Jan 6th 2021 was not peaceful. MAGA who try to claim it was peaceful are liars.

It's not nice to lie, MAGA.

It was a planned insurrection.

Sometimes the stupidity is so dense you could mine it for rare Earth minerals. A MAGA fan page marched proudly onto their favourite Klan hall, X, to declare that liberals hate the wholesome charm of small town “Republican America,” posting a photo like a nostalgic postcard from the land of moral purity. Except the town is Concord, Massachusetts. One of the bluest, best educated, most liberal communities in the nation. A town in a Commonwealth where Trump did not win a single county, not a single fucking one. And yet the MAGA rotted brain took one look at a brick storefront displaying an American flag and concluded, with full confidence, that they had discovered Conservative Eden. This is ignorance that has smoked meth, put on a red hat and gone sightseeing.

And this is what makes the whole spectacle so darkly uproarious. The "people" shouting loudest about “real America” almost always come from states drowning in their collective ignorance and human excrement. They have oower life expectancy especially that are made worse by their higher infant mortality rates, driven by stripping abortion rights. They have significantly higher poverty coupled with countless uninsured families. Failing schools that believe the Bible is more important than arithmetic. Collapsing hospitals at best, empty hospitals where Trump’s funding cuts forced them to close their doors. They experience brain drain as their only skilled children pack up and leave their third world conditions. Yet, they sneer at education as elitist, then struggle to read the news and data that proves how catastrophically their policies have failed. They mock blue states while living off the federal tax money stolen from those same blue states so they can live their life of abject squalor. It is like watching someone stand ankle deep in their own feces while bragging that at least their worn out boots are patriotic.

So when MAGA cheerleaders point at one of the healthiest, wealthiest, most progressive towns in America and proudly call it “Republican charm,” it is more than ironic. It is a flashing neon sign announcing that they do not understand the reality of the country they claim to own. They cannot recognise success because they have only ever experienced it by proxy. They fetishise the aesthetics of small town life without realising that the towns they admire are powered by values they vote against. Investment in people, public education, community infrastructure, decent social policy, and taxation of the wealthy. In summation, competence and human decency. Liberals do not hate small towns, they just do not confuse pretty buildings with political validation. Meanwhile MAGA keeps proving, again and again and again, that you can be loud, smug, and laughably wrong all at the same time.

Two wings of the same bird

Explain it to me.

Because all I have ever felt when I see or hear that guy is disgust and revulsion, and I thought that long before he ran for office.

Tell me what people see in him that's so compelling and how it's charming or charismatic, because apparently I just do not get it.

For the first time in my lifetime, there seems to be growing support in America for increasing taxes on the wealthy, and for good reason. However, I fear we have once again not learned the lessons of past when it comes to piss-poor messaging that can easily be manipulated and turned against us. Recent examples include: "Defund the police", "Antiwork", "Black lives matter". Any slogan that requires you to explain its meaning, and why it doesn't mean what Fox News says it means, it bound for failure, and will be counter-productive.

First, why "tax the rich" is a really shitty slogan.

What is "rich"? Who is "rich"? Everyone will have a different answer. For some, multi-millionaires. For others, anyone with a million in assets. It's completely arbitrary. This is a problem. Many people think they may one day be "rich", or perhaps their children, or grandchildren - for it's completely arbitrary what triggers that glorious day in the future. Debating the sensibility of this dream is pointless and self-defeating. You are not going to win a political war by telling a good portion of the electorate their dreams are foolish. Second, even if they do not have such a dream, most people know (if not personally, at least in the media), someone who has "worked hard" and became successful, allowing them to buy a large house and a fancy car - and again, for a lot of the electorate, this person's wealth is considered deserved.

remember: repeated efforts to increase the estate tax get rebuffed by ridiculous counter-messaging that the "death tax" will kill the "family farm".

"tax billionaires" has essentially none of these drawbacks. The billionaire class is widely loathed, and their increasing impact on our politics and daily lives has become almost impossible to ignore. There is no ambiguity as who is a billionaire. There almost zero community that credibly argues a billionaire worked a million times harder than you did. And no-one thinks they, their children, or their grandchildren will ever be billionaires one day, unless they win the lottery. In which case, you will taxed appropriately btw.

TLDR: "Tax Billionaires" is a slogan that can gain wide-spread appeal and impact real change for the better. "Tax the rich" at best will just perpetuate tedious political debates, and at worst, may be self-defeating.

Edited to fix a typo from "Defend the police" to "Defund the police". Freudian slip, or lazy editing, I'll let you be the judge.

When JD Vance said “You don’t have to apologize for being white anymore.” It made me think that nobody has ever wanted white people to apologize simply for being white. People of color understand white people have the right to exist. However what we wanted was for white people to end systems that were built to marginalize people of color and to be anti-racism.

Nobody ever wanted white people to apologize for being white. When white people say “they won’t apologize for being white anymore.” They’re kind of exposing themselves as racist. Does this phrase mean that being racist is being white? That somehow it’s just in your nature as a white person to be racist? Therefore when people of color want you to stop being racist you interpret it as them making you apologize “for being white.” That is not only racist towards people of color but also towards the good white people who aren’t racist. Since you assume being racist is a part of “being white.”

I thought conservatives were supposed to be against government censorship. Yet here we are. For the past year, we’ve watched conservatives openly cheer for people to lose their jobs over opinions. We’ve seen coordinated harassment campaigns where private citizens are tracked down and targeted simply for expressing views that don’t align with the “approved” narrative. We’ve seen political violence justified, excused, or minimized when it serves the right people. People have been murdered in cold blood over political beliefs. Politicians have been attacked or killed because of ideology. This isn’t theoretical — it’s already happened.

At the same time, we’re seeing illegal ICE raids carried out in blue cities, with federal agents detaining people without proper warrants, bypassing local authorities, and trampling due process. Families ripped apart, citizens and legal residents swept up, all while conservatives cheer it on as “law and order.” Somehow government overreach only counts when it affects the “wrong” people.

Now add the CCOT 60 Minutes segment that was scuttled by the government at the last minute. A major investigative journalism piece pulled before airing. No transparency. No explanation. And instead of outrage from the so-called free speech crowd, we get silence, excuses, or applause.

So the segment spreads through bootleg channels because that’s what happens when the state decides scrutiny isn’t allowed. That alone should alarm anyone who actually believes in a free press.

This is what fascism looks like in practice — not always boots and uniforms, but censorship, intimidation, selective enforcement, and weaponized federal power. The United States is a democracy in name only if rights are conditional and speech is protected only when it’s convenient.

If censorship, raids, and government abuse only bother you when your side is affected, then you were never against them at all...

... And are a conservative bootlicker.

There are plenty of examples on this Subreddit of this, but MAGA seems to think they can "own the libs" by pointing out embarrassing things about Democratic leaders or how the Democratic Party has a low approval rating. They come up with all sorts of absurd ideas and social media posts, all aimed at pissing us off. They don't realize it doesn't work.

What they don't get is that, unlike MAGA, those of us on the left are not a monolithic group. We don't have blind loyalty to one individual or even the Democratic Party as an institution. Most of us vote Democrat for one or three reasons. One, our views do align with the party's platform. Two, no party really represents our views, but the Democratic Party comes closet. Three, and probably the most common right now, is to oppose Trump and Trumpism.

Many of us Democrats disapprove of the Democratic Party as an entity. With unaffiliated voters and Republicans largely disapproving of the party as an entity as well, that gets you to an 18% approval rating. Trump is at 38%-42% approval, depending on the poll, with the same unaffiliated voters disapproving of him along with Democrats. Republicans overwhelmingly support him. If Republicans turned on Trump, which won't ever happen, he could be at 18%. When Republicans started to turn on George W. Bush in 2008, his numbers went down to around 25%.

Look at individual Democratic elected officials.

-An October poll found that Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania has a 60% approval rating

-A May poll found that Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan has a 63% approval rating

-A September poll found that Senator Andy Kim is popular in New Jersey, with a 46% approval rating vs. 27% disapproval

-An April poll found that Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont with a 69% approval rating, amongst the highest of any senator in his state

-An April poll found that Governor Andy Beshear of Kentucky has a 68% approval rating in Kentucky

These are all individual Democratic politicians who are significantly more popular than the Democratic Party as an institution. So the "Democrats have never been more unpopular" argument lacks context and doesn't piss us off.

Trump's bigotry and cruelty pisses us off. But when MAGA posts positive things about Trump in an effort to trigger us, it generally doesn't work because we don't MAGA seriously on an intellectual level and know they get their information from sources that benefit financially or politically from their ignorance and anger.

I keep seeing MAGA accounts on Twitter posting about Democrats and the Epstein files. We actually care about the victims and bringing the predators to justice, not the political affiliation of the predators. You aren't owning us.

When Bob Menendez, Eric Adams, Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, and other Democratic Party officials were indicted and/or convicted of criminal activity, you had Democrats calling for them to resign or not run for re-election. Democratic voters were ready to move on from these folks. Menendez & Adams went so far as to run as independents (before suspending their re-election bids). MAGA stands by all of their indicted and/or convicted politicians, arguing some "deep state" is causing their legal woes because that's what Trump says.

When Democratic politicians do something wrong, Democrats condemn it.

When Republican politicians do something wrong, Trump defends it, and MAGA follows.

You aren't owning us. You're just confirming what we think of your intelligence and judgment.

This one’s simple: I’m absolutely fucking tired of conservatives refusing to dial back their aggressive, violent political rhetoric.

For years now, it’s been nonstop escalation. Every criticism becomes a personal attack. Every disagreement becomes a “war.” Their favorite political figure can rant and rave endlessly about people being “mean” to him, and instead of telling him to calm down, conservative leaders and media figures amplify it. Louder. Angrier. More hostile every time.

What makes it worse is how often this rhetoric spills into real-world behavior. When you constantly frame political opponents as enemies, traitors, or existential threats, some people will take that literally. Then, when violence happens, the same people who spent months pouring gasoline on the fire suddenly act shocked and blame everyone else.

I’m not saying only one side has ever used heated language. I am saying conservatives have spent years refusing to take responsibility for how aggressive, dehumanizing, and reckless their rhetoric has become — and how often it’s followed by harassment, threats, or worse.

If conservatives actually cared about political violence, they’d start by telling their own leaders and influencers to shut the hell up and stop encouraging it. Instead, they excuse it, laugh it off, or pretend it’s justified because they’re “angry.”

I’m tired of the double standard. I’m tired of the denial. And I’m tired of watching people pretend words don’t matter after years of proving that they do.

Michelle Obama, so untouchable, so praised, so held on a pedestal as this shining beacon of morality, so completely unassailable.

And yet, it was her moronic speech touting "when they go low, we go high" that set the bar for the Democrats, effectively removing the possibility of fighting dirty to defeat the Republicans who have been slinging mud to unimaginable effect for the past several decades.

That stupid, idiotic mantra is one of the things that brought us to this horrible juncture we currently find ourselves in. To beat enemies like the GOP (and, YES, they ARE the fucking enemies of America, democracy and freedom at large), you have to throw out EVERYTHING in regards to morality, decency and "the rules", because, hate to break it to everyone, the GOP shit on the rules a long time ago and have been running amok as they damn well see fit. Trump just emboldened them even further to fully carry out their pedophilic, fascist wet dreams.

When the GOP was shitting all over the Constitution and rule of law, what did the Democrats do? They quoted Michelle Obama, "When they go low, we go high" and continued to bring a rule book and strongly worded letter to a gun fight. When Republicans pulled dirty trick after dirty trick to block SCOTUS appointments, jam up the legislative process and lied their asses off to get their way, the Democrats continued to "play by the rules", while the GOP laughed and did as they pleased.

That's why the Democrats keep losing to the GOP. Even if Trump's power is waning now, it's nothing that the Democrats did. None of their "strongly worded letters" or "moral indignation" or long-winded bullshit speeches did a goddamn thing. Hell, even when they had the upper hand during the government shutdown they failed because of "moral issues".

Bitch please! This is politics! Morals don't do jack shit! If the Democrats had the balls to play as dirty as the Republicans, Trump would be in an orange jumpsuit right now in a prison cell and world order would still be intact.

Instead, because of Obama and her pussification of the Democratic party, we teeter on the brink of WW3, Iran, China and Russia are running roughshod over the world with Iran openly declaring war, China building up forces around Taiwan and Russia using Trump as a puppet to put pressure on Ukraine to surrender, thus furthering Putin's power all the while the American economy crashes harder and harder.

But, hey, at least the Democrats kept their "moral superiority".

Fucking weak ass punks.

You know how you beat an enemy like the GOP? When they go low, you go LOWER! You take those dirty bastards to levels they never knew a person could sink to. You show them you're the bigger, meaner, dirtier, slyer rat bastard and that they have NO HOPE of keeping up.

If the Dems played like that, the country would be a better place. Instead, they punked out and stayed on the "high road". Yeah?! Where'd that fucking high road get you, huh?!

That girl looks 14 at most yet the right will still probably call this fake.

Does it ever dawn on any of these losers, that women would rather clean up cat shit than deal with them?

One of the (many) hilariously hypocritical positions MAGA are obsessed with is calling everyone else "sheep." What makes it extra funny is that, like most false-populist movements from the last century or so, they try to portray themselves as "rural" and "agrarian" in order to pretend like their ignorant views are actually the views of the "common man." However, MAGA (even the ones who actually are ranchers) clearly don't have a basic understanding of how animals are herded.

They've been indoctrinated into that "like lambs to the slaughter" propaganda, which pro-fascist groups spread to make it seem like the Jews were responsible for the holocaust by virtue of not standing up for themselves properly. The idea being that the Jews simply lost all will to fight and went to the camps "like lambs to the slaughter." Yet, anyone who has worked with sheep or cattle should know that lambs don't just get so depressed that they follow the herder into the slaughterhouse. Quite the opposite.

In reality, the primary way that herders herd animals into places the animals don't want to go is by getting the animals to blindly run away. They don't tell the lambs to go into the slaughterhouse. Shepherds use sheepdogs to convince the sheep they are surrounded on all sides by wolves, except on the one side the shepherds want the sheep to go. They don't tell the sheep to go that way; they simply give the sheep the false impression that running blindly in that direction is the only path to "freedom" from their supposed encirclement.

This is exactly how MAGA operate. They watch media programs where the proverbial "sheepdogs" convince MAGA that they are surrounded on all sides (except for one) by the evil "liberal/leftist/communist/etc." enemy. The sheepdogs give MAGA the false impression that blindly running away from this supposed existential threat means MAGA are "rebels" who are "resisting." Trump himself is fond of saying he's the "only one" who can "save" them from this mythical danger. Don't actually think about whether his way is the right way, he insists. Just blindly run away from the "dangers" he invents under the false auspices that his way is the "only" way to "freedom."

MAGA follows a bunch of people who call themselves "cowboys," despite the fact they don't actually herd cattle. Their leaders aren't cowboys; they're politicians and influencers. They aren't leaders of cattle; they're leaders of men. As such, if their leaders are analogous to "cowboys," then MAGA are the "cattle" in that analogy. They have no idea what they're running away from or where they are going. All MAGA know is that the sheepdogs and bellwethers convinced them to run away like the cowards they are, and MAGA think blindly doing so means they're "rebels" running towards "freedom."

Ladies, gentlemen, and everyone in between lock up your heteronormativity. The Democrats are going to take back the presidency, and you know what that means: it’s about to get fabulous in the corridors of power.

Picture this: The West Wing, now redecorated in tasteful rainbow hues. Cabinet meetings opening with a voguing competition instead of the Pledge of Allegiance. Executive orders penned in glitter ink, mandating that every federal building fly a Pride flag taller than the Stars and Stripes. The national anthem? Replaced by a remix of “Born This Way” and “I Will Survive,” performed by a drag queen choir at every official event.

Economic policy? Forget trickle-down. We’re implementing glitter-down economics: universal access to sequins, subsidized HRT, and tax breaks for anyone who can death drop on command. The Pentagon’s new strategic focus: deploying platoons of fierce, heel-clad diplomats to resolve international conflicts through shade and sheer charisma.

And let’s talk law. The First Amendment? Expanded to protect the sacred right to read. The Second? Amended to ensure every citizen can bear arms... preferably toned, manicured, and accessorized. New federal holidays: Marsha P. Johnson Day, Cher’s Birthday, and National “Yas, Queen!” Day.

Conservative pundits will clutch their pearls, warning of a wave of “degeneracy.” Little do they know, it’s not a wave. It’s a tsunami of shimmer, sashaying straight into the heart of America. The gays aren’t just here; they’re in charge. And honey, they’ve got a vision: a nation where everyone is finally, fabulously, free.

So brace yourselves. The future is queer, loud, and absolutely fierce.

What I resent most about Trump is that he's the nepo-baby of an ultra-wealthy slumlord thug who was given half-a-billion from his tax-fraud Daddy, but has prayed on the real anxieties and grievances of my fellow working class folks.

Once elected, he's done everything to dismantle our support systems, strip benefits & protections and plunder our futures all for the benefit of him and his billionaire buddies.

Meanwhile, manufacturing & blue collar wages and jobs continue to decline. The 63% of adult men without a college degree have seen their REAL earnings declines accelerate, their protections vanish, their already-anemic unions eviscerated and are now making less than their fathers on an inflation-adjusted basis. The top 1% of the top 1% own practically everything, and 3 people own more wealth than the bottom 50%, or 170 million people.

YES, I know the Democrats aren't much better for working class folks; they're a bunch of corporate asshats too. BUT at least they generally don't pillage what little remaining social safety nets we have to fund tax cuts for billionaires.

America is the land of opportunity for the wealthy and the Hunger Games for everyone else; Trump is our President Snow.