• sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
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    18 days ago

    The last political interaction I had with the WW2 generation was my grandma. Born in the 30s.

    Trump caught Covid.

    I told her that probably the best thing that could happen for the entire country and its future would be if he died from it.

    He’d be dead, his movement would at least be stymied for a while from his loss, possibly lead to more moderate, less QAnon Repubs ending up as most influential in their party…

    … it would expose him and other MAGA people (all freaking out over how Covid wasn’t real of whatever, masks are bad) as moronic hypocrites, killing themselves over insane nonsense beliefs…

    …and it would have the benefit of removing Trump without direct intervention of an assassin or something, making a reactionary martyrdom movement around him less likely.

    She’s a liberal. Watches Bill Maher.

    She pearl clutches. How could you be so crass as to wish for the death of a political opponent?!

    I explain that he is a fascist, fueling a violent fascist movement that will persist for decades at best, which will result in the end of democracy, and horrific violence and poverty very soon, at worst.

    She throws up her hands. Ridiculous! How can you say that, they’re fringe, this will all fizzle out once he’s gone, Biden will fix all this!

    I say Biden, if he wins, won’t have both the Senate and the House, he’ll only be a marginal stabilizing force, but he’s too moderate to do anything like a New Deal which is what we need.

    Also, you are very, very much underestimating the amount of people spewing increasingly violent right wing rhetoric online… you don’t know about it because its on the internet, the news you watch and read downplays it, isolates it, or just misses it entirely. Here, I can show…

    She isn’t interested .

    Some months later, Jan 6th happens.

    How could this happen?

    • NABDad@lemmy.world
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      18 days ago

      I hope you realize how lucky you are to have a grandma who is merely deluded into thinking the MAGAts aren’t a threat.

      • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
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        18 days ago

        Oh, well, my dad is a through and through MAGA Q Anon person, who builds ghost guns with his own machining equipment in his garage. Ghost gun meaning no serial number in the receiver. As in, they’re all inherently illegal.

        Any time I’d best him in a debate, oh suddenly he isn’t interested in politics anymore.

        Except he’s been listening and watching the same total wackos the whole time, and lying about it, because he comes out of nowhere with some insane claim I’ve never heard of, then I spend a day tracking down that, yep, here’s the source of that claim, nutjob #839, just saying shit with no evidence and presenting it as if its a fact, or wildly, wildly mischaracterizing a story by leaving out key details and intentionally misunderstanding important procedures and mechanisms the story relies on.

        Last time I talked to him he was convinced Tom Hanks’ son killed, raped and ate babies for their adrenochrome, making up stories about being assaulted by racial minorities at WalMart, attempting to convince my other friends and family that I am schizophrenic and need to be locked into an asylum.

        I hope his mechanical heart valve fails.