I joined the group Braver Angels because I want to go back to hating Republican policies instead of hating Republicans. Braver Angels is a group that is working to help those of us standing on the brink of divides trying to reach across the divide and find some kind of common cause.
I suspect that anytime we can find an atom of agreement anywhere, we should go with it. A pearl starts with an irritating grain of sand.
These people have shown us very clearly that they don't stop at "hating policies." Their hate is deep and personal. You want to accept these Nazis back into the fold as though everything they have done to immigrants and women and minorities was just a matter of "policy difference" and not a character flaw? You're okay with the camps and shooting people in the streets and starving millions of people to death in African nations as maybe "they were mistaken policy points?"
NOPE. None of these people should be trusted, ever again, until they go through a rehab for hate. You know, like those gay conversion camps they love. Then make them take the American citizenship test on the fly. If they pass it, they can run for dogcatcher.
I have similar feelings and this saddens me. Where do we draw the line? Obviously, any government officials, elected or appointed, who broke the law should be prosecuted. What about Joe down the block who voted for him 3x and has been a complete trumpian ass for the past decade but broke no laws? Personally, I see a lot of social consequences for Joe, but that is it. Hope we have smart people thinking about how in the world we are going to bring people back together again once he is gone. I don’t have a good answer to that question.
Agreed. We need to follow Germany's example with massive Constitutional re-education for all the Joes down the block, required civics education from elementary school onwards, and seriously, consider requiring the citizenship test for ALL voters when they register. I have no problem socially shunning the NNDs [Nazis Next Door]. i cannot find any justification for befriending anyone who thinks violating everyone's civil rights is okay just because they're a little different from yourself.
Yup. The elimination of civics education in K-12 for the last 40 years have ensured that the American electorate doesn't understand the purpose of or proper functioning of our government. That and the lack of critical thinking skills have given GOP propaganda complete control of too many American minds.
Will never bring them back as long as TV and Fox entertainment with the scripted coordinated news exist. They believe Fox more than anything. Total brainwashing takes decades to undo.
Exactly Lee, until this country realizes its being misinformed, lied to and brainwashed on a daily basis by the oligarchs bought and paid for propaganda network (our legacy MSM), this slide toward authoritarianism will continue.
You have to ask yourself what is going to cost them to actually change and care about a human about the damage that they have done. They have to be brought to their knees like when a person loses a spouse and they find them. That brings you to your knees and makes you think about everything. Well, they need to think about everything to try and understand the err of their ways, and if they don’t, they are not gonna be part of the healing of the United States.
I lost my wife to multiple sclerosis, maybe more accurately after three years her desire to be pain-free and not lose all her abilities. So she left one day and I found her when I got home from work. So this was in 2012 December. I’m not angry. If it seemed like I was angry, I’m sorry.
Yes. Hatred, lies and violence are poison to a community, and when they become part of governance, the entire country is sickened and may die. Just as people who carry a deadly physical contagion must be treated while in isolation, so must we treat a deadly moral contagion that’s become embedded in a political body.
The careful disappearing of the first 2 waves of American fascism, and of other true but ugly parts of history, creates an endlessly credulous population that believes it can't happen here.
We must do as Germany did after WWII, creating memorials, museums and mandatory education for school kids. Many people talk about removing every trace of trump’s existence but that’s a disservice. First, we must, as a nation, know what has been done, and second, trump is just the most visible element of a much deeper and pervasive ideology.
The country can’t be healed until we remove what’s making us sick. That means we have to recognize and name the poison, and take the cure.
Who do you think takes care of sick patients? Do they just get stuck in an isolation room and left there? No. During Ebola, during Covid, now during antivirus, there are going to be doctors and nurses and nursing assistance and physical therapist and respiratory therapist and everybody else is going to be taking care of them. They’re not gonna get better by sticking them in an isolation room by themselves.
What we do says more about us than it does about them
Trained professionals, and even some trained volunteers, are going to be needed. Untrained people are much more likely to find they’ve understood and compromised their way into support of fascism.
I agree, Jude. I am going to be honest, I'm quite disgusted the MTN is giving her a platform after all she has done to bring down our country values, contributing factor to division, spewed out lies and hate and her being the #1 enabler to Trump and the MAGA movement. I will never forget or forgive her after the way she treated Biden during his SOTU address, the heckling, wearing a MAGA hat etc. and the racist comments towards Jasmine Crockett and other minorities within Congress. She can't be trusted. There's a reason for her sudden change of heart. She has an ulterior motive.
I'm a paid subscriber here and I subscribe to their YouTube channel as well and to see them live streaming her appearances and highlighting her on multiple videos made me want to puke. I mean, the MTN can say she is "useful" without giving her exposure and forcing us to watch her. If I wanted to watch her, I'd go to a far-right podcast.
I'm with you, Joanne. I listen to MTN podcasts while working out, and I admit I've had to turn off more than one recently because of just that reason. If I wanted to listen to Marge or Tucker or FOX, I'd do it myself. I don't. If they want to summarize something one of these jerks has said...fine...but listening to excerpts, one right after the other, is NOT something I want to hear on a regular basis. To me, it seems like a lazy way to do things!
Thanks, Deb. I'm happy to see I'm not the only one who feels this way. I forgot, I also listen to the MTN on Spotify. I don't do Apple because of Tim Cook's betrayal. Exactly! If I wanted to see her interviews, I'd go to Fox, Newsmax etc. She's vile. She's hateful. She's a racist among countless other things. She hasn't changed. She won't change. A leopard never changes its spots.
I feel that way about every republican voter in this country. Our country has been broken beyond repair by them. I don't think we can "heal" the country as so many keep spouting. The patient has to want to get better. So something entirely different has to rise from the ashes of the fires that burned our morals and way of life to the ground.
I know what you mean. A year ago I was saying it'll take decades to fix what he has broken. Now, it is beyond repair. He took us back centuries and our piece of shit Congress allowed it, including MTG.
Scholars who doubt that Braver Angels can actually reduce polarization include psychologist Peter Coleman. Coleman argues that animosity between groups is stronger than a single workshop can change: "Just meeting with other people, particularly once for a short period of time, is insufficient to changing people's attitudes, habits, the media they watch, the internet that they serve."[22]
Alex Zamalin, author of Against Civility, The Hidden Racism in Our Obsession with Civility, argues that Braver Angels deals only with civic politeness and thus does not address the power dynamics needed for political change.[22] This is from Wikipedia
People's attitudes get changed for a day, but then their social media reconditions them back into the old attitudes. I have a friend who has tried to do the same through church groups, and it doesn't work.
And there is the real culprit: social media, which profits off of fear, hate, and anger amplified with bots, fake AI masquerading as news, and a few attention seeking idiots trying to make money and fame by stirring up controversy and collecting followers.
Get off Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and X!!! Stop supporting the businesses and tech Nazis who are working to destroy our democracy and divide us.
The previous two waves of American fascism used the media of the era, radio and then television, so although I believe that fashy billionaires owning and actively managing their social media platforms are deliberately making things worse, it’s just a help, not a requirement, for generating a hate movement.
True, but now it's amplified a thousand fold, micro targeted, and accelerated dramatically in speed of transmission—all happening on smart phones, which most Americans carry everywhere and are addicted to.
I see... so we should all sit down with people who voted to deport their neighbors, shoot protestors, and throw children into concentration camps to eat maggoty food--not to mention supporting a grifting felon pedophile--and just hug it out? Why not have dinner with Jeffrey Dahmer? I hear he served a great ham.
"The only person's behavior you can change in your own...others may change in response." So why bother with laws at all, or education, rehabilitation, or teaching consequences when gosh, all this time, all we had to do was sit and talk?
There is actually a point when you have to draw a line on how much you are willing to forgive-- or perhaps not. It appears you're okay with what they've "accomplished" and don't feel the need to hold them to account because we just need to sing kumbaya with them all summer: they will magically see the light and stop blindly following/embracing hateful ignorance.
Well, I do have a line and no, it's not "acting like them" to demand they come to realize what they have supported has destroyed our nation. Again, look at how post war Germany has dealt with this---EDUCATION, consequences, and teaching them the REALITY of what the Nazis did to their country.
But hey, you know, you do you. I'm sure they are all angels underneath their white robes, and none of the millions of dead people in Africa and Iran are worth getting angry about.
You already have, Joni--complicit and condoning their actions with your refusal to acknowledge what they have done:
"Three-quarters of a million people are dead. The methodology is peer-reviewed. The mortality counter ran in real time, on the open internet.
And yet the subject has slid from the front pages, from cable, from the Sunday shows, from the well of the Senate. Nobody cares.
Half a million children die from diseases we used to treat. No hearings of consequence. No special counsel. No prosecutions.
Brooke Nichols—professor of global health at Boston University and the founder of ImpactCounter told GBH News that about once a week she looks at her own numbers and cries: “None of this had to happen.” She is astonished Americans are not angrier.
Jude, my country and my husband died within one month of each other. Mt Krakatoa had nothing on how I feel right now. The anger and the desire for violence feel almost overwhelming sometimes. (I have guns that I thought about getting rid of when my husband could no longer go out to the shooting range. However, I thought I’d better keep them just in case.) But becoming a liberal Nazi is not going to help. It’s not gonna help me. It’s not gonna help people on the other side of the aisle, it’s not gonna help our country.
And when I have sat down and talked to people on the other side, I have actually discovered that many of them are not that far away from my beliefs.
We know that Putin has bot farms. At least some of those horrible posts are coming from people paid to tear us apart. And you know what, they are also paying people to post horrible things that look like they’re coming from our side.
They're self serving, addicted to hate. Can't hate on Dem policy so hate what's next in line causing problems, who snubbed them . . that's trump. It's an S&M relationship with them. Maladjusted. He makes it easy, that's where they've gone. Flipped on him, will flip again. Have to stop believing everyone can be mentally habilitated to an acceptable stage to live among those are socially acceptable.
When unlabeled, people of any and no political affiliation prefer Democratic policies. They hate Democrats. It took me an unusual length of time to realize that demon- crat wasn’t just another ha ha insult: there were people who actually believed Dems are demons, which is why they drink children’s blood and other insanity.
It’s also why, even where you might expect to find a better educated group, they are so many calls for Dems to return to the center. That the Party’s platform is based on letting kids have gender affirming surgery and men compete with women in some sports seems to be a common belief. It was the message most of Musk’s advertising pushed and seems to have been effective.
People who don’t read even the bullet points of the policy document were easily persuaded that it consisted of a list of the special provisions for a series of very specific demographics. Hispanic women, Jewish men, communist students — they were all going to get theirs, but the average Joe? Nothing.
Incredibly frustrating, the constant educating, especially when it didn’t succeed and the most undesirable candidate possible was re-elected over KH.
Thoughts from an average woman over 70… there used to be something called compromise. There was a day when Democrats and Republicans would look at the issue and think about their constituents and then make their votes. They didn't do it to please some dictator in the White House like today, where We the people were considered. Now it's what do I want who can I please and what will I get for it- that's the way Congress Acts. I personally believe that if there is an issue that needs supporting it shouldn't matter whether you're Democrat or Republican you should do what's right for the people of the United States. Compromise doesn't always get it right, but it's certainly better than bashing the other side over the head regardless of what side you're sitting on. I'm appalled at what this country has become and quite frankly I'm glad I'm on my way out and not in my early twenties trying to navigate the shit that this administration has done to the country. It's going to take years to fix. And people will continue to have these cult-like views without trying to think for themselves. I'm just totally disgusted.
This is half true. You’ve fallen into the both sides fallacy. The talking point that Democrats are the same as Republicans suddenly became inescapable in the year before the 2024 election and it continues. The only benefit from this false analysis goes of course to the Republicans, as potential Democratic voters are persuaded their votes don’t make a difference so there’s no point in turning out.
Since Obama became President, Republicans have refused to negotiate or compromise, no matter how loudly they declare that something is a crisis.
Obama brought immigration reform legislation to Congress; Republicans killed it without any effort to discuss it. Biden entered the White House with comprehensive, practical and humane immigration reform legislation; House Democrats passed it — then it was dragged into McConnell’s office and silently filibustered to death.
The same thing happened to every proposed law that benefited either democracy (voting rights restored, dark money out of campaigns, end to gerrymandering; free ID for voting issued to all citizens, …) or the lower 85% (tax the rich, raise the minimum wage, invest in a green economy and renewable energy, bring the manufacturing of items essential to national security back to the country, …)
Most people don’t know about Biden’s own immigration legislation, which was a big deal, let alone the defeats of small but powerful bits of Democratic law, like trying to make baby formula more accessible to poor women during the shortage. Then they complain that Democrats never get anything done.
If the legislation that Democrats voted for and Republicans filibustered out of existence had passed, you’d be living in the country that almost every American, no matter their party affiliation iff any, wants when asked about their preferences, issue by issue.
I couldn’t agree with you more. The Republican Party’s inner racist was triggered when Obama was elected and their number one priority was: not to serve their constituents; not to work to help build a stronger country; not to do the job they are being paid and receiving quite a few perks for to do. Nope. Their number one priority then and now has been to undermine, sabotage and oppress any public policy that is remotely associated with “the libs”. It was an affront to them and their racist Southern (although I know racism is not limited to the southern states) representatives and governors and benefactors that a black man was “allowed” to rise to the rank of President of the United States. It is truly astounding how corrupt our political system is. And to make matters worse, there are those in the Democratic Party who are benefiting from the same corruption on the one hand while pretending to oppose Republicans on many issues. That is the height of hypocrisy. We need to clean house - both of corporate money and of democratic establishment candidates who are taking said money. Enough is enough. While we have been brought to the precipice of the destruction of our democracy, we must rewrite and reinforce the institutions of this country we hold so dear. For the future of the United States.
I agree! Using obscenities in speech is THE sign of a lazy mind. It is also indicative of a desire for violence and an attempt to escalate the disagreement. It has NO PLACE in a congressional member's speech and certainly no place in a US President's speech.
I'm only 64, but I have definitely had enough of this uncivilized chaos.
I agree Pam . It wasnt this hard for 240 years. Then this one JO shows up and blows it all up. Nothing in normal. Nothing makes sense! And everyone seems to be just sayin Oh well. Trump is trump. We are getting further and further away from fixing the destruction of our country. And running out of time to stop it.
Well, this has been building up for a long while...I witnessed this problem while teaching college-level courses back in the 1970s. It never went away, but neither was it embraced by enough people to sway an election and rip fundamental principles away. We must all agree on at least what is in the Constitution and the law. Imagine people sitting around a table trying to play a game--card game, board game, video game, etc--if they can't agree on the rules of the game. It's impossible. Rules can be changed, if change is needed. But we can't even get our Congress to do their jobs and attend sessions. Our situation is more like warfare, with no compromise possible by either side.
This! I, like others, don't want to help someone further a hateful career, but we can only come together through points of agreement. We need to use them. And, yes. Braver Angels is the place to go to learn to do that.
Human relationships are not one-size-fits-all. Nuance is required. Paying attention to the specific person is required. Just to take MTG as an example, she is very "my way or the highway." She was very supportive of Kevin McCarthy b/c he gave her a place at the table. When McCarthy was booted, MTG started attacking her fellow Rs. She was booted from the Freedom Caucus. She had a cat fight on the House floor w/ Lauren Boebert. She seems to be trying to be ahead of the shifts in political power. She was all in Trump until he did not support her bid to be a senator. Now she is some third way person.
That's fine. But what does that reach across the aisles look like? It used to play out as back-room cooperation on budgets and policies. It does not seem to happen now.
Yesterday at Braver Angels I was talking to a guy who was on “the other side”. Yet we talked and listened and ended up realizing we were not as far apart as we thought.
WHY should the people who didn't cause the breach in American politics bear the responsibility for fixing it? Why doesn't repairing the breach start with the people who caused it? Why aren't they required to accept personal responsibility for their actions? Until that happens, we have NO reason to trust them again.
I don't know what you mean. I meant that Black people have been (by default) burdened with explaining their take on Blackness in America, as if they bore responsibility. Why should they be burdened with that? I don't see how Black folks have done any harm, as a group.
Others have commented on the limits of interpersonal dialogue. I would add to the references they provided that all human behavior is mediated by institutions. If we do no demand reform on the institutions then they will remain vulnerable to populism. Trump and Mamdani are both populists; and as such are always bad for democracy. OF COURSE it is best to suppress our own worst instincts (and I've said some inflammatory things on Facebook, which is not helpful.) But this is, alas, not a matter of changing hearts and minds one at a time.
Then he went home and called his cohorts to snicker about the libtard he bullshitted. Sorry Joni. Can't get with that. You are definitely a better person than they turned me into.
I think we are seeing MTG and her comments for TV ratings! And I definitely think she has an ulterior motive. She is the same leopard with the same spots. But she can have her opinion. Not sure what she is up to.
This that is happening now, is a cult. A Cult of greed, corruption and ANTI-AMERICAN propaganda. This that is happening now is not "reach across the aisle" moment. This that is happening now is evil, voter suppression , cruelty and shooting Americans in the street shit. I am SMH everyday at this cult. I will NEVER agree that taking millions of American's Health care away is OK. Or using food as a weapon is OK. or taking everyone's right to vote and free speech is OK. NEVER. The shit happening now is not reach across the aisle - this is FAKE white supremacy. scump and Steve miller want to actually kill Americans or put us in cages! This is not OK. This is too radical for any reach across the aisle and I will never be OK with this cruelty, greed, corruption and I will never forget the repubs and their complicity and silence on destroying out democracy!
There is a lot of “back room, covert” operations going on. This has always been a fact but in the past we haven’t worried about the “deadly elixir” being cooked every single day by a group of “little anatomical” mad scientists.
Who loves the hate ? They do. Who Is causing all the chaos. Trump is. Sorry , im not an angel anymore. They caused me too much pain and loss. At this point . They can all eff off
Interesting, but I believe you cannot vote for republicans and not have a deep moral flaw. There are no “nice” nazis.
There are no “nice” racists.
There are no “nice” pedophiles.
Do we have to agree with everything a politician stands for? No, and voting is not always for the lesser of two evils. There is usually a blatant moral divide.
Hitler loved his dog. So what?
As for the premise of this article, I remember proverbs about this.
1 the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
2 keep your friends close, and your enemies closer
Can you give second chances to fully formed adults? What if the adult’s next mistake kills you?
But the GOP on the whole has turned against the very idea of free and fair elections. A GOP official in my state once said, "If we don't have gerrymandering, we'll never win another election!" It's hard to work with them to stop dictatorship when they are working among themselves to suppress voters.
Yes. Your GOP official--assuming he embraces voter suppression for that reason--is the "enemy" on that. You're not working with the ones trying to stop free elections. You're working with the ones trying to stop Trump/2025. You work with anyone on any side in whatever good they can do. You don't impose a purity test that says "you're bad on issue 1,2,3 so I won't work with you on issue 4 where we agree." which is what many on this thread seem to be saying. That road is the road to permanent failure.
Thanks, Joni - I agree totally. I left the right-wing Evangelical church 20 years ago when I began to see the emergence of what has become Christian Nationalism. I know from my own experience that people don't typically have a "Come to Jesus" moment which opens their eyes to all the lies they have been fed... they become really uncomfortable with an issue or a stance which the Church takes, and this becomes the doorway for them to ask questions and eventually leave. It's a process, and that process is loaded with worry and fear, since asking the questions and leaving the Church frequently means leaving your entire social, spiritual and personal social safety net. I believe that those, like MTG, who have risked taking a stand against this administration on both the Epstein Files and the War in Iran, need to be listened to with grace and respect, and welcomed as they (hopefully) continue to question their beliefs. As Independents and Democrats, we need to live beyond labels, and grow our progressive movement by refusing to alienate those who don't agree with all our own beliefs.
Thank you. People grow. People change. People learn.
We also need to remember that Putin has bot farms that not only make posts in the names of the GOP that are horrible. But in the names of liberals that are horrible as well.
One of the things we did at the last Braver Angels meeting was talk about the different places we get for news.
This thread makes me kind of sad. If we “cut out” those who disagree with us, what next, reeducation camps for MAGAs?
Go with what you feel you need to, but do not give them your trust. For an example; Liz Cheney was a patriot when it came to Jan 6,2021 the attempted overthrow of our government. But for the 4 years prior, she had voted 90% of the time with Trump.
Agree 100%, Rare Old Bird. I note, both houses of the U.S. Congress are governed by power structures that are very hard to crack from within or from the outside looking in. That is, unless we elect politicians by very large majorities so their is no doubt who won, who get it and will enact laws and regulations that deliver what voters in their districts agree they want. This, instead of enactng laws and regulations that deliver what their major donors want.
That has been a favorite catch-all saying of mine, for over 50 years. But, my saying is just a tad different: "Take what you like, and throw the rest away."
100%. She stuck a finger up in the air, felt the wind begin to change, and jumped ship when she thought it would benefit her future in politics.
But, I will also say, if her calculated position helps to weaken Trump, I'm all for it. She doesn't have the charisma or likability to make it far in a general election.
Deborah, I LUV the shape your words take on the page!
However, as we all know, much of the coming "success" will be in the form of deadly childhood diseases, and as reported today on MJ, increased cases of black lung among adult miners...all unnecessary pain essentially CHOSEN by MAGA, just as they "chose" Covid-death for their elderly. (Even after seeing photos of mass Covid graves.)
"Winning" within the political spectrum has frequently involved a collateral body count, but has it even been quite so self-inflicted by the losers?
"Black Lung Surges in Coal Country as Trump Slow-Walks Protections
The administration says it’s pro-coal, but miners are increasingly stricken with this brutal disease."
And how do we ordinary, caring American citizens deal with such a terrible reality of what may constitute "winning", when it involves so much innocent (but often ignorant) suffering and death?
(Sorry, Deborah. It's my first "momless Mothers Day", so I'm a bit inappropriately emotional. If you have your mother, or ARE a mother, I salute you today!!!)
Mothers Day is so fraught; whatever you are feeling, know that there are people out there who appreciate your journey. Many of us, as you say, despairing about the needless suffering deliberately inflicted by sociopathic leadership. The truth is that EVEN if MAGA were to disappear and the previous order of the two-party system were restored, the trajectory is forever changed. I'm an economist, and I see the effects that having a debt larger than GDP for the first time will prevent us from undertaking structural change to right the ship. I'm also the grandchild of the Holocaust generation. They came out of camps, having lost everything and everybody and started from where they were and marched forward. MAGA has been so destructive to civil society and economies and lives. It is not the Holocaust. It is, I believe, worse than the Great Depression. We have to someone get up every day and move through each day purposefully.
Thank you for your kindness. However, I'm less inclined to be "grateful" for the hard reality you include. (Truth matters above all else.)
The word that seems to possibly be the most commonly used to explain Trump's part in all this is, "accelerant".
When I put this together, and typed it out, it shook me end-to-end to see it all laid out, knowing what it really means:
60 years….
Toward the end of World War 2, America’s richest citizens were paying a tax rate of up to 94% with historically little pushback or complaint, because that’s what America required to defeat evil, and maintain Democracy.
During the start of a new century under President “W”, people paying even as little as 1/4th of that WW2 tax rate demanded even lower tax rates…twice. During wartime.
60 years…..
From the end of America’s Civil War, and for the next 100 years, there were essentially ONLY Democrats in elected federal offices from the south due to southern hate for Republican President Lincoln.
Beginning around 1960, the GOP began to implement their Southern Strategy, using racial hatred among Christians to gain political advantage. Following that period, in 2025 (white) American “Christians” overwhelmingly voted to replace their worship of Jesus with their worship of a man who wasn’t even able to name the Golden Rule: Donald Trump.
The new MAGA savior told them he could save their souls by altering the past, if they were willing to abandon all sense of personal responsibility. And abandon Jesus, of course. And the 100% Democratic south became overwhelmingly GOP, and is to this day.
60 years…..
In the early 1960s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. became one of the most effective, most respected freedom fighters on Earth.
In 2025, virtually everything Dr. King accomplished was either driven from the American memory or weaponized in an attempt to prevent anything like Dr. King’s legacy from EVER being influential in America again.
The GOP eliminated patriotism as a positive American trait and replaced it with GREED….
The GOP removed the loving words of Jesus from the hearts of white Americans, and replaced them with HATE…
The GOP eliminated Dr. King’s legacy as they removed his principles of brotherhood and personal sacrifice from the American psyche, and replaced them with FEAR…
Seemingly, this “Trifecta of mind control: greed, hate and fear” is an indication that the GOP can accomplish anything they want towards gaining control, and the DNC won’t even know until it’s just too late.
The only real miscalculation by the GOP that I can identify was when they basically "encouraged" the BLM protests after George Floyd's murder. They made SURE not to let that happen during NO KINGS!
Apparently Trump's "True Believer" problem isn't just with Iran. It's also with Black parents expressing their parental love by fighting to protect their beloved children. And Trump has ZERO defense, beyond "low IQ".
If MTG wanted to truly make an impact with her “enlightenment” she would have finished her term. She would have read the names of the Epstein perpetrators on the floor of the House like she promised she would.
Has MTG said the 2020 election was won fair and square by Biden? Has she chastised the Jan 6 insurrectionists? Has she criticized SCOTUS for repealing the Voting Rights Act? Why empower / give attention to MTG? All attention - negative or positive - helps a politician. See e.g., Trump.
@Jessica Ray there’s no evidence she has become enlightened, is there? Trump scorned her, now she’s enacting a petty revenge is all. Let them get on with it because neither is looking good as a result of this spat. Sure she stood up for survivors, but in hindsight all of that is looking like a publicity stunt - she didn’t actually DO anything to further their cause, did she?
It's also important to remember how personal this is for AOC, Jasmine Crockett, other women Dem MOC. MTG held up nude pictures of Hunter Biden. Relentlessly attacked her colleagues, male and female. Fooled me once, shame on you; fooled me twice, shame on me.
Yep! I’m old enough to remember when MTG stalked and harassed AOC outside her office and David Hogg down a sidewalk, she disrespected Biden at his SOTU. She’s a bully and a fake Christian CON at her core.
I agree with AOC they are just trying to convince people they changed. Its important to highlight what they said but does this give them any credibility. Absolutely not!
Because I'm old and retired, I can avoid being in close quarters with magas. I have no desire to harm them, which is not true of them; and I simply do not want to be around them. I'll never trust a maga ever again. They have demonstrated horrible decision making skills that have helped take away the rights and freedoms I fought for, most of my life. They have helped to kill thousands during COVID, refusing to wear masks; are okay separating children from their parents; have supported elected people who are protecting all sexual abusers of children (and rapists of adults). They appear to have no problems murdering those in boats, and keeping innocents locked up in concentration camps with no due process. In addition, I know several people who killed themselves, primarily due to magas' cruelty. I believe all magas are guilty of being a traitor to our democratic republic.
So, I agree with AOC. I believe accountability must happen before forgiveness, before we can heal and be united. However, magas don't think they need to be accountable. So, again, I simply do not want to be around their negative energy. And narcissists with dementia are the worst. :( And, one has to earn trust...after accountability, imo.
That's it, Brandon...I say MTG can have her opinion, but i think you are right she wants to convince people she changed but WHY? There is an ulterior motive here. We all know who she is already.
I'm okay with aligning with people who sincerely -- and I mean sincerely -- believe in a constitutional republic under the rule of law and that the rule of law applies to everyone equally. If they're unable to state that unequivocally, then they're just part of the problem.
I will never trust a MAGA at their word because they deep down they still would vote for the orange useless POS if given a chance,will never admit he lost the 2020 election, because they all belong to the DonOLD's red hat cult.
Something, something broken clock...twice a day....
On certain, very specific issues [like full release of the Epstein files], we can find agreement with some in the MAGA cult. But just this week MTG was back to pushing horse paste and other woo to treat hantavirus - showing that leopard hasn't changed her spots. Credibility, like respect and forgiveness, has to be EARNED. Being on the right side of one issue isn't earning it, and it doesn't repair all the damage MAGAs have done to this country.
The litmus test for me for the past 5 years has been January 6. To my way of thinking, all you need to know about someone is to get their read on that day. You either believe in a democratic society or a fascistic society. There is no in-between, and whatever you think about anything else is beside the point. For many I’m sure that;s way too simplistic, but it serves me quite well in figuring out who you are.
GREAT point, John! And you're correct. I'd add the results of the 2020 election as well. If you can't admit Trump lost in 2020 and then incited an insurrection in an attempt to overturn those results, you're not getting back into decent, pro-democracy society.
That is the truth John. For me it is the jack boots. How is the gestapo still operating if this is America? We are so far down from where we have ever been.
Trust has to be earned, as well. And rebuilding trust is even harder and takes longer.
I'm tired of hearing how it's up to the people who didn't cause the damage in American politics to fix it. That burden lies entirely on the shoulders of those who did. And I don't see them forming groups or writing articles about how MAGA can 'reach across the aisle' and repair the breach they caused. FFS!
They blame us. For everything! They cry and whine when they got everything they voted for. This animal POS ans his party ARE YOU MAGGATS. I suppose it is our fault as well that THEY CANT DO THE JOB of running the country. Except into the ground
And even now, MAGA republicans across the country are doing their level best to steal the next the election and make sure none of us, the Indies, Democrats, and pro-democracy republicans have a voice in our politics. Ever again.
If Democrats and Republicans could focus on the things they do have in common, I believe they could get much more accomplished. Always sleep with one eye open, however. The way forward is to work together for the common good. The Republicans will always have their agenda, but that's the richness of a two party system. The overt cheating, lying, grifting, and bribery has to be dealt with before this can happen. Crimes need to be prosecuted, and the criminals punished. The scope of Presidential pardons needs to be reviewed and adjusted. There's much work to do, but we can get there.
Yes, especially the Constitution and the rule of law. These were supposed to be the forces that would unite us despite our differences. But how do we deal with a gap this wide on fundamental principles?
Democrats need to support Democrats. AOC makes valid points!!!! People tell us who they are when they speak. MTG gave us plenty of insight and visual cues as to her beliefs. She wants the job as President. She can’t be trusted.
I joined the group Braver Angels because I want to go back to hating Republican policies instead of hating Republicans. Braver Angels is a group that is working to help those of us standing on the brink of divides trying to reach across the divide and find some kind of common cause.
I suspect that anytime we can find an atom of agreement anywhere, we should go with it. A pearl starts with an irritating grain of sand.
"When they show you who they are, believe them."
These people have shown us very clearly that they don't stop at "hating policies." Their hate is deep and personal. You want to accept these Nazis back into the fold as though everything they have done to immigrants and women and minorities was just a matter of "policy difference" and not a character flaw? You're okay with the camps and shooting people in the streets and starving millions of people to death in African nations as maybe "they were mistaken policy points?"
NOPE. None of these people should be trusted, ever again, until they go through a rehab for hate. You know, like those gay conversion camps they love. Then make them take the American citizenship test on the fly. If they pass it, they can run for dogcatcher.
I have similar feelings and this saddens me. Where do we draw the line? Obviously, any government officials, elected or appointed, who broke the law should be prosecuted. What about Joe down the block who voted for him 3x and has been a complete trumpian ass for the past decade but broke no laws? Personally, I see a lot of social consequences for Joe, but that is it. Hope we have smart people thinking about how in the world we are going to bring people back together again once he is gone. I don’t have a good answer to that question.
Agreed. We need to follow Germany's example with massive Constitutional re-education for all the Joes down the block, required civics education from elementary school onwards, and seriously, consider requiring the citizenship test for ALL voters when they register. I have no problem socially shunning the NNDs [Nazis Next Door]. i cannot find any justification for befriending anyone who thinks violating everyone's civil rights is okay just because they're a little different from yourself.
Well put. This can never be allowed to happen again and education is the key. We need to get back to one reality.
Yup. The elimination of civics education in K-12 for the last 40 years have ensured that the American electorate doesn't understand the purpose of or proper functioning of our government. That and the lack of critical thinking skills have given GOP propaganda complete control of too many American minds.
Will never bring them back as long as TV and Fox entertainment with the scripted coordinated news exist. They believe Fox more than anything. Total brainwashing takes decades to undo.
Exactly Lee, until this country realizes its being misinformed, lied to and brainwashed on a daily basis by the oligarchs bought and paid for propaganda network (our legacy MSM), this slide toward authoritarianism will continue.
History shows you restore truth. We must return to a world in which we can what is fact.
Punish people use propaganda to manipulate citizens
They should be made to wander for forty years in the desert before they are ever again considered worthy of public acknowledgement.
Will that help heal the United States?
You have to ask yourself what is going to cost them to actually change and care about a human about the damage that they have done. They have to be brought to their knees like when a person loses a spouse and they find them. That brings you to your knees and makes you think about everything. Well, they need to think about everything to try and understand the err of their ways, and if they don’t, they are not gonna be part of the healing of the United States.
I lost my spouse to multiple system atrophy. I don’t see where being angry makes my life better without him.
I lost my wife to multiple sclerosis, maybe more accurately after three years her desire to be pain-free and not lose all her abilities. So she left one day and I found her when I got home from work. So this was in 2012 December. I’m not angry. If it seemed like I was angry, I’m sorry.
Yes. Hatred, lies and violence are poison to a community, and when they become part of governance, the entire country is sickened and may die. Just as people who carry a deadly physical contagion must be treated while in isolation, so must we treat a deadly moral contagion that’s become embedded in a political body.
The careful disappearing of the first 2 waves of American fascism, and of other true but ugly parts of history, creates an endlessly credulous population that believes it can't happen here.
We must do as Germany did after WWII, creating memorials, museums and mandatory education for school kids. Many people talk about removing every trace of trump’s existence but that’s a disservice. First, we must, as a nation, know what has been done, and second, trump is just the most visible element of a much deeper and pervasive ideology.
The country can’t be healed until we remove what’s making us sick. That means we have to recognize and name the poison, and take the cure.
Who do you think takes care of sick patients? Do they just get stuck in an isolation room and left there? No. During Ebola, during Covid, now during antivirus, there are going to be doctors and nurses and nursing assistance and physical therapist and respiratory therapist and everybody else is going to be taking care of them. They’re not gonna get better by sticking them in an isolation room by themselves.
What we do says more about us than it does about them
Trained professionals, and even some trained volunteers, are going to be needed. Untrained people are much more likely to find they’ve understood and compromised their way into support of fascism.
I agree, Jude. I am going to be honest, I'm quite disgusted the MTN is giving her a platform after all she has done to bring down our country values, contributing factor to division, spewed out lies and hate and her being the #1 enabler to Trump and the MAGA movement. I will never forget or forgive her after the way she treated Biden during his SOTU address, the heckling, wearing a MAGA hat etc. and the racist comments towards Jasmine Crockett and other minorities within Congress. She can't be trusted. There's a reason for her sudden change of heart. She has an ulterior motive.
I'm a paid subscriber here and I subscribe to their YouTube channel as well and to see them live streaming her appearances and highlighting her on multiple videos made me want to puke. I mean, the MTN can say she is "useful" without giving her exposure and forcing us to watch her. If I wanted to watch her, I'd go to a far-right podcast.
I'm with you, Joanne. I listen to MTN podcasts while working out, and I admit I've had to turn off more than one recently because of just that reason. If I wanted to listen to Marge or Tucker or FOX, I'd do it myself. I don't. If they want to summarize something one of these jerks has said...fine...but listening to excerpts, one right after the other, is NOT something I want to hear on a regular basis. To me, it seems like a lazy way to do things!
Thanks, Deb. I'm happy to see I'm not the only one who feels this way. I forgot, I also listen to the MTN on Spotify. I don't do Apple because of Tim Cook's betrayal. Exactly! If I wanted to see her interviews, I'd go to Fox, Newsmax etc. She's vile. She's hateful. She's a racist among countless other things. She hasn't changed. She won't change. A leopard never changes its spots.
I feel that way about every republican voter in this country. Our country has been broken beyond repair by them. I don't think we can "heal" the country as so many keep spouting. The patient has to want to get better. So something entirely different has to rise from the ashes of the fires that burned our morals and way of life to the ground.
I know what you mean. A year ago I was saying it'll take decades to fix what he has broken. Now, it is beyond repair. He took us back centuries and our piece of shit Congress allowed it, including MTG.
Not even dogcatcher...don't forget Kristi Noem!
Yeah, I should have used a different elected office...lol Cricket's Revenge!
Agree except let’s not let them loose on canines either.
Agree
Scholars who doubt that Braver Angels can actually reduce polarization include psychologist Peter Coleman. Coleman argues that animosity between groups is stronger than a single workshop can change: "Just meeting with other people, particularly once for a short period of time, is insufficient to changing people's attitudes, habits, the media they watch, the internet that they serve."[22]
Alex Zamalin, author of Against Civility, The Hidden Racism in Our Obsession with Civility, argues that Braver Angels deals only with civic politeness and thus does not address the power dynamics needed for political change.[22] This is from Wikipedia
In a nutshell, we got duped into thinking that we were required to tolerate intolerance.
People's attitudes get changed for a day, but then their social media reconditions them back into the old attitudes. I have a friend who has tried to do the same through church groups, and it doesn't work.
And there is the real culprit: social media, which profits off of fear, hate, and anger amplified with bots, fake AI masquerading as news, and a few attention seeking idiots trying to make money and fame by stirring up controversy and collecting followers.
Get off Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and X!!! Stop supporting the businesses and tech Nazis who are working to destroy our democracy and divide us.
The previous two waves of American fascism used the media of the era, radio and then television, so although I believe that fashy billionaires owning and actively managing their social media platforms are deliberately making things worse, it’s just a help, not a requirement, for generating a hate movement.
True, but now it's amplified a thousand fold, micro targeted, and accelerated dramatically in speed of transmission—all happening on smart phones, which most Americans carry everywhere and are addicted to.
When someone goes to therapy, I don’t think there is any promise that a single session is going to cure someone.
Agreed. These people have not changed the core of who they are. Like rats running from a sinking ship, they are opportunistic not “changed”
Or they can go be with rump, afterall,he's their hero! Fat ol rich-cat FART! THEY ALL LIARS AND COWARDS!
The only persons behavior you can change in your own. And if you change yours, others may change in response.
Do you really want to act like them?
I see... so we should all sit down with people who voted to deport their neighbors, shoot protestors, and throw children into concentration camps to eat maggoty food--not to mention supporting a grifting felon pedophile--and just hug it out? Why not have dinner with Jeffrey Dahmer? I hear he served a great ham.
"The only person's behavior you can change in your own...others may change in response." So why bother with laws at all, or education, rehabilitation, or teaching consequences when gosh, all this time, all we had to do was sit and talk?
There is actually a point when you have to draw a line on how much you are willing to forgive-- or perhaps not. It appears you're okay with what they've "accomplished" and don't feel the need to hold them to account because we just need to sing kumbaya with them all summer: they will magically see the light and stop blindly following/embracing hateful ignorance.
Well, I do have a line and no, it's not "acting like them" to demand they come to realize what they have supported has destroyed our nation. Again, look at how post war Germany has dealt with this---EDUCATION, consequences, and teaching them the REALITY of what the Nazis did to their country.
But hey, you know, you do you. I'm sure they are all angels underneath their white robes, and none of the millions of dead people in Africa and Iran are worth getting angry about.
So you are going to turn into them? And that is going to help.
You already have, Joni--complicit and condoning their actions with your refusal to acknowledge what they have done:
"Three-quarters of a million people are dead. The methodology is peer-reviewed. The mortality counter ran in real time, on the open internet.
And yet the subject has slid from the front pages, from cable, from the Sunday shows, from the well of the Senate. Nobody cares.
Half a million children die from diseases we used to treat. No hearings of consequence. No special counsel. No prosecutions.
Brooke Nichols—professor of global health at Boston University and the founder of ImpactCounter told GBH News that about once a week she looks at her own numbers and cries: “None of this had to happen.” She is astonished Americans are not angrier.
So am I."
https://terrymoran.substack.com/p/doges-death-toll?r=5mwrm&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
Jude, my country and my husband died within one month of each other. Mt Krakatoa had nothing on how I feel right now. The anger and the desire for violence feel almost overwhelming sometimes. (I have guns that I thought about getting rid of when my husband could no longer go out to the shooting range. However, I thought I’d better keep them just in case.) But becoming a liberal Nazi is not going to help. It’s not gonna help me. It’s not gonna help people on the other side of the aisle, it’s not gonna help our country.
And when I have sat down and talked to people on the other side, I have actually discovered that many of them are not that far away from my beliefs.
We know that Putin has bot farms. At least some of those horrible posts are coming from people paid to tear us apart. And you know what, they are also paying people to post horrible things that look like they’re coming from our side.
Do you really want to let Putin win?
Exactly!!!
They're self serving, addicted to hate. Can't hate on Dem policy so hate what's next in line causing problems, who snubbed them . . that's trump. It's an S&M relationship with them. Maladjusted. He makes it easy, that's where they've gone. Flipped on him, will flip again. Have to stop believing everyone can be mentally habilitated to an acceptable stage to live among those are socially acceptable.
When unlabeled, people of any and no political affiliation prefer Democratic policies. They hate Democrats. It took me an unusual length of time to realize that demon- crat wasn’t just another ha ha insult: there were people who actually believed Dems are demons, which is why they drink children’s blood and other insanity.
It’s also why, even where you might expect to find a better educated group, they are so many calls for Dems to return to the center. That the Party’s platform is based on letting kids have gender affirming surgery and men compete with women in some sports seems to be a common belief. It was the message most of Musk’s advertising pushed and seems to have been effective.
People who don’t read even the bullet points of the policy document were easily persuaded that it consisted of a list of the special provisions for a series of very specific demographics. Hispanic women, Jewish men, communist students — they were all going to get theirs, but the average Joe? Nothing.
Incredibly frustrating, the constant educating, especially when it didn’t succeed and the most undesirable candidate possible was re-elected over KH.
And they think that about us. And Putin bots are writing plenty of awful posts, supposedly from us, inflaming them
Let them babble to themselves- no need to amplify their twisted hate. Stick to horrible policy outcomes and boundless corruption.
Thoughts from an average woman over 70… there used to be something called compromise. There was a day when Democrats and Republicans would look at the issue and think about their constituents and then make their votes. They didn't do it to please some dictator in the White House like today, where We the people were considered. Now it's what do I want who can I please and what will I get for it- that's the way Congress Acts. I personally believe that if there is an issue that needs supporting it shouldn't matter whether you're Democrat or Republican you should do what's right for the people of the United States. Compromise doesn't always get it right, but it's certainly better than bashing the other side over the head regardless of what side you're sitting on. I'm appalled at what this country has become and quite frankly I'm glad I'm on my way out and not in my early twenties trying to navigate the shit that this administration has done to the country. It's going to take years to fix. And people will continue to have these cult-like views without trying to think for themselves. I'm just totally disgusted.
This is half true. You’ve fallen into the both sides fallacy. The talking point that Democrats are the same as Republicans suddenly became inescapable in the year before the 2024 election and it continues. The only benefit from this false analysis goes of course to the Republicans, as potential Democratic voters are persuaded their votes don’t make a difference so there’s no point in turning out.
Since Obama became President, Republicans have refused to negotiate or compromise, no matter how loudly they declare that something is a crisis.
Obama brought immigration reform legislation to Congress; Republicans killed it without any effort to discuss it. Biden entered the White House with comprehensive, practical and humane immigration reform legislation; House Democrats passed it — then it was dragged into McConnell’s office and silently filibustered to death.
The same thing happened to every proposed law that benefited either democracy (voting rights restored, dark money out of campaigns, end to gerrymandering; free ID for voting issued to all citizens, …) or the lower 85% (tax the rich, raise the minimum wage, invest in a green economy and renewable energy, bring the manufacturing of items essential to national security back to the country, …)
Most people don’t know about Biden’s own immigration legislation, which was a big deal, let alone the defeats of small but powerful bits of Democratic law, like trying to make baby formula more accessible to poor women during the shortage. Then they complain that Democrats never get anything done.
If the legislation that Democrats voted for and Republicans filibustered out of existence had passed, you’d be living in the country that almost every American, no matter their party affiliation iff any, wants when asked about their preferences, issue by issue.
I couldn’t agree with you more. The Republican Party’s inner racist was triggered when Obama was elected and their number one priority was: not to serve their constituents; not to work to help build a stronger country; not to do the job they are being paid and receiving quite a few perks for to do. Nope. Their number one priority then and now has been to undermine, sabotage and oppress any public policy that is remotely associated with “the libs”. It was an affront to them and their racist Southern (although I know racism is not limited to the southern states) representatives and governors and benefactors that a black man was “allowed” to rise to the rank of President of the United States. It is truly astounding how corrupt our political system is. And to make matters worse, there are those in the Democratic Party who are benefiting from the same corruption on the one hand while pretending to oppose Republicans on many issues. That is the height of hypocrisy. We need to clean house - both of corporate money and of democratic establishment candidates who are taking said money. Enough is enough. While we have been brought to the precipice of the destruction of our democracy, we must rewrite and reinforce the institutions of this country we hold so dear. For the future of the United States.
I agree! Using obscenities in speech is THE sign of a lazy mind. It is also indicative of a desire for violence and an attempt to escalate the disagreement. It has NO PLACE in a congressional member's speech and certainly no place in a US President's speech.
I'm only 64, but I have definitely had enough of this uncivilized chaos.
I agree Pam . It wasnt this hard for 240 years. Then this one JO shows up and blows it all up. Nothing in normal. Nothing makes sense! And everyone seems to be just sayin Oh well. Trump is trump. We are getting further and further away from fixing the destruction of our country. And running out of time to stop it.
Well, this has been building up for a long while...I witnessed this problem while teaching college-level courses back in the 1970s. It never went away, but neither was it embraced by enough people to sway an election and rip fundamental principles away. We must all agree on at least what is in the Constitution and the law. Imagine people sitting around a table trying to play a game--card game, board game, video game, etc--if they can't agree on the rules of the game. It's impossible. Rules can be changed, if change is needed. But we can't even get our Congress to do their jobs and attend sessions. Our situation is more like warfare, with no compromise possible by either side.
This! I, like others, don't want to help someone further a hateful career, but we can only come together through points of agreement. We need to use them. And, yes. Braver Angels is the place to go to learn to do that.
Human relationships are not one-size-fits-all. Nuance is required. Paying attention to the specific person is required. Just to take MTG as an example, she is very "my way or the highway." She was very supportive of Kevin McCarthy b/c he gave her a place at the table. When McCarthy was booted, MTG started attacking her fellow Rs. She was booted from the Freedom Caucus. She had a cat fight on the House floor w/ Lauren Boebert. She seems to be trying to be ahead of the shifts in political power. She was all in Trump until he did not support her bid to be a senator. Now she is some third way person.
That's fine. But what does that reach across the aisles look like? It used to play out as back-room cooperation on budgets and policies. It does not seem to happen now.
So why can’t it start with us?
Yesterday at Braver Angels I was talking to a guy who was on “the other side”. Yet we talked and listened and ended up realizing we were not as far apart as we thought.
WHY should the people who didn't cause the breach in American politics bear the responsibility for fixing it? Why doesn't repairing the breach start with the people who caused it? Why aren't they required to accept personal responsibility for their actions? Until that happens, we have NO reason to trust them again.
Ask Black people. They've been tasked with the same job, only substitute racism.
It's no fairer to put that burden on Black folks than it is to put on anyone else who's done no harm.
I don't know what you mean. I meant that Black people have been (by default) burdened with explaining their take on Blackness in America, as if they bore responsibility. Why should they be burdened with that? I don't see how Black folks have done any harm, as a group.
Others have commented on the limits of interpersonal dialogue. I would add to the references they provided that all human behavior is mediated by institutions. If we do no demand reform on the institutions then they will remain vulnerable to populism. Trump and Mamdani are both populists; and as such are always bad for democracy. OF COURSE it is best to suppress our own worst instincts (and I've said some inflammatory things on Facebook, which is not helpful.) But this is, alas, not a matter of changing hearts and minds one at a time.
And then what happened after he was exposed to his social media accounts for the next week and you weren't there?
Then he went home and called his cohorts to snicker about the libtard he bullshitted. Sorry Joni. Can't get with that. You are definitely a better person than they turned me into.
I think we are seeing MTG and her comments for TV ratings! And I definitely think she has an ulterior motive. She is the same leopard with the same spots. But she can have her opinion. Not sure what she is up to.
This that is happening now, is a cult. A Cult of greed, corruption and ANTI-AMERICAN propaganda. This that is happening now is not "reach across the aisle" moment. This that is happening now is evil, voter suppression , cruelty and shooting Americans in the street shit. I am SMH everyday at this cult. I will NEVER agree that taking millions of American's Health care away is OK. Or using food as a weapon is OK. or taking everyone's right to vote and free speech is OK. NEVER. The shit happening now is not reach across the aisle - this is FAKE white supremacy. scump and Steve miller want to actually kill Americans or put us in cages! This is not OK. This is too radical for any reach across the aisle and I will never be OK with this cruelty, greed, corruption and I will never forget the repubs and their complicity and silence on destroying out democracy!
There is a lot of “back room, covert” operations going on. This has always been a fact but in the past we haven’t worried about the “deadly elixir” being cooked every single day by a group of “little anatomical” mad scientists.
Nice thought, but rather Pollyannaish IMO.
How does being hateful help?
Who's talking about being hateful? I'm talking about being realistic.
Who loves the hate ? They do. Who Is causing all the chaos. Trump is. Sorry , im not an angel anymore. They caused me too much pain and loss. At this point . They can all eff off
Interesting, but I believe you cannot vote for republicans and not have a deep moral flaw. There are no “nice” nazis.
There are no “nice” racists.
There are no “nice” pedophiles.
Do we have to agree with everything a politician stands for? No, and voting is not always for the lesser of two evils. There is usually a blatant moral divide.
Hitler loved his dog. So what?
As for the premise of this article, I remember proverbs about this.
1 the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
2 keep your friends close, and your enemies closer
Can you give second chances to fully formed adults? What if the adult’s next mistake kills you?
No one asks you to vote for them. The issue is to work with them to stop the incipient dictatorship.
But the GOP on the whole has turned against the very idea of free and fair elections. A GOP official in my state once said, "If we don't have gerrymandering, we'll never win another election!" It's hard to work with them to stop dictatorship when they are working among themselves to suppress voters.
Yes. Your GOP official--assuming he embraces voter suppression for that reason--is the "enemy" on that. You're not working with the ones trying to stop free elections. You're working with the ones trying to stop Trump/2025. You work with anyone on any side in whatever good they can do. You don't impose a purity test that says "you're bad on issue 1,2,3 so I won't work with you on issue 4 where we agree." which is what many on this thread seem to be saying. That road is the road to permanent failure.
Thanks Pat, I agree.
Thanks, Joni - I agree totally. I left the right-wing Evangelical church 20 years ago when I began to see the emergence of what has become Christian Nationalism. I know from my own experience that people don't typically have a "Come to Jesus" moment which opens their eyes to all the lies they have been fed... they become really uncomfortable with an issue or a stance which the Church takes, and this becomes the doorway for them to ask questions and eventually leave. It's a process, and that process is loaded with worry and fear, since asking the questions and leaving the Church frequently means leaving your entire social, spiritual and personal social safety net. I believe that those, like MTG, who have risked taking a stand against this administration on both the Epstein Files and the War in Iran, need to be listened to with grace and respect, and welcomed as they (hopefully) continue to question their beliefs. As Independents and Democrats, we need to live beyond labels, and grow our progressive movement by refusing to alienate those who don't agree with all our own beliefs.
Thank you. People grow. People change. People learn.
We also need to remember that Putin has bot farms that not only make posts in the names of the GOP that are horrible. But in the names of liberals that are horrible as well.
One of the things we did at the last Braver Angels meeting was talk about the different places we get for news.
This thread makes me kind of sad. If we “cut out” those who disagree with us, what next, reeducation camps for MAGAs?
Go with what you feel you need to, but do not give them your trust. For an example; Liz Cheney was a patriot when it came to Jan 6,2021 the attempted overthrow of our government. But for the 4 years prior, she had voted 90% of the time with Trump.
Thanks for picking this problem apart & putting it back together in a very useful & usable way. Totally agree. Take what we need & leave the rest.
Agree 100%, Rare Old Bird. I note, both houses of the U.S. Congress are governed by power structures that are very hard to crack from within or from the outside looking in. That is, unless we elect politicians by very large majorities so their is no doubt who won, who get it and will enact laws and regulations that deliver what voters in their districts agree they want. This, instead of enactng laws and regulations that deliver what their major donors want.
That has been a favorite catch-all saying of mine, for over 50 years. But, my saying is just a tad different: "Take what you like, and throw the rest away."
Same implication. With just a twist.
My thoughts exactly.
Take what we need, leave the rest, and ask what must be done to resolve the underlying issues of distrust, ignorance, and misunderstanding.
Does anyone NOT think Empty-G (MTG) isn't simply leveraging for a GOP future that the proverbial "blind person" could FINALLY see?
100%. She stuck a finger up in the air, felt the wind begin to change, and jumped ship when she thought it would benefit her future in politics.
But, I will also say, if her calculated position helps to weaken Trump, I'm all for it. She doesn't have the charisma or likability to make it far in a general election.
Well said Jennifer
I agree -- she is looking to step back in when there is a post-Trump free-for-all.
"...post-Trump free-for-all."
Deborah, I LUV the shape your words take on the page!
However, as we all know, much of the coming "success" will be in the form of deadly childhood diseases, and as reported today on MJ, increased cases of black lung among adult miners...all unnecessary pain essentially CHOSEN by MAGA, just as they "chose" Covid-death for their elderly. (Even after seeing photos of mass Covid graves.)
"Winning" within the political spectrum has frequently involved a collateral body count, but has it even been quite so self-inflicted by the losers?
"Black Lung Surges in Coal Country as Trump Slow-Walks Protections
The administration says it’s pro-coal, but miners are increasingly stricken with this brutal disease."
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/05/black-lung-resurgence-appalachia-coal-country-silica-trump-administration-delayed-regulations-miners-worker-protections/
And how do we ordinary, caring American citizens deal with such a terrible reality of what may constitute "winning", when it involves so much innocent (but often ignorant) suffering and death?
(Sorry, Deborah. It's my first "momless Mothers Day", so I'm a bit inappropriately emotional. If you have your mother, or ARE a mother, I salute you today!!!)
Mothers Day is so fraught; whatever you are feeling, know that there are people out there who appreciate your journey. Many of us, as you say, despairing about the needless suffering deliberately inflicted by sociopathic leadership. The truth is that EVEN if MAGA were to disappear and the previous order of the two-party system were restored, the trajectory is forever changed. I'm an economist, and I see the effects that having a debt larger than GDP for the first time will prevent us from undertaking structural change to right the ship. I'm also the grandchild of the Holocaust generation. They came out of camps, having lost everything and everybody and started from where they were and marched forward. MAGA has been so destructive to civil society and economies and lives. It is not the Holocaust. It is, I believe, worse than the Great Depression. We have to someone get up every day and move through each day purposefully.
Deborah,
Thank you for your kindness. However, I'm less inclined to be "grateful" for the hard reality you include. (Truth matters above all else.)
The word that seems to possibly be the most commonly used to explain Trump's part in all this is, "accelerant".
When I put this together, and typed it out, it shook me end-to-end to see it all laid out, knowing what it really means:
60 years….
Toward the end of World War 2, America’s richest citizens were paying a tax rate of up to 94% with historically little pushback or complaint, because that’s what America required to defeat evil, and maintain Democracy.
During the start of a new century under President “W”, people paying even as little as 1/4th of that WW2 tax rate demanded even lower tax rates…twice. During wartime.
60 years…..
From the end of America’s Civil War, and for the next 100 years, there were essentially ONLY Democrats in elected federal offices from the south due to southern hate for Republican President Lincoln.
Beginning around 1960, the GOP began to implement their Southern Strategy, using racial hatred among Christians to gain political advantage. Following that period, in 2025 (white) American “Christians” overwhelmingly voted to replace their worship of Jesus with their worship of a man who wasn’t even able to name the Golden Rule: Donald Trump.
The new MAGA savior told them he could save their souls by altering the past, if they were willing to abandon all sense of personal responsibility. And abandon Jesus, of course. And the 100% Democratic south became overwhelmingly GOP, and is to this day.
60 years…..
In the early 1960s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. became one of the most effective, most respected freedom fighters on Earth.
In 2025, virtually everything Dr. King accomplished was either driven from the American memory or weaponized in an attempt to prevent anything like Dr. King’s legacy from EVER being influential in America again.
The GOP eliminated patriotism as a positive American trait and replaced it with GREED….
The GOP removed the loving words of Jesus from the hearts of white Americans, and replaced them with HATE…
The GOP eliminated Dr. King’s legacy as they removed his principles of brotherhood and personal sacrifice from the American psyche, and replaced them with FEAR…
Seemingly, this “Trifecta of mind control: greed, hate and fear” is an indication that the GOP can accomplish anything they want towards gaining control, and the DNC won’t even know until it’s just too late.
They just need 60 years….
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The only real miscalculation by the GOP that I can identify was when they basically "encouraged" the BLM protests after George Floyd's murder. They made SURE not to let that happen during NO KINGS!
Apparently Trump's "True Believer" problem isn't just with Iran. It's also with Black parents expressing their parental love by fighting to protect their beloved children. And Trump has ZERO defense, beyond "low IQ".
Well Said, I totally Agree!
I just wish that every GOP success meant something other than an opposing DNC failure.
Thank you, Lily.
The administration IS pro-coal. They didn’t say anything about being pro-coal miners.
Very good point, Kirsten.
After all, Trump treats Jews as morons, and has said terribly insulting things, even in front of groups of Jews.
But that doesn't keep Trump from absolutely LOVING Israel (as a source of personal income for him, and power for Trump personally.)
Not so different from the coal miners and coal.
Absolutely important point. She may or may not have given up her career - time will tell.
I imagine she sees herself as, "a Lynn Chaney with better timing."
She may be right...
If MTG wanted to truly make an impact with her “enlightenment” she would have finished her term. She would have read the names of the Epstein perpetrators on the floor of the House like she promised she would.
Has MTG said the 2020 election was won fair and square by Biden? Has she chastised the Jan 6 insurrectionists? Has she criticized SCOTUS for repealing the Voting Rights Act? Why empower / give attention to MTG? All attention - negative or positive - helps a politician. See e.g., Trump.
@Jessica Ray there’s no evidence she has become enlightened, is there? Trump scorned her, now she’s enacting a petty revenge is all. Let them get on with it because neither is looking good as a result of this spat. Sure she stood up for survivors, but in hindsight all of that is looking like a publicity stunt - she didn’t actually DO anything to further their cause, did she?
Yep she’s all bluster…
That's what I said - this is all for tv ratings!
I agree. I do wish that she would have finished out her term.
I agree with AOC. Those who disagree IMO have learned nothing from this nightmare shitshow. A leopard can’t change its spots.
It's also important to remember how personal this is for AOC, Jasmine Crockett, other women Dem MOC. MTG held up nude pictures of Hunter Biden. Relentlessly attacked her colleagues, male and female. Fooled me once, shame on you; fooled me twice, shame on me.
Yep! I’m old enough to remember when MTG stalked and harassed AOC outside her office and David Hogg down a sidewalk, she disrespected Biden at his SOTU. She’s a bully and a fake Christian CON at her core.
When they get attention - any attention - they are winning. They then run for higher office. See e.g., Nancy Mace.
I agree with AOC they are just trying to convince people they changed. Its important to highlight what they said but does this give them any credibility. Absolutely not!
Because I'm old and retired, I can avoid being in close quarters with magas. I have no desire to harm them, which is not true of them; and I simply do not want to be around them. I'll never trust a maga ever again. They have demonstrated horrible decision making skills that have helped take away the rights and freedoms I fought for, most of my life. They have helped to kill thousands during COVID, refusing to wear masks; are okay separating children from their parents; have supported elected people who are protecting all sexual abusers of children (and rapists of adults). They appear to have no problems murdering those in boats, and keeping innocents locked up in concentration camps with no due process. In addition, I know several people who killed themselves, primarily due to magas' cruelty. I believe all magas are guilty of being a traitor to our democratic republic.
So, I agree with AOC. I believe accountability must happen before forgiveness, before we can heal and be united. However, magas don't think they need to be accountable. So, again, I simply do not want to be around their negative energy. And narcissists with dementia are the worst. :( And, one has to earn trust...after accountability, imo.
That's it, Brandon...I say MTG can have her opinion, but i think you are right she wants to convince people she changed but WHY? There is an ulterior motive here. We all know who she is already.
Yeah just use MTG in a throwaway state. Like "Even MTG thinks this war is insane" then on to the next thought. Same with Fucker Carlson
She made her millions off making us miserable for 8 fucking years, I can't stand the sight of her (mtg)
I'm okay with aligning with people who sincerely -- and I mean sincerely -- believe in a constitutional republic under the rule of law and that the rule of law applies to everyone equally. If they're unable to state that unequivocally, then they're just part of the problem.
I will never trust a MAGA at their word because they deep down they still would vote for the orange useless POS if given a chance,will never admit he lost the 2020 election, because they all belong to the DonOLD's red hat cult.
I agree. Join with them when necessary to accomplish OUR goals. The rest of the time, grab the popcorn and watch the show.
Something, something broken clock...twice a day....
On certain, very specific issues [like full release of the Epstein files], we can find agreement with some in the MAGA cult. But just this week MTG was back to pushing horse paste and other woo to treat hantavirus - showing that leopard hasn't changed her spots. Credibility, like respect and forgiveness, has to be EARNED. Being on the right side of one issue isn't earning it, and it doesn't repair all the damage MAGAs have done to this country.
The litmus test for me for the past 5 years has been January 6. To my way of thinking, all you need to know about someone is to get their read on that day. You either believe in a democratic society or a fascistic society. There is no in-between, and whatever you think about anything else is beside the point. For many I’m sure that;s way too simplistic, but it serves me quite well in figuring out who you are.
GREAT point, John! And you're correct. I'd add the results of the 2020 election as well. If you can't admit Trump lost in 2020 and then incited an insurrection in an attempt to overturn those results, you're not getting back into decent, pro-democracy society.
Yup, they go hand-in-hand.
That is the truth John. For me it is the jack boots. How is the gestapo still operating if this is America? We are so far down from where we have ever been.
Yes. But we cant trust them. Without trust. You have nothing.
Trust has to be earned, as well. And rebuilding trust is even harder and takes longer.
I'm tired of hearing how it's up to the people who didn't cause the damage in American politics to fix it. That burden lies entirely on the shoulders of those who did. And I don't see them forming groups or writing articles about how MAGA can 'reach across the aisle' and repair the breach they caused. FFS!
They blame us. For everything! They cry and whine when they got everything they voted for. This animal POS ans his party ARE YOU MAGGATS. I suppose it is our fault as well that THEY CANT DO THE JOB of running the country. Except into the ground
But that is their job: to destroy our democratic republic. :(
And even now, MAGA republicans across the country are doing their level best to steal the next the election and make sure none of us, the Indies, Democrats, and pro-democracy republicans have a voice in our politics. Ever again.
If Democrats and Republicans could focus on the things they do have in common, I believe they could get much more accomplished. Always sleep with one eye open, however. The way forward is to work together for the common good. The Republicans will always have their agenda, but that's the richness of a two party system. The overt cheating, lying, grifting, and bribery has to be dealt with before this can happen. Crimes need to be prosecuted, and the criminals punished. The scope of Presidential pardons needs to be reviewed and adjusted. There's much work to do, but we can get there.
We have less and less in common. Everyday that passes.
Yes, especially the Constitution and the rule of law. These were supposed to be the forces that would unite us despite our differences. But how do we deal with a gap this wide on fundamental principles?
Right on!
I totally agree with you. I think MTG has a bigger future planned for herself
Democrats need to support Democrats. AOC makes valid points!!!! People tell us who they are when they speak. MTG gave us plenty of insight and visual cues as to her beliefs. She wants the job as President. She can’t be trusted.
Or did I miss an apology……..
I believe you’re absolutely right
I agree with you exactly. You articulated this very well.