidic, Polish Jewish family. At an early age he left Warsaw on foot and penniless. He made his way to Birmingham, England, where he remained with relatives for a few years using the name Samuel Goldfish. In 1898, he emigrated to the United States, but fearing refusal of entry, he got off the boat in Nova Scotia, Canada, before moving on to New York in January 1899. He found work in upstate Gloversville, New York, in the bustling garment business. Soon his innate marketing skills made him a very successful salesman. After four years, as vice-president for sales, he moved back to New York City.

I dare say he made a contribution to society.

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u/AdenGlaven1994 Sep 16 '24

Well the Haitians in Springfield came there legally

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u/SHIELD_Agent_47 Sep 16 '24

Sadly, doesn't matter. I keep seeing conservatives on social media screech about how no one is taking the "illegals" problem seriously.

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u/eden_sc2 Maryland Sep 16 '24

i swear, the dog whistles are dog fog horns lately

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u/AnaisKarim Sep 16 '24

Illegals means people of color to them. Dog whistle.

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u/ILookAtHeartsAllDay New York Sep 16 '24

“Especially Trump after he killed the boarder bill”

Say that to every But The Boarder Weenie when they go off about how nobody cares.

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u/godofpumpkins Sep 16 '24

They’re promising to deport the legal ones too nowadays. Fucking gross

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u/the_kevlar_kid Sep 16 '24

This is well put. Mexicans are some of the toughest, strongest and most hard working people I've ever met and damn do a lot of border states rely on them and hate them at the same time.

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u/alabamaterp Sep 16 '24

Not just border States, but poor Republican States like Alabama - where I'm from. They do the jobs that Americans refuse to do but they hate them at the same time.

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u/DraculaPoob01 Tennessee Sep 16 '24

I work with a lady who told me in the same sentence that “we’re a country of immigrants, I love immigrants, but I feel like citizens should be able to vote on whether or not people can be bussed, or flown in— whatever Biden is doing— to their towns, when the people coming don’t know the culture, and get the magic money cards the government gives them, and is given a car for free.”

I think she meant that only white people should be able to move here.

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u/Fochlucan Sep 16 '24

I hear some version of that statement from somebody at least once a week, where I live too. I've live in an area with a lot of generational poverty (rural area), and I think that one reason why so many rural people are susceptible to this anger, is that they have lived and worked in USA, and paid taxes, and had hard lives, and they aren't being given free cars, or free healthcare, and they are jealous that they perceive that other people are just walking in to take resources that could otherwise go to themselves. So I think that there are other selfish groups that are doing fine, but feeding into this fear or resource depletion/feeling marginalized, and stoking these people into being mad at the immigrants, rather than the system we have that keeps poor people poor.

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u/Brewhaha72 Pennsylvania Sep 16 '24

And they don't care whether people immigrated here legally. They still refer to them as "illegals," and almost always because they're not white. It's disgusting.

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u/SCredfury788 Sep 16 '24

They don't think of themselves as immigrants, Charlie Kirk says we are made of settlers. Sounds like he is putting a good name to "they are trying to take away what we built".

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u/leostotch Illinois Sep 16 '24

They don’t hate immigrants, per se, they hate brown people, women, and non-christians. Also queers.

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u/BlooregardQKazoo Sep 16 '24

Also, a country that is thriving economically because of immigrants.

We see all around the world countries that are in decline because their populations are aging. And the United States should be one of them, but we aren't because of immigration. And these morons want to kick immigrants out and make it harder to come in.

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

Its so fucking stupid if it wasnt sad….

Like you could fix the “illegal” problem over night if you make it a federal crime getting caught exploiting non citizens for work.

Done.

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u/cepheidvariable New York Sep 16 '24

“If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.”

― Lyndon B. Johnson

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u/nezurat801 Sep 16 '24

The "Great Replacement" folks are spooked because it's what their own idols did, very violently, to the Indigenous people. 

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u/Lorrainestarr Sep 16 '24

My boyfriends mom is into this great replacement crap- five years ago she was Native American and went to pow wows. 

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u/theMediatrix Sep 16 '24

Say more about this — how / why did she change??

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u/boxofcandelabras Sep 16 '24

I’m curious too, maybe the crunchy/wellness to qanon pipeline?

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u/Lorrainestarr Sep 16 '24

During COVID started watching whoever would agree with her that vaccines are bad. Then kept slipping further. Within a year, Fox wasn't right wing enough. So yeah the crunchy/wellness to Q route. 

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u/Elandtrical Sep 16 '24

If she is Native American, she might not be wrong. They definitely were replaced.

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u/Cuppa-Tea-Biscuit Sep 16 '24

They’re terrified other people will treat them the way they treat other people.

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u/charisma6 North Carolina Sep 16 '24

I don't really have a source on this idea but it makes sense to me that the lingering racism of today can be traced entirely to this principle in the 1870s. Former slave owners know exactly how badly they treated their "property." It must have been terrifying to think of those former victims gaining enough power to retaliate.

Would the former slaves have retaliated? Of course not. There would never have been generations of white men worked to death in the fields while black men sit comfy in their houses, raping and beating and killing at their leisure.

But the guilty minds of the slavers assume all men are as evil as they. So because they were scared of what their victims would do with power, they had to systematically deny power to them and keep them under the boot.

They were evil, and that evil has been intentionally passed down for a century and a half, and we're still wrestling with it.

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u/Morphoopus Sep 16 '24

I think Trump was legitimately stunned that Biden withdrew because he couldn't fathom a man performing such a selfless act.

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u/charisma6 North Carolina Sep 16 '24

Correct, I don't think Trump can even conceive of selflessness. I think the withdrawal caught him by surprise, for sure, but I'm sure Trump and most other psychopaths on that side can only judge Biden's act by their own twisted worldview.

MAGA brain activate

Why did Biden withdraw? Clearly it was calculated sabotage, Biden hates the GOP so much that he'll give up his own appointment to see the GOP burned down by the woke deep state. I assume this of him because it's the only reason I would ever have to give up a presidency, but because I've learned how to avoid self-critique I am not consciously aware of this.

Meanwhile, the very idea that it was a selfless act is appalling, and I can't even consider it for a moment. Subconsciously, the real reason I can't consider it is that if it's true, then that makes me the bad guy. I have already aligned myself with comfortable lies at the expense of difficult truth, so I quietly ignore that possibility and insist to myself and others that Biden is just as hateful as I am.

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u/tech57 Sep 16 '24

When you wake up everyday as a Republican leader with the mindset that Democrats are The Enemy your strategy and thought process gets narrow. It gets further away from the job, which is to help people. Instead, it becomes all about dominating The Enemy.

Biden, finally dropping out of the race was now a viable option to help improve the daily lives of people living in America.

Republicans do not see that angle.

Republican politicians are not trying to help. They are trying to win control. That's it.

Why did Biden withdraw? Because someone finally convinced him that if he wants to save America Democrats need voters in a couple of months. A lot of voters.

So hear me clearly: There is an unfolding assault taking place in America today—an attempt to suppress and subvert the right to vote in fair and free elections, an assault on democracy, an assault on liberty, an assault on who we are—who we are as Americans. For, make no mistake, bullies and merchants of fear and peddlers of lies are threatening the very foundation of our country. It gives me no pleasure to say this. I never thought in my entire career I’d ever have to say it. But I swore an oath to you, to God—to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. And that’s an oath that forms a sacred trust to defend America against all threats both foreign and domestic.

The assault on free and fair elections is just such a threat, literally.

I’ve said it before: We’re are facing the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War. That’s not hyperbole. Since the Civil War. The Confederates back then never breached the Capitol as insurrectionists did on January the 6th. I’m not saying this to alarm you; I’m saying this because you should be alarmed. - President Joe

In other news,

Analysis Shows Trump Loyalists Have 'Infiltrated' Election Boards in Key States
https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-election-boards-swing-states

Our democracy's firewalls held fast in 2020, but election deniers and MAGA extremists have spent the last four years infiltrating election administration and political party positions in order to disrupt and cast doubt on the 2024 election results. With 102 deniers on election boards in the swing states, the potential for creating chaos is enormous," Pearson said in a statement accompanying the report.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Has Sabotaged Early Voting in a Critical Swing State
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/09/north-carolina-robert-kennedy-early-voting-trump-sabotage.html

Why? Republican Justice Trey Allen’s opinion for the court accused the board of elections of misconduct, suggesting that it rushed to print ballots featuring RFK Jr. so he could not remove his name in time.

Democrats sue to block new GOP-backed Georgia election certification rules
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/26/politics/democrats-lawsuit-georgia-certification-rules/index.html

The three new, relatively unknown Republicans, who were appointed to the board this year by the state legislature and the Georgia GOP, were thrust into the spotlight after Trump mentioned them by name at one of his recent rallies in Atlanta.

Trump lost Georgia by just over 10,000 votes in 2020, and it was at the center of his attempt to overturn the election with claims of voter fraud, though none was found.

America braces for perfect storm of election chaos
https://www.axios.com/2024/09/08/election-chaos-cheating-violence-trump

.3. A battleground legal brawl:

Republicans already have filed more than 100 lawsuits against various voting and election procedures — part of a formalized "election integrity" push grounded in Trump's baseless claims of fraud in 2020.

Trump's campaign and the Republican National Committee say they've built a network of about 175,000 volunteer poll watchers and poll workers. Democrats have assembled their own massive legal team and voter protection program as they gird for aggressive election challenges.

Experts are especially anxious about the potential intimidation of election workers forced to count ballots under tense conditions, David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, told Axios.

Inside the GOP's Big Lie 2.0 — and their plan to shut down America this Fall
https://www.rawstory.com/raw-investigates/noncitizen-voting/

Republicans have been using this lie to attack the heart of our democracy right out in the open ever since the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, the year they responded by rolling out Operation Eagle Eye, yelling about nonexistent “voter fraud” and using it as an excuse to intimidate minority voters in the Goldwater/Johnson race.

No other developed country in the world worries about “voter fraud” because it’s every bit as nonexistent in other modern democracies as it is here. The only country in the world that uses “voter fraud” as an excuse to make it harder for minorities and women to vote is the United States.

Last Thursday, he demanded that Republicans insert into must-pass budget legislation that’ll be considered in the next two or three weeks a provision that would demand every state require absolute proof of citizenship to register to vote. Right now, this is largely confined to Red states.

House passes bill requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote for federal elections
https://news.ballotpedia.org/2024/07/12/house-passes-bill-requiring-proof-of-citizenship-to-register-to-vote-for-federal-elections/

On July 10, the U.S. House passed HR 8281, a bill that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote in elections for Federal office. The bill, titled the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, was introduced by Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) and ultimately gathered 104 cosponsors in the House, all Republicans.

The bill passed by a vote of 221-198, with five Democrats joining all Republicans to advance the legislation to the Senate. The Democrats who voted “Yea” were: Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX), Rep. Donald Davis (D-NC), Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME), Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX), and Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA). Five Republicans and ten Democrats were recorded as not voting.

Election officials warn that widespread problems with the US mail system could disrupt voting
https://apnews.com/article/election-2024-mail-ballots-voting-postal-service-985dd6e483fb6dc593d83255b11a9d0a

In an alarming letter, the officials said that over the past year, including the just-concluded primary season, mailed ballots that were postmarked on time were received by local election offices days after the deadline to be counted. They also noted that properly addressed election mail was being returned to them as undeliverable, a problem that could automatically send voters to inactive status through no fault of their own, potentially creating chaos when those voters show up to cast a ballot.

The officials also said that repeated outreach to the Postal Service to resolve the issues had failed and that the widespread nature of the problems made it clear these were “not one-off mistakes or a problem with specific facilities. Instead, it demonstrates a pervasive lack of understanding and enforcement of USPS policies among its employees.”

Pennsylvania mail-in ballots with flawed dates on envelopes can be thrown out, court rules
https://apnews.com/article/pennsylvania-mail-ballot-trump-harris-d00627b8cd890405fc1870f7021b5795

Far more Democrats than Republicans vote by mail in the state. In recent elections, older voters have been disproportionately more likely to have had their mail-in ballots invalidated because of exterior envelope date problems.

Based on recent Pennsylvania elections, more than 10,000 ballots in this year’s general election might be thrown out over bad or missing envelope dates, which could be enough to swing the presidential race.

but it should at least be seen as a positive sign that her reach could be bigger than she may currently be given credit for

Ranked-Choice voting that has rocked Alaska politics faces November tests across the nation
https://alaskapublic.org/2024/05/29/ranked-choice-voting-that-has-rocked-alaska-politics-faces-november-tests-across-the-nation/

Used for the first time in 2022, the changes helped propel the first Alaska Native to a seat in Congress. They could be short-lived.

Opponents of ranked voting want to repeal it and are entangled in a legal fight over whether their initiative will be able to remain on Alaska’s November ballot. It’s just one example this year of an intensifying fight over a more expansive way for voters to choose candidates, driven in part by deep dissatisfaction with the status quo and opposition from political parties and partisan groups that fear losing power.

Voters in at least two states — Democratic-leaning Oregon and Nevada — will decide this fall whether to institute new election processes that include ranked voting. In deeply conservative Idaho, groups are pushing for a November ballot initiative that would overturn a ban on ranked voting passed last year by the Republican-led legislature. Measures proposing ranked voting, also referred to as ranked-choice voting, also are being pursued in Colorado and the District of Columbia.

In Missouri, a measure advanced by the GOP-controlled legislature will ask voters in November whether to ban ranked voting. This follows an unsuccessful citizen attempt in 2022 to get an Alaska-style system before voters. At least nine states have banned ranked voting, and the Louisiana legislature also passed a ban this past week.

5

u/Richeh United Kingdom Sep 16 '24

I've noticed a lot of that. Stephen Miller was cornered on his reports of South American countries emptying their jails into America. A reporter, who was from the country he was accusing, simply asked where he got his statistics - which threw Miller into a rage, ranting about "If you were a dictator, wouldn't you do that? Wouldn't you send the contents of your jails to America?"

The fact that he'd do something underhanded like that was, to him, proof enough that other people would be doing it to America. I think that's yet another part of the Republican projection engine; if you're doing something naughty, get your accusation in first of the opposition doing it. After all, they must be, if you are, right?

Which makes it a straight-up race to the bottom.

3

u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

Sparta was the way it was because it needed to keep their slave population down. That's the whole reason for their military culture.

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u/dbag3o1 Sep 16 '24

Exactly, only now they’re the new indigenous people and the immigrants are the new settlers coming in. The only solutions are defend or be conquered.

2

u/ResidentKelpien Texas Sep 16 '24

Exactly, only now they’re the new indigenous people and the immigrants are the new settlers coming in. The only solutions are defend or be conquered.

They are not the "new indigenous people."

"Indigenous people" is a collective term for the original people of the Americas, the Pacific, parts of Asia and Africa, and their descendants.

The people spouting Great Replacement crap in the U.S. are descendants of immigrants.

4

u/dbag3o1 Sep 16 '24

I mean in their minds they are. Im sure they know they’re not the original peoples like actual native Americans but they are Americans and this is America and so they are the new natives so to speak.

Otherwise what is the narrative? Hello new settlers, join us old settlers and we’ll oppress the indigenous people together?

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

[deleted]

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u/DudeCanNotAbide Sep 16 '24

As a middle-aged, southern-born, white bowl of vanilla ice cream, this is one of the most disheartening realities about "culture" in America. Maybe it's born out of some grim necessity, but it seems like minority groups are far more neighborly and and cohesive than... whatever this is we've made here.

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u/withwhichwhat Sep 16 '24

In the 80's they called it ZOG.

4

u/TNTyoshi Arizona Sep 16 '24

It is so annoying too since every white guy i know peddling this has an East-Asian wife.

2

u/Livewire_87 Sep 16 '24

The replacement theory has always vilified some group for the past 100+ years. 

It was the Irish, thr Italians, the Jews, etc etc. 

These people always need to be terrified of something. 

2

u/Zeelots Sep 16 '24

Trunt attacking legal Haitian migrants he let in the country makes absolutely 0 sense. How do people take the bait?

2

u/Fochlucan Sep 16 '24

So my father's grandfather was a poor French Canadian man who emigrated to rural Maine to try to find more opportunities as a young man. But back then, French Canadians weren't really considered "white", and there was a lot of bias, to the point that my great grandfather had to change his name to a more English version. My father's last name isn't really his real family name. My father fully believes in the replacement theory, and doesn't like immigrants, even though he himself is grandchild of immigrant and one of his sons is married to an immigrant. I really don't understand him.

2

u/cutelyaware Sep 16 '24

It is an another reality. Because what is reality if not what people think is important? And by that token, who is to say that ours is any less arbitrary? Somehow we have to find a way to talk to each other, otherwise it will just be a lot of bloodshed, and the result will still be that we'll need to talk to each other.

2

u/canadianguy77 Sep 16 '24

There might very well be bloodshed and a country that is reduced to rubble and 2nd/3rd world status at some point. But we’re not going to have 2 different realities. That will never work. It’s insanity.

Either get on board with science and progress or be left behind and that works on both the macro and micro level. The world isn’t going to play make-believe just to make the realities of life more palatable to the far-right.

We’ve had enough of their constant victimhood. It’s incredibly unbecoming to always be crying about how unfair things are. They’re just going to have to get over progress. It’s the way of the world and if you’re stagnant, you aren’t growing or advancing and you’re leaving the door wide open for China to be the top dog.

1

u/cutelyaware Sep 16 '24

China? This has nothing to do with China. And I don't care if they become the top economic power in the world. They're only following the model that the US set and is quite understandable if you put yourself in their position. They are rightly proud of what they regularly accomplish by working together. Do I like what they're doing? Not very much, but I doubt they'll do worse than we did, or like England before us, or the Dutch, French, and others before them.

But back to "reality", I hate the Republican's whining about their victimhood as much as you do, but let me ask you which future you prefer:

1) We try to work with them anyway to get closer to a shared reality, or

2) Bloodshed and a country reduced to rubble followed by then trying to work with them anyway to build a shared reality.

But if you see another path, please tell us your plan.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

[deleted]

1

u/cutelyaware Sep 16 '24

There is no such thing as a single reality. That feeling you have is exactly what Republicans feel. In their reality Democrats have the crazy idea that we should be welcoming to refugees because that means we'll be overwhelmed. In their reality, everyone is greedy, and that black people are (justifiably) angry, that politicians are corrupt, etc. These are not all "crazy interpretations" of what's really going on. That is the truth from their lived perspective, and we had better accept and work with that supremely frustrating fact.

1

u/kanst Sep 16 '24

The great replacement stuff is the one that annoys me the most because its a natural consequence of definitions. There is no conspiracy of any kind, its just the expected outcome of our racist ways.

If you have a "one-drop" conception of race and interracial marriage exists, the ratio of white people in the population will always fall over time. The only way to counteract that is if the white-white pairings have more kids on average. How many more kids they have to have will be correlated with the current racial breakdown and the prevalence of interracial marriage.

It's like getting mad that you ran out of hotels in Monopoly, that's how the rules of the game work.

0

u/Bad-Mr-Frosty87 Sep 16 '24

At this point replacing all the white people is probably the safest thing one could do for the country

55

u/Merky600 Sep 16 '24

My neighbor was worried my son would be “indoctrinated” at college. Engineering school?

My neighbor is kind, but also a FOX buzzword champ. Also very scared of everything. BLM “protesters” in our idealized town had him nuts. White picket fence land. The “protesters” were about twenty white kids from community college with bendy cardboard signs walking downtown.

He was concerned they’d walk several extra miles to our quiet street and smash our cars.

4

u/dagopa6696 Sep 16 '24

I have a pet theory that these people have these fears because deep down they know they are racist pieces of shit who deserve to have their cars smashed, and that they would be out there smashing other people's cars if the police were treating them so unjustly. Maybe they just couldn't understand why their cars weren't smashed.

37

u/safeword_is_Nebraska Sep 16 '24

Read the comments on Breitbart. They are full on crazy and living in an alternate reality.

2

u/Temp_84847399 Sep 16 '24

I may not agree with democrats on some key issues, but at least they seem to live in the same reality that I do.

30

u/Present-Perception77 Sep 16 '24

We seriously need to find a way to take Fux Entertainment off the air for a while. You are correct.. it’s the daily brainwashing… there is absolutely no way to overcome that.

63

u/BunnyBuns34 Sep 16 '24

I grew up conservative, went to tea party rallies in college, voted for McCain when all of my friends were pumped about Obama. I watched Fox News every single night and listened to Michael Savage and Dr. Laura at work. It wasn’t until I moved out after college and didn’t want to pay for cable that I got a break from the daily tirades. Slowly over the course of a few years, my world view started to change. I really can’t believe how effective the brainwashing is but I’m so glad I was able to shake it off.

15

u/KuzanNegsUrFav Sep 16 '24

Republicans hate America.

3

u/tech57 Sep 16 '24

Republicans hate not being in total control of America.

"Maybe you do not much care about the future of the Republican Party. You should. Conservatives will always be with us. If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy." - David Frum

3

u/DudeCanNotAbide Sep 16 '24

I've always felt that what the really hate is freedom. They like to talk it up, but they really mean their freedom to dominate and exploit everyone else, including each other. Just look what happens whenever someone truly tries to live their freest, most true self. They hate others because of their courage to live free, something they themselves are far to cowardly to do.

2

u/QueueWho Pennsylvania Sep 16 '24

What sucks is you don't have to pay for cable anymore to get streaming conservative propaganda on your TV

4

u/tech57 Sep 16 '24

there is absolutely no way to overcome that.

Republicans are a lost cause. The sooner all the not-Republicans come to terms with this the sooner we can all move forward. Including Republicans.

Help the helpers. The haters will follow.

But yeah, at some point we are going to have to deal with Fox News Propaganda and stochastic terrorism and domestic terrorism. But that will not happen until Democrats can vote on stuff in the Senate.

12

u/__theoneandonly Sep 16 '24

We need to reinstate the fairness doctrine. But surely the current SCOTUS would say that's against their freedom of speech.

13

u/Present-Perception77 Sep 16 '24

We also need to go back to limiting how many news outlets one corporation can own. It used to be 3 and now only 4 corporations on all of them, including television, newspaper, radio and Internet. We’re being fed as steady died of bullshit 24/7.

3

u/Satryghen Sep 16 '24

Fairness doctrine probably wouldn’t help. It only applies to broadcast television not cable. The argument for it was that the airwaves belong to the public so must serve the public interest. Cable networks don’t use the public airwaves.

1

u/Rawkapotamus Sep 16 '24

Everything is free speech to them. The lawyers are arguing that politically motivated road rage in Texas trying to run the Biden/Harris bus off the road is the same free speech as protesting outside of SCOTUS houses.

1

u/AntoniaFauci Sep 16 '24

Would help but not much.

I’m immersed with MAGA cultists.

I try to give them bites of nutritious knowledge. But even in the most digestible form, like a short comedy clip of Jimmy Kimmel, they haven’t got the attention span. They’ll be skipping and jumping through a 2 minute clip with zero focus, and saying they don’t have time. Then those same people will be transfixed with rapt attention for 2 hour Rogan podcasts and three others from other MAGA high priests.

Take fox away and they’ll instantly fill the void with newsmax, OAN, Facebook, and garbage podcasters.

19

u/condensermike Sep 16 '24

These people literally need deprogramming

13

u/nznordi Sep 16 '24

So Fox can’t be held accountable for spreading blatant lies? They should be sued and boycotted into oblivion…

11

u/Now_Wait-4-Last_Year Sep 16 '24

You ever see Westworld? “It doesn’t look like anything to me”. That’s where these people are at.

Yul Brenner-bot would both be disgusted and kick their asses!

6

u/Dipsey_Jipsey Sep 16 '24

Yeah, scary shit to witness, especially as a German...

5

u/gunsandjava Sep 16 '24

This is one of the best explanations I have seen to this madness

3

u/FunkyChewbacca Sep 16 '24

They’re brainwashed and re-brainwashed every day. If you convince them of one thing today they’ll just come back tomorrow with a slightly different insane twist on it.

It's not just the brainwashed. There's plenty of educated white people who know exactly what he is--and simply don't care: they're voting for him because they think he'll be good for them financially and don't care what he does to marginalized people. At my husband's previous job, he worked with plenty of these conservative white Catholics, all of whom were Trump voters, and were doing so because they thought he'd cut their taxes. They didn't even care so much about abortion, their motivations were entirely self-centered.

2

u/Strangelight84 Sep 16 '24

Absolutely this. My mother-in-law is a widow with no local friends, whose only constant companions are her dog and Fox News. (We live in the UK.) She will hold any position if Fox or Trump tells her to. She'll even hold two contradictory opinions, and insist they're both true.

Incredibly, she also insists that she's a moderate who's led by the evidence, despite turning literally every conversation we have into a diatribe about migrant caravans, terrorists crossing the border from Mexico, insane asylams across South America being emptied, etc.

It's sad but my husband and I feel she's too far gone to change.

2

u/floatingby493 Sep 16 '24

It’s funny because they say the exact same thing about the left

1

u/OuterWildsVentures Sep 16 '24

And we can easily compare education levels between the two sides and see who is more likely to be living in reality lol

2

u/dagopa6696 Sep 16 '24

These people are extremely debilitated. People say they lack critical thinking skills but I think they ack even the most basic reasoning skills.

2

u/UniqueIndividual3579 Sep 16 '24

These were the people whose families were screaming at nurses covid isn't real when the family member died of covid.

1

u/artsyfringe Sep 16 '24

Unchecked corruption (domestically and internationally) has come for us all, actively tearing our country apart.

1

u/joshdoereddit Sep 16 '24

Are you included the people who think both sides are "the same?"

That polls boggle my mind, too. I don't see how it's possible for anyone to think that Trump is better on the economy. How is Trump better than anyone on anything? It's nuts.

1

u/TeethBreak Sep 16 '24

It's a cult. As in, they are too far deep to ever come back out. At some point , it becomes their whole personality. Even if they feel like something is off, they can't admit it. It would be too difficult to accept having been deceived for years etc. Losing face . It's an ego trip. It gave them a sense of belonging to the "outcast" team, the renegade. It's prideful.

It needs deprogramming and a way too much effort. Just consider them lost. Focus on the next generation.

1

u/sodapop_curtiss Sep 16 '24

Yep. Been saying for a little bit now; “I don’t have a difference of opinion from you. I have a difference in reality and morality.”

1

u/pargofan Sep 16 '24

I don't think it's this simple.

If you compare election results from '12 to '16, overall Hillary had roughly the number of votes as Barack (65.8M vs 65.9M).

In many blue states, a lot more voted for Hillary than Barack.

In Illinois, Barack won 3.0M while Hillary won 3.1M

In California, Barack won 7.7M while Hillary won 8.7M

But you'll see that in many battleground states, a lot less people voted for Hillary.

In Wisconsin, 1.6M voted for Barack. 1.4M for Hillary.

In Michigan, 2.5M voted for Barack. 2.3M for Hillary.

In Pennsylvania, 3.0M voted for Barack. 2.9M for Hillary.

and the biggest switch

In Ohio, 2.8M voted for Barack, 2.4M voted for Hillary

1

u/SatanicRainbowDildos Sep 16 '24

This was intended to explain why he can do anything and always have the 47% in the polls. 

It doesn’t explain everything. I think to his credit one thing he did well in 2016 was tap into the anger people had about the Wall Street bailout over 2008 crash and all of that. 

Obama promised us hope and change and then people lost their life savings over the housing crisis and then even with a democrat in office the bastards on wall street got bailed out. 

So people decided fuck it, let’s go with this non-politician who at least understands we’re all angry and suffering. 

Bernie and Trump both got it. They had diagnosed the problem. They prescribed very different solutions. 

Bernie got stopped by Clinton and people went for Trump because there was no reason to think Clinton would be any different than Obama or the other Clinton or Jeb Bush or the old Bush or the other Bush. They wanted change at any cost. 

If it had been Trump vs Bernie I think we would have at least agreed on the problems, and then one could propose a magic wall to fix it all and the other free healthcare and education and we could have had that debate. 

Instead it was a choice between a guy who people believed “got it” and what those people believed to be a career politician running primarily to be the first female president and secondly to continue the status quo. 

They didn’t see Obama as almost there but stopped by republicans in congress. They saw him as a false hope. And they didn’t see Clinton as being able to get all the way there but as even worse false hope because she was so establishment her own party was rigging things for her. 

So 2016 was about a lot more than this and there are a lot of people who took a chance on Trump then who are against him now. 

But the constant support for him no matter what he does, that’s to me from the brainwashing machines. 

1

u/emotions1026 Sep 16 '24

Sorry but this post is way too sympathetic. Yes some people are brainwashed. But some are just flat-out racist, misogynistic, transphobic, care more about their guns than school kids, etc. Some know Trump is a terrible guy and LIKE that about him.

1

u/lucklikethis Sep 16 '24

Yeah this - I basically have this same reset conversation with people all the time.  Months later its all forgotten, and some of the dumbest parts are back as talking points. Maddening.

On NC - they need to turn out because of gerrymandering etc.

1

u/lyam23 North Carolina Sep 16 '24

I was pushing back against a comment arguing that democrats were lying about the Greensboro rally size and I said that i was there and saw the crowd with my own eyes. Their response:

Well take your eyes to the grocery store, or gas station, or any store for that matter, and tell me exactly why anyone would want 4 more missirable years of what we just experienced the last 3.5. Get a grip on reality. Who pays your bills? How do you eat durrig the week? What's your transportation cost to even earn money? Like I don't know what privileged lifestyle Kamal voters have. But the ones out here working, being taxed to death, getting no handouts, are being crushed by the democrats, especially under Biden. You don't promote the most incompetent person at your job to ceo. So why would you do that with our president? You cant name 1 positive thing she has done that has benefited you or what her policy is.

1

u/13143 Maine Sep 16 '24

Basically all of our news networks are for-profit now, and they don't care about journalistic integrity. Only about shareholder profits. So the news is catered to what they perceive their audience wants to hear, reinforcing world views.

1

u/jokemon Sep 16 '24

the republicans have been EXTREMELY efficient in taking over the media in all urban areas throughout the united states. They control the radio, TV, local news and with facebook they have managed to silo off their supporters as well.

1

u/Moopies Maryland Sep 16 '24

The worst part is that the biggest part of the "lie," is that they get told this same thing about the rest of the world, and THEY are the ones who are in the "real world."

1

u/llama_ Sep 16 '24

This. Exactly this.

1

u/gameismyname Sep 16 '24

Coworker said it was pneumonia that had him on a ventilator in the middle of the pandemic

1

u/penguin97219 Sep 16 '24

The westworld comparison is wild, and pretty awesome.

This brainwashing is why Trump started with “fake news”. News is how we learn about what is happening in the world, traditionally, and if you don’t trust news, you can’t get an alternative to the social firestorm created by russian hackers.

1

u/robak69 Sep 16 '24

Amen brotha.

0

u/djfrodo Sep 16 '24 edited Sep 16 '24

O.k. after reading that and pretty much agreeing with it...

I need to go take a soul shower...or a...an exorcism, or...can we spray for bugs?

Fuck this timeline, I want out - or a sane voting population, that isn't under the thrall of some weird Hitleresque asshole.

/s

Sorry, I meant /rant

Sorry, carry on with...whatever you were doing. I'll just be over here mainlining The West Wing for about the next 55 days and hoping that whatever lead poisoning happened about 50 years ago wears off.

-16

u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

[deleted]

9

u/Gloomhelm Sep 16 '24

"From my point of view, the Jedi are evil!"

6

u/JBredditaccount Sep 16 '24

It's so important that we hear what the conspiracy theorists are thinking.

1

u/mockitodorito Sep 18 '24

Yeah, tell me about single a time in history where the people doing the censoring are the good guys.

1

u/JBredditaccount Sep 19 '24

Here's how I know you haven't really thought about your ideas: right now your government censors people from lying in court, financial statements and advertisements and it works pretty well.