How Trump is affecting American society

Beebo Brink

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Whether or not Trump is re-elected this coming fall, the cultural influence of his presidency will continue, possibly for decades. One of the most disturbing trends is the rise of QAnon and its followers who worship Trump. I thought this comment was especially insightful:
Howerton believes it’s no accident that QAnon has taken hold among evangelicals now: they are facing tremendous cognitive dissonance. “I was raised evangelical Christian Republican. There is nothing that makes sense for Trump with any of the values that I was raised with,” she says. “There’s a part of me that thinks that this is a very elaborate false narrative to explain their continued loyalty to Trump.”

Trump has tapped into vast emotional reservoirs of disaffection among evangelical Christians. In a very strange alchemy indeed, he has become the voice of their grievances and QAnon provides them with the moral justification to worship him.
 

Pamela

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It’s like white people have a brain virus that causes mental illness. Some who you would never expect — but then who would you ever expect of believing in trump, much less Q? Who other than maybe a schizophrenic living on the street and wearing tinfoil? Yet I have a niece who believes. Sweet person, Trump supporter — Married to a doctor, no college degree, and not very well self educated. I think education is the best / only protection against this kind of insanity.
 

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QAnon is also pushing the "Save the Children" movement that's flooding Facebook, Twitter, etc. Even usually normal & sane people are getting sucked into this one. Because after all, who's against saving children?


 

Beebo Brink

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QAnon is also pushing the "Save the Children" movement that's flooding Facebook, Twitter, etc. Even usually normal & sane people are getting sucked into this one. Because after all, who's against saving children?
It's curious how the concept of "innocent children" has become a trigger for widespread irrationality in the culture wars. From abortion to sexual censorship to QAnon, people become inflamed at the thought of children in danger. At first glance that concern seems understandable -- like you said, who's against saving children -- except it's totally not about children. We accept atrocious mistreatment of children across the world, in our own country, outside of these hot button issues. We underfund protective services, shrug off teen runaways, deny sexual abuse in the family, lock up immigrant children in cages, wave away our high rates of infant mortality, deny them food at school, health benefits. The list of just how little we care for children just goes on and on.

This is also a relatively new hyper-concern; people have pretty much always been at least mildly fond of their own offspring, but this rabid, logic-obscuring passion for The Children is quite modern. Sexual abuse and child labor were deplored, but more along the lines of a rebuke and raised eyebrow than a movement of rebellion.

This concern for children feels manufactured; it's being used as a face-saving rationale for other less savory motivations. So many people are desperately grabbing onto this excuse that you begin to get a sense of just how deep the darkness runs. That's a mighty big reservoir of bad behavior they're trying to justify.
 

Rose Karuna

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I recently ran across this and then thought about QAnon and all their craziness. Stuff like the article below feeds into it with reality.


What I did find really, really freaky though is the last paragraph in the article:

U.S. Marshals Director Donald Washington said the FBI has reports of more than 421,000 missing children and of those, around 90% are considered endangered runaways. One in 6 of the endangered runaways is likely to become the victim of sex trafficking, authorities said.

According to Washington, roughly 300 young girls in the Atlanta area are lured into trafficking every month. One of his most important messages was directed to victims of trafficking — “We will never stop looking for you.”
I wonder if that's a real statistic? If so, that's unimaginable and OMG. Atlanta is only one city and if it's really happening in Atlanta at that rate, how bad is it in other cities?
 
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Fionalein

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I recently ran across this and then thought about QAnon and all their craziness. Stuff like the article below feeds into it with reality.


What I did find really, really freaky though is the last paragraph in the article:

I wonder if that's a real statistic? If so, that's unimaginable and OMG. Atlanta is only one city and if it's really happening in Atlanta at that rate, how bad is it in other cities?
It might only be trafficking if a 3rd person is involved... those prostituting their bodies on their own accord might not be counted... we would have to enquire more details on the statistic to know for sure though.
 
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Trump is a symptom. During the Clinton administration, Republicans started using perpetual investigations and petty politics to hamper the administration. Once Obama took office, the Tea Party movement kicked it into high gear and began to use astroturf groups to mainstream paranoia and personal attacks. It is at that point that the few Republicans I was friends with really started to exit the party as the crazies took over. The knee-jerk resistance to Obama and the trolling that replaced policy as the basis for the Republican party primed them for Trump's takeover. They spent decades building a party of discord and grievance, and Trump is just the embodiment of that political system. They more or less summoned a demon and are now in thrall to him.
 

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Foal. Meme required for that response.

Lo and behold I returned. Now behold the message I recieved from the Cactus Gods:

They like me and demand further communion with my blessed self. They ask you to deliver them on a weekly basis in their form of incarnation as a pallet of Mezcal to my current adress...
 
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Looks like at least some of the gun nutcases are about to proclaim that the 2nd amendment also includes people who merely sewed MILITIA on their camo sweater.

“The first shot has been fired brother,” said Stewart Rhodes, founder of the armed anti-government group Oath Keepers, in a tweet Sunday. “Civil war is here, right now. We’ll give Trump one last chance to declare this a Marxist insurrection & suppress it as his duty demands. If he fails to do HIS duty, we will do OURS.”
 

Beebo Brink

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These are manufactured battlegrounds. Unlike fighting over land -- in which one side actually wins something tangible after the carnage -- killing people at a protest is symbolic more than functional.

Worst case scenario in this new civil war, we will find new ways to protest that don't involved congregating at town hall and providing convenient targets.
 

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Since Evangelical preachers have, for at least the last 40-odd years, encouraged their congregations to make it an article of faith, necessary to salvation, at least to say you believe in complete nonsense about evolution and geology, and to believe that US Christians are a persecuted minority, beset by an atheistic, liberal libertine conspiracy to submit them to both socialism and sharia law, while turning their children gay, and subjecting them to the risk of sexual assault by predatory transexuals every time they use the bathroom, it's hardly surprising they're ready to swallow QAnon hook, line and sinker.
 

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Saaave the children!!

Save them from pedophile priests, coaches, sports doctors and those that defend/enable them ...
Save them from late Jeffery Epstein's powerful friends...
Save them from Betsy DeVos & rightwingers who're trying to both give them the 'Rona AND defund their public schools...
Save them from excessive wildfires, hurricaines, tornadoes, contaminated residential water...
Save them from being abandoned to abusive foster care because unfit/unready parents were denied safe/affordable alternatives...

Save them from the dangerously delusional hateful rhetoric that now passes for the political party whose only political agenda is to troll for lulz and profit.
 

Katheryne Helendale

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I think education is the best / only protection against this kind of insanity.
:qft:

And this is probably the number one reason why conservatives - evangelicals especially - try so hard to discredit higher education and those who pursue it, and why they fight so hard against concepts like free college.