U.S. Politics

My partner's sister was helping build out a chronic care program at a critical access hospital DEEP in MAGA country (the closest Costco is in Couer D'Alene). They rely on public funding and were building out the program based on materials developed by USAID, the only thing making it possible. The program is now dead in the water with USAID being destroyed and these upcoming public funding cuts. Gone. Whole bunch of chronically ill MAGA folks are going to suffer. I don't wish suffering on anyone. What I do regret is they are too fucking stupid to realize the cause of their agony is their own fucking votes. But hey, fuck dem immigrants or whatever.

I always think of an interview I saw during the ACA development process of a middle-aged couple somewhere in a red state. Husband had severe diabetes. Wife says "I'd rather my Bob DIE than help pay for someone else's insurance." I mean, you want to commit suicide, go on with your bad self, but do you have to shove the poisoned Kool Aid down everyone else's throats?
 
On Canada, my dad joked happy 51st State Day to me. And that irritated me enough that I just didn't even want to deal with my family even in a group chat.

Years ago he would not have said that. We grew up in Europe. He was the one who made me read Animal Farm, Brave New World, 1984. Even as a Marine corps fighter pilot, he was the one that told me to always question Authority and when I joined the Army he told me my true mission and loyalty was to citizens and civilians and anyone who wants to uphold American ideals.

And I think it's just years of retirement with nothing but Fox News and Glenn Beck. He was not like this before - That post about how Trump doesn't even know what's going on. That's my dad. My mom isn't like that. But she just rolls her eyes and says it will pass. The guy that got me into SNL and laughed at everything, somewhere along the line, anything against the Republicans became sacrosancts and offensive and anti-American and woke.

It's not passing. Even as we went into Iraq I started questioning things, and I pointed out the similarities to the cautionary fiction I was raised with. But even then it was just a household where red good, blue bad.

If Hillary was doing even a fraction of this, Obama, Biden, whoever, there would be uproar from him and other people I know. But somehow Trump has brainwashed people into thinking he's above even the Republicans and he's just playing them to accomplish great things.

I don't know. It's not just this thread. It's not just my family. I have friends who are deeply entrenched in this as activists or just affected by it, and it feels so bleak.

Some of you may remember I used to be a nurse in the states. I saw this coming back then. It's why I got out. My heart bleeds too much, especially in the face of all the red tape and bureaucracy that took lives. Things that should have been affordable or just basic human decency, broken down to a dollar sign and a greater good that was actually great for nobody.

Even now in Canada I'm tired of Canadians making fun of my dual citizenship and just making light of no because Trump. Just today at lunch a friend was making fun of the bill and going so you definitely wouldn't want to move back there huh, and I pointed out all the reasons on top of the healthcare issues that this bill sucks in America sucks and then they sobered up and they were like. Oh wait, you're serious. You would never want to move back there? Not even to California?

No. But I'm also tired of everyone making light of it. And not taking it seriously. And even the disrespect of calling Canada Day 51st state day, it's really small but there's a reason that a lot of other countries do look down on America. It's that arrogance. That blindness.

I don't know.

Thanks for listening. It's really just about self-care and taking care of the people important to you at this point. But some of those people will go kicking and screaming down with the ship and that's always a tough rope to cut.
 
Chooch555 said:
I got a call from my therapist letting me know he no longer accepts my insurance. Not related and not like I can't find another, but wh
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Holy shit that sucks.

Full disclosure: that’s one of the many reasons I have not ever accepted insurance and, barring MIRACULOUS reform of our healthcare system, I never will. I’ve worked with most of my clients for many years and I can’t imagine what it would be like to be forced to drop them. Of course, there are certainly disadvantages to not taking insurance, but I’ll take not being beholden to our broken systems over any of those struggles.
 
altcunningham said:
On Canada, my dad joked happy 51st State Day to me. And that irritated me enough that I just didn't even want to deal with my family even in a group chat.

Years ago he would not have said that. We grew up in Europe. He was the one who made me read Animal Farm, Brave New World, 1984. Even as a Marine corps fighter pilot, he was the one that told me to always question Authority and when I joined the Army he told me my true mission and loyalty was to citizens and civilians and anyone who wants to uphold American ideals.

And I think it's just years of retirement with nothing but Fox News and Glenn Beck. He was not like this before - That post about how Trump doesn't even know what's going on. That's my dad. My mom isn't like that. But she just rolls her eyes and says it will pass. The guy that got me into SNL and laughed at everything, somewhere along the line, anything against the Republicans became sacrosancts and offensive and anti-American and woke.
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I've been there. The distinction I make is that I don't think my parents and I would've been friends in high school. We had an amicable relationship despite our obvious differences.

As I've mentioned in this thread, my dad is now an avowed Nazi and my relationship with my mom is stilted. It's not an uncommon story. A few years ago, a writer collected stories of people whose loved ones were taken by Fox News. Reading it is cathartic, though it doesn't numb the pain.

At least with my mom, I've seen a notable decline in critical thinking skills. It's almost like a form of dementia. One of the hardest things is figuring out whether she was always like this. She raised me and helped instill my values. Was she always xenophobic or prone to conspiracy theories and scams? Am I too biased to see it clearly, or has she changed?
 
I realized today that I did an almost too good a job cleaning house during the first administration. I don't really let anyone else in anymore after that. My last straw for family was gloating about kids in cages. That was when I was done with anyone. So concentration camps in Florida, I already burned every bridge for anyone who might gloat about that right now.

The real unfairness of it all is: I've never missed anyone I cut off who was a bigot or a fascist or a fucking political idiot. I haven't regretted a single lost moment. But the people I cut off? MAN they try to get back into your good graces hard. Demanding attention, demanding respect, demanding love. It's almost like they know that they need empathetic people in their lives, either to taunt or to make them feel cared about, and when those empathetic people give up on them, true panic starts to set in.

Just heard from a friend who has parents in rural main. "I think Congress just killed my mom." Yep. Hell is empty and all the devils are here.
 
Ru1977 said:
If you did though, there's a chance you're also anxious for Trump to trigger the end times.
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This.

I don't have a lot to say the last few days about politics, to be honest. It's just been too much. Too miserable. Too emotionally crippling. And the solutions to a lot of our problems aren't complicated to understand, even if they'd be difficult to solve. But even understanding what they are has become so far beyond us because the people benefiting don't care, and the people hurt are still trying to live in this 'live and let live' bullshit. No one was to be INSULTING. No one wants to hurt feelings.

But there is a reality here that we can't escape and not enough people are willing to say out loud: Christians are killing us. I'm sick of their fucking death cult tearing the entire planet apart and condemning millions of people to untold levels of suffering. And I'm just as sick of pretending it's some other nebulous problem. It's not. It's religion. For all their bullshit, pathetic pearl-clutching, goddamn if I don't wish there really WERE this big 'war on Christianity' that they keep dramatic Hollywood-fainting over. If only we had the singular voice to tell them that ancient hate-filled superstition isn't welcome here anymore.
 
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I saw this somewhere earlier today, but I think Jesus is wrong (actually understating 🤔), ICE has a bigger budget than everybody except the US and China's military.
 
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mrboshek said:
I saw this somewhere earlier today, but I think Jesus is wrong (actually understating 🤔), ICE has a bigger budget than everybody except the US and China's military.
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Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I believe the new budget puts ICE at around 45 billion dollars. That would put them, in the list of military budgets by country, somewhere around number 10-12. Still absolutely fucking appalling.

ICE essentially has the budget to beat Spain in a war. Totally normal.

Also, wouldn't it be a world to live in if Christians just did things that Christ said to do.
 
Damien said:
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I believe the new budget puts ICE at around 45 billion dollars. That would put them, in the list of military budgets by country, somewhere around number 10-12. Still absolutely fucking appalling.

ICE essentially has the budget to beat Spain in a war. Totally normal.

Also, wouldn't it be a world to live in if Christians just did things that Christ said to do.
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Yeah. I actually did kind of a world tour of religions in college because I'd fully rejected religion as a kid but the school I went to required a couple of credits in religious studies so I was like fuck it, let's learn about how EVERYBODY is fucked up. And at the end of the day, almost all religions are saying "don't be a dick," and yet in almost every case, humans weaponize the organization of a religion to be absolute dickheads to other people. It's such a strange aspect of humanity, this desire to believe in something and then completely reject the things that tell you not to be a piece of filth. I think we're all very aware that modern Christians would stick Jesus in a hole in Venezuela and let him die of dysentery if he got in front of a podium and quoted himself. Of course the same people probably assassinate Ben Franklin too for quoting the declaration of independence.

I think a lot of people are monsters and just need an excuse to peel off the veneer of civility. Lately I feel like more people are monsters than not.
 
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