this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2024
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Just something MAGA-people seem to have a hard time with sometimes. Probably not as much when Americans are speaking to themselves, but as a non-American, sometimes it's challenging to get "those people" to admit that there is indeed anything wrong with the US. As in they won't accept a single criticism, and will loudly proclaim "America is the greatest country in the world", while wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat, which for me pretty explicitly means America isn't great, if it has to be made to be such again.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah, but it's not the gotcha you think it is. The entire right-winger thing is whinging about everything being someone's fault. Particularly de gubmit. Even in cases when they are in a majority in said "gubmit" at the time, and have been for nigh on a decade.

Point is, you are implicitly giving these cretins too much credit in the rhetoric they use. It's not meant to make sense. It's meant to rile up rednecks/whatever-other-relevant-stereotype.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Oh no, I'm not giving them credit, I know they aren't up for actual logic. I'm just trying to strike up conversation on Lemmy with random brainfarts.

It's just funny when you start talking to some of these people, and they're used to arguing domestic opposition, blaming other Americans. So when someone non-American starts talking to them, their nationalism flares up and suddenly all the things that were shit due to the dems is not shit but glorious great, flawless America. I know it's overused as an expression, but dem fucking mental gymnastics are baffling.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Industrial strength cognitive dissonance, the only thing involving cognition they're good at at all.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (2 children)

It also means that it once was great but it also completely abdicates any responsibility for defining when that great period was in our timeline?

Was it great in the 50s when institutional racism was the law and a black girl going to college was justification for rolling out the national guard?

Was it great in the 70s when we were fighting in Vietnam for literally no reason?

Like what time period are they talking about?

Maybe they mean in the late 40s when we were rolling off the high of winning world war II? And the great majority of men had died to the point where wage inflation made even moderately capable men comparatively wealthy to today's standard?

Is make America great again really just a code to try to start and win world war III so that 20% of all males in America would die and therefore the surviving 80% would have more luxuries given to them by default?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Is make America great again really just a code to try to start and win world war III so that 20% of all males in America would die and therefore the surviving 80% would have more luxuries given to them by default?

Well, me being 40, without any military experience, I have no reason to think I'd ever be in the 20%. So by this logic, I would recieve more luxeries in my life.

That being said, fuck that.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

You have to understand that they are not intellectually honest. They have no issues knowingly dwelling in a false narrative. The false narrative serves to normalize their movement and recruit people as they publicly repeat it unchallenged amongst each other.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Oh I do.

https://howtobeastoic.wordpress.com/2016/01/19/one-crucial-word/

I understand they're willfully ignorant, but I can't honestly understand what makes them feel the need to do it. I understand reasons for it, but the deep meaning behind being like that... eludes me. And I've been thinking on this for at least a few decades.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

There's the context of Trump riding the wave of right wing rage with his claims Obama was born in Kenya. Shortly after he paid a bunch of hourly extras to form a crowd as he descended a golden escalator to launch his 2016 campaign claiming Mexico was sending rapists, and a cadre of WWE fans, white supremacists, credulous evangelicals, and reprogrammable meatbags who tuned into Fox News decided politics was interesting again.

For most of these people if you start asking which years America was great versus not great they might admit some of the Bush years were sub-par (because of those OTHER people who hate freedom), and preach about the good ol' days when we drank water from a hose. Where everybody treated each other right, unless you were a person of color in a sundown town. They will retcon any facts you present and claim you are cancelling them and it's no fair remembering the past, as they have been conditioned to believe faith is a virtue. The Bible's "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" fucked up my brain for too many years of my life. I wish it was easier to fix this, but a useful quote I remember when I break off most discussions with my dad is,

If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn’t value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic? -Sam Harris

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

I can't believe it hasn't been mentioned.

Stephen Colbert has a book titled America Again: Re-becoming the Greatness We Never Weren't

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

There was never anything "great" about the US - unless you believe that the world's largest experiment in white supremacism is (somehow) "great."

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

I can promise you with 100% certainty that we aren't all white supremacists

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

The meme works as a double dog whistle. Simpletons find camaraderie in nostalgia while actual traitors recognize and organize around the damage they intend to cause.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Correct. It won’t be great again until women are forced into the kitchen and slavery returns.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 7 months ago

You really should remember the "/s" with comments like these, imho.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Always assume they are like terror billy dad. They want the nazis to round up everyone.

https://youtu.be/3tJRVRx66GI?si=qLfvdiP6r1BrjJ6t

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Kinda cray it didn't happen the first 4 years of Trump's presidency, huh?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Well the nazis are all out now. That's step q for that lot.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Yes, actually. Hell, lemmy will tell you that rent is sky high, wages are too low, theres not enough workers rights, just everything is fucked.

The MAGA solution is just different than the left wing solution.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (4 children)

The MAGA solution is just different than the left wing solution.

Lol! What "left wing" solution?

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