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Two lifelong Republicans leave the GOP in support of trans grandchild
(www.lgbtqnation.com)
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this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2024
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Conservatives are only capable of empathy if their ideology directly affects someone they care about. Good on them for finally getting there, but they're a day late and a dollar short
Only sometimes capable of empathy if someone they care about is affected.
So rare that it gets a news article when it happens!
Not everyone changes even when those close to them are impacted, sadly. I share your frustration and your point stands that it shouldn't take someone close to you being impacted to show empathy but this is a good outcome.
We need more stories like this and we should always be encouraging of people who turn away from bigotry even if they should never have been going that way to begin with.
A lot of conservatives stick to their ideology in circumstances like this. It's nice to see when they don't, even if they should have left earlier.
Should be encouraging these acts instead of pointing at how slow they are.
No, fuck 'em. Positive reinforcement when conservatives finally accept LGBTQ+ family members hasn't worked and conservatives have only leaned into their bigotry and hatred.
on the contrary, it has been shown that social normalization changes behavior better than shame or fear. It may not be happening as fast as you’d like but going the other route will just be counterproductive.
The other route of not praising them?
yes?
Stop acting like you live in a perfect world where the vast majority of voters are Left.
In 2024 we need every vote we can get, and if that means treating latecomers nice, it's better than getting four more years of the GOP.
Slow motion is much better than no motion.
"Keep doing the counterproductive thing" is a terrible argument.
Acknowledging their change is fine. Celebrating it and plastering it on the news gives reasonable people false hope that most conservatives can be reasoned with when it is apparent conservstives have a tiny chance to change when it happens to them directly.
Or, wild idea' when it happens to people they know.
And how does being mean to potential allies get more votes?
Acknowledging without celebrating is being mean?
Now you're just playing with definitions.
No, people just keep replying to what they think I mean instead of the words I am typing.
Putting someone's decision to be slightly less shitty as a reason things are looking up is celebrating them. No, they don't fucking deserve a headline for being slightly less shitty because of a personal connection to the issue. That is such a selfish reason to change.
Or, some MAGoo who has turned their back on their own LBGTA+ kid sees the headline and reconsiders their choices.
Most people don't have a sudden revelation that changes them overnight. It's usually a long, slow erosion of their old ideas.
If you want to win elections you do whatever it takes to build up the coalition. If that means latecomers get a big welcome then it's a tiny price to pay.
Fuck old bigots, they can't die off fast enough.
Young people being open minded is what we should celebrate.
It's like you refuse to understand how elections work.
Also, a lot of those 'old bigots' are in their 40s and 50s; they're going to be around for the next few decades. You may be happy waiting until 2044 for a big win, but most people aren't
We aren't going to win consistently by appeasing terrible people who can't change for the better without being celebrated. They will backslide the moment they run into anything that reinforces their bigotry if they don't keep getting praised for being a decent person in public.
I am in my 40s and have seen this multiple times, people temporarily stopping their bigotry for a while because of pressure from friends but then reverting the moment some bigoted group makes them feel good about their bigotry again.
The only ones that overcome their negative influences long term are the ones who actually felt bad about how they acted in the past.
So, by your own words, we should keep them engaged.
Yes, engaged by acknowledging they have changed but not celebrated by making news stories about it.
So what you're saying is "perfection over progress".
So tell me, last time a vote didn't go perfectly your way, you took up arms and corrected the mistake of your government by force, yes?
How did that go?
Did you mean to respond to a different post?
Tell me if I wrong but if you show that won't there also be a positive effect for people who need that last bit of push to finally see it?
You are thinking of reasonable people.
Only changing when it personally affects them is confirmation that positive reinforcement doeson't work on bigots. Shame barely kept them from being publicly shitty for a couple of decades, but that was more than positive reinforcement.
hardcore bigots would've shunned the grandkid instead
Yes, hardcore bigots would have. These are everyday normal bigots who probably shifted on one personal issue and otherwise still hold onto the rest of their shitty views.
molly coddling republicans' sensitive feefees for the last 20+ years is what led to a world where a trump presidency is possible. TWICE
no, those "i'm all of a sudden open minded and tolerant" people can eat shit. fuck them
What you call 'mollycoddling' I call 'winning elections.'
We do live in a world where the majority are left. It's just that left voters don't all tend to vote because a lot aren't fearing for their lives like right wing media makes right leaning people believe. It's that and a combination of legal voter fraud that the right has done to stay in power even though, at least in the US, there's significantly more left people.
The last 30 years of reaching across the isle hasn't worked. Fuck them.
Do you think mlk and the black panthers achieved what they did purely by being nice and polite? Or did the black panthers have to march around with their legal guns out to help affect change.
Do you think ghandi truly liberated India by just fasting and allowing himself to get beat up? Ghandi and his group may not have done violence but his contemporaries definitily did in the name of liberation and it's in part thanks to them instilling that fear that ghandi was able to succeed.
Look up 'Thurgood Marshall.'
Guy made a bit of difference and never raised his voice.
If the majority of US voters were Left we wouldn't even be talking about this.
Listen, I get your point but...
They're not some different animal that has foreign feelings to you. They are humans and they are as you are. They are deceived, they are mistaken, they are perhaps brainwashed. But they're people.
When we start using the word "conservatives" the way you just did, to identify the "other", it permits all kinds of inhumane behavior because "they're not like us." Even when they do something objectively good, they're only doing it out of selfish interests, and not because of enlightenment. It's an ugly perspective.
Try substituting the word blacks, or Jews, or transgenders when you say conservatives next time and see if it sounds as good as you think it does. And if it doesn't, maybe back off the rhetoric a little.
This is a bad argument, and you know it was. Referring to a group who identify with political beliefs, at their own discretion, as that group, is not the same as "othering" based on ethnic or sexual traits that are predetermined. No where close.
I do not agree. I feel like it's plain and simple. Thinking can be changed, but ethnicity can't. Yet even though the possibility exists to reform them, we blame them for being "different" somehow rather than trying to understand and change their position.
I have defended my statement enough. If some of you want to argue that hating conservatives is justified, and even if they try to reform they're still doing it for selfish reasons, then I have nothing to say to you.
you can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into. they are getting their beliefs from their religious authority; how are any of us supposed to compete with that?
what else do you call it when your mind only changes on a topic when it directly involves people close to you?
The difference between black people, Jewish people, or transgender people and conservatives is that you choose to be ~~an asshole~~ conservative. You don't choose to be black, (ethnically) Jewish, or transgender.
And comparing the systematic abuse those groups have suffered under to the complete lack of abuse conservatives haven't suffered is honestly disgusting. The conservatives helped cause that abuse. Don't compared the abused to their abusers.
If you think that I am here defending conservative point of view, you have entirely missed the point.
I am arguing against a point of view that judges individuals by the groups they belong to rather than their personal actions, to the point where EVEN IF THEY REPENT AND CHANGE THEIR POSITION, they are still subhuman and are only doing it for some selfish motive and cannot ever gain humanity again.
I think many Democrats would rather that conservatives would DIE than that individuals would change their heart. And I think that's really sad.
If they want to change their positions, great! Fantastic! Love it!
Just don't expect me to immediately believe you. Or to immediately embrace you because you suddenly care now that it affects you and your family.
And that still doesn't make comparing people with a chosen political position with groups that have experienced actual physical harm and systemic abuse not absolutely disgusting amounts of BS.
Where have I heard that certain people are "untermensch" before?
Are you attempting to liken the condemnation of conservatives with the historical atrocities inflicted upon the black, Jewish, or transgender communities? All three of which groups are persecuted by conservatives?
Identifying people as the other does lead to all kinds of problems. However, discussing the behavior patterns of adherents of a vile and malicious belief system is just observation. This is a belief system that destroys us all and should not be tolerated. People who support the modern Republican party in the US or the Nazi ideology anywhere don't get to keep their people card until after they give up their toxic ideas.
We quarantine people with an illness to prevent them from harming the whole. We should be doing the same thing conservatives and Nazis. If they get better, wonderful! If they die out, not a significant loss to humanity.
But who will choose which ideas are good and which are bad? Every person makes that choice in how they live their lives. If one Nazi sits down at a table of nine people who do not immediately leave, then you have ten Nazis. The same can be said of American conservatives and the Israeli Defense Force and their supporters.
We should not seek to understand abhorrent ideologies outside the context of history while studying their origins as a means to prevent them from rising again, and we certainly shouldn't look upon their advocates in modern times as anything other than infected and dangerous people who need to be isolated and removed.
Look, I'm arguing for a reasonable perspective that treats people as individuals rather than labeling them as a group. You're answering me with hyperbole.
I think you would have gotten along well with senator Joe McCarthy.
Not hyperbole. The mindset is the same.
The "quarantine them" bit is a bit extreme there, bud. That's some straight up fascist shit, I don't care what kind side you're on.
Feel free to criticize and throw milkshakes and other things that might get my banned here for saying, but that's actually fucked. Just because conservatives are willing to do it doesn't mean leftists should be willing. In the end they're still living breathing humans, even if I wished many of them weren't, and that's the main thing that separates leftists from conservatives, a belief in inherent humanity.
And we absolutely should seek understanding. Not sympathizing, mind you, but definitely an understanding. GI Joe was right when they said "Knowing is half the battle."
Holy yikes!!! You're advocating taking about half of all voters in the US and no longer considering them as human? Not everyone who gets caught up in these ideologies understands that they are toxic. Ignorance, stupidity, brainwashing, etc. are very real. It is likely the vast majority of Republicans who don't understand that they're doing something that hurts people (often including themselves).
Theoretically, could there be some form of 'quarantining' that I would support? Maybe. But dehumanizing them is most certainly wrong. A lot of these people are just confused, and they do have good qualities as well as bad, and are very much people. Please take a closer look at what you're saying.