I can honestly say I have thoroughly enjoyed my time as a federal worker.
Right now I’m working on my resume. I’m open to work, preferably in finance as I have my accounting degree. If you know of anyone hiring please let me know.
As I have mentioned before, please do not post your political beliefs as I am not interested in debates or opinions. During this time, please remember that government employees are workers at risk of losing their job. It’s scary as most of us have dedicated our careers to government and government operations is all that most of us know and now will be forced to look outside for other options and start over. No matter which side everyone is one, no one wants to lose their job so please be mindful of this. Remember that government employees are humans too and it is a very scary time for most of us and our families.
do you wanna stop fascism? want to see trump and elon musk lose power?
working class solidarity is the first step
our entire lives, we’ve been tricked and manipulated into fighting among ourselves, because they know if we worked together, we would be able to take them down.
why do you think, every time that something bad happens, there’s all the media spin about who we should blame?
they love to do this for age, think about all the boomers vs. gen X vs. gen Z articles and social media posts you’ve seen
but they do the same shit all the time with different things. their aim is to split the working class into as many splinter groups as possible.
we need to stop letting the assholes in power divide us like this.
unfortunately, that means extending solidarity to people who haven’t earned it, including people who chose to vote for Trump.
most of these people were tricked and manipulated. many of them have been fed a steady diet of misinformation. many of them are proud, insufferable bigots.
but being smugly superior, insulting, rude or intolerant isn’t how we change people’s minds. the best way to do that is by having a two-way conversation.
we are all so busy yelling at eachother. it doesn’t work. we need solidarity.
Nah, fuck that. Trump voters are a minority. We don’t need them.
There is a reason every time FOX News brings Bernie Sanders in to debate socialism or some such tripe, he ends up converting the entire panel to his ideas and it turns into the hosts asking him questions about things they weren’t even aware of in terms of class divide.
Seriously, this is LITERALLY THE REASON WHY THEY ARE TRYING TO DIVIDE US WITH RACE. If we don’t realize that the very same deluded idiots who believe these lies are also our best bet for kicking the assholes out of government, we’re JUST as bad as they are. Yes, they are doing atrocious things and they are reprehensible.
But even if a magic genie appeared and gave us a new, amazing, socialist president who wanted to bring our country to the 24th century and beyond, we would STILL have to live next to the millions and millions of dumbfounded fools who will always believe the simpler story. Education may help, but not for generations. We have to work with the hand we’ve been dealt.
Start spreading the story that it’s rich versus poor, that it’s wealthy elites crushing us all, left or right, that we’re all being fooled and played against each other. Read up on economic distribution in the US and listen to some of Bernie’s speeches and take fucking notes. We CAN change this, but we have to make a better story for the morons to follow.
You cannot extend solidarity to people unwilling to recognize or engage with it. It’s the ratchet effect/overton window. We stand up for their rights, they don’t stand up when we exercise those same rights. Medication gets more expensive? Everyone is incensed. Viagra is taken off the expensive list, but HIV/birth control meds stay on it, where’d the outcry go? VA benefits slashed? Huge mobilization. Benefits for women’s shelters slashed? Crickets from them. We end up in a situation where only white men have rights because that’s the only time we’re all standing together. Until I see more white men fighting for women and minorities, I’m gonna have to ask why you think this strategy is working. (Obviously, #notAllMen or whatever)
hell yeah, great message, thanks for writing it up!
you should copy and paste it somewhere else so more people see it
In my real life I’m much more sympathetic. Even to the point of empathy exhaustion. But when it’s strangers online exponentially far away from me on the Dunbar scale, I laugh, ridicule and taunt.
This is my relief. Same way I’ll text a buddy and shit on him when his team is getting crushed in a game.
Empathy and class warfare are locked in a timeless battle anymore, but I think there’s still room to point at fucking idiots and enjoy their suffering. After all, they’d do the same for us.
i totally get that! we can’t all be perfect all the time, and i totally get that for some people they’ve just been hurt too much to ever have a shred of kindness or sympathy towards the people who are at least partially responsible for that pain
i just wish that people could be a bit less hateful, at least. reading the comments in this thread is honestly quite scary. i don’t like seeing just… pure hate, from people i would like to be allies with. it reminds me of the hate right-wingers have tbh
I think we’ve been pressure cooked as a country (speaking as an American as that’s my only real, long term reference) and maybe a society thanks to social media to amplify thay hate and outrage.
If its any small consolation, I think the communities around here are hurt and frustrated and learning how to express thay and navigate it in a space where immediate censorship isn’t as likely too occur.
Its a lot like the way we used to stretch our legs and push boundaries in the early Internet days. It wasn’t easy to get mod banned on most irc servers, but it did happen. In between those moments though, you could get away with saying some vile stuff.
Don’t take it to heart, take it as a vent in a place where we are somewhat protected from the hate speech the other side slings.
Didn’t they just say they’re not interested in a two way conversation? They want support from the people that they voted against the rights of/wills of, because I assure you, plenty of Rs are thinking their cushy fed job should never have existed, and they have no sympathy.
“Views on the impact of downsizing USAID divide sharply along partisan lines, with most Democrats and independents expecting more illness and death in low-income countries (91% and 69%, respectively), and most Republicans expecting positive impacts on domestic programs (72%) and the budget deficit (67%).”
don’t get me wrong - fuck that guy, he had a choice, and he chose the more harmful option.
but i mean, let’s be real, the guy got scammed/tricked by republicans into voting against his own interests, and now has to deal with that realization, plus the stress of losing his job, plus also now he has to listen to people saying “i told you so!”
there are two paths from there - admitting he was wrong, and doubling down. it’s hard to admit when you’re wrong, but it’s much easier when people are understanding and compassionate, and much much harder when people are making fun of your misfortune and having a “told ya so” victory lap
it’s really tempting to give in to the urge to clown on these people for bringing this shit on themselves, but these are the moments where a bit of compassion can change the world.
by all means, though, if it’s not for you, that’s totally understandable, i just hope you can kinda see where i’m coming from, even if you don’t agree
Honestly, irl I would be a bit more outwardly compassionate because there’d be a chance for a discussion, but we need to stop pretending like they “got scammed/tricked”. Trump readily and openly said he wanted to do a bunch of horrible things, and now he’s doing them. Even if you’re deep in right wing spaces and only seeing propaganda, he was not quiet about how he wanted to shut down whole government departments. He talked about how they needed to cut back on spending and to my recollection mentioned defunding the irs before the election (though it’s hazy because it’s been a blur), also closing the EPA and dept of education. Gotta give it to him that he’s doing a better job of keeping his campaign promises than the dems. The grown adults that voted for him had access to that information and were probably for it until it affected them personally. Not to mention that even if they were ok with personal job loss if it meant less govt spending, they still were either happy to or didn’t mind selling out literally every member of the LGBT community, every immigrant, POC, and women (not to mention the poor white men), just for this agenda.
Teachers that voted for Trump are upset about education cuts and like, HE SAID HE WAS GOING TO DO THAT. Here’s a SEPTEMBER 2024 article: https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/20/politics/department-of-education-shut-down-trump/index.html
How can you or anyone, including them, say they were tricked? The guy can’t stop saying the quiet part out loud. The best defense I have heard from them is that they thought “he wouldn’t actually be able to do that”, which if anything, makes them look even WORSE.
I’m not looking for a victory lap, I’m looking for even a shred that if Trump reverses the specific decision that affected them personally, that they would still take issue with him. I’ve seen some people do this, for what it’s worth, and they generally get a much warmer reception.
I’m so sick of (not you personally) people in general acting like his voters were little babies that didn’t know what they were doing, with no eyes or ears or access to the internet or even just his actual words on FOX news. It’s one thing to say that you didn’t understand tariffs (even though everyone in the world was telling you what they actually would do), but to be surprised when he fires government employees is absolutely beyond the pale. Uneducated Trump voters either did it for the racism or “the economy”, so either this guy is a racist and that’s why he lost his job (good, fuck racists) or he heard Trump say he was gonna cut government spending and he voted for his own firing (lol, lmao even). I cannot think of a reason this person should enjoy any compassion unless they are willing to own up to what they did. Otherwise, they’re either still just a racist who didn’t realize that voting for a racist would mean he’d be fired, or someone who is getting EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANTED when they cast their vote to lower government spending and apparently still support it except for the tiny little fact that it meant they’re out of a job.
Despite all of that, I want to reiterate that IRL I would be willing to engage in a non-hostile discussion with this person and not actively make fun of them. I would push back on their unwillingness to discuss it as a political issue and if they refused to budge about being willing to discuss it then I’d peace out. If you have the energy of the black guy befriending kkk members so they stop being racist, more power to you. I legitimately believe some people can be helped with that approach, but this guy wants to stick his head in the sand and if he got a bunch of laughing emoji reacts and didn’t wake up the next day, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. If you’re out there doing deradicalization, I think that’s great. There’s probably better uses for your time, but admittedly clowning on them instead is probably not one of them. (Sorry not sorry for the rant. Everything is terrible and typing on the internet gives me moments of reprieve from the reality of it all lol). Thanks for fighting the good fight, however you decide to fight it.
No, it does not mean extending solidarity to people who are ok with hurting everyone but themselves, they can go and fuck right off. So whatever solidarity you have in your mind, I for one won’t be a part of that
yeah. it’s not bad to help them incidentally-as a byproduct of helping everyone, but helping them specifically, even by extending a momentary gesture of compassion, is a moral failing.
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i totally get what you mean, and of course i would never ever push anyone into it. i just read some kinda dark comments in this thread and i wished that people would be a little more compassionate
i know they don’t deserve it, really - and i totally get how you can think of it as “aiding the enemy” or something.
but i genuinely believe that we can reduce harm just by being a bit more compassionate, a bit more patient, and a bit less aggressive
fascists believe that the world is polarized into “us” and “them”, and they believe that “them” would stop at nothing to destroy them.
just a simple act of compassion can show them that there are choices beyond destruction
I think once you get past a certain point on fascism, you can no longer adapt to material conditions. you can no longer become not-a-fascist. both because of sunk cost/ego investment/identity, but also because of the way they treat the very concept of facts.
no point in treating them like humans after that. they very much are not. they cannot be healed. they cannot be cured. everything they accuse others of, they are-this only applies to fascists, and things like them. I can call you a chainsaw juggling lizard person, and I will gain no new skills.
edit: yep, just checked. no new skills or scales.
I disagree. These are the people who call compassion the “woke mind virus” and they are takers. They live their entire lives taking from others because they think they deserve it. Yet fight against others receiving support and care.
Expend energy on people who give back instead.
thanks for your comment, i completely understand your perspective, but, you know, they say exactly the same kinda stuff about the people that they hate. it makes me uncomfortable seeing MAGA reflected in their enemies
something something gaze into the abyss something
I don’t care what they say because they’re liars. That’s the difference. There’s objectively no value in meeting liars half way. There’s no value in “hearing them out” and there’s no value in acting as though we just need to empathize harder.
They don’t care if they lie as long as it furthers their goal, they don’t care to hear what anyone else thinks, and they don’t have any interest in empathy. If any of my prior statements were false then we wouldn’t be where we are.
Your attempt to normalize Nazis is fucked up, to be honest. I am not a hateful person, I am done giving hateful people comfort. You should be ashamed for trying to equate the two concepts.
i totally get that, i really do. and if you don’t think it’s right for you, i fully respect that choice, and besides, some of us still need to be the “stick” so that the “carrot” gets put into perspective!
thanks for your reply! <3
Well, we have our differences, but - kudos to you for trying to make people more open and compassionate. It really matters
figure they aren’t down to be anarchists, requires too much forethought and consideration, but ask them if they would be cool to join the communists and fight for the rights of all workers. if they aren’t down for that, fuck em.
honestly, you never know - anyone can be brainwashed and radicalized, it’s not just something that happens to stupid people
i went through a little alt-right phase when i was younger, now i’m an anarchist i want to go back in time and kick my own ass.
people sometimes take strange, winding journeys to get where they’re going!
it’s not about brainwashing. I mean, that’s in there, but that’s not what makes fascists unrecoverable.
it’s about the way they consume information. hitler talked about how you should read books; by basically skimming and cherry picking things that support your world view, and discarding the rest of the ‘junk’. if all information-all of reality-is consumed that way, you cannot fix them, you cannot heal them, except with a bullet.
there is time between “lol i named my account baskedkekhitler1488” and this, but once they reach that point, and once they have done enough horrible shit that they would have to reconcile with being a good person, they cannot be human again.
So, you went from one delusional worldview to another?
Everyone is the product of their environment, etc.
I get that, and I try, but keeping down so much bile is taxing. Any advice for that?
first of all, don’t put too much pressure on yourself, it’s really tough to hold back sometimes. if you can’t hold it back, that’s okay! sometimes, people do need to be told when they’re being cunts sometimes.
but what does help me a bit is really going all-in on the “kill with kindness” thing, really just turning on all the southern charm and hokum. i find playing that character to be quite funny, so it feels less like i’m being taken for a ride, it’s more like i have a private joke.
also, i think it really helps to find some common ground, even for some of the worst people imaginable, they’ll usually say at least something you agree with, even if it’s something silly, like you both like the same video game - i always start with the common ground, people are way more receptive when you open with “yes, i agree with you, and…”, that’s honestly been really effective for me.
if you look through my history you’ll find plenty of evidence of me not taking my own advice. but i’m trying, and i’m trying to bring others with me
i don’t think we all need to be perfect, if we can all just try a little bit
I’m in a comment chain with you elsewhere in this post, but I’ve seen you responding a lot and though I think anyone unwilling to push a “fascists go poof forever” button is part of the problem, it seems like you really believe in positivity and I have to commend you for that. Best of luck with the deradicalization effort. Really hope you’re taking care of yourself.
I like you. You’re a nice person.
thank you! i try my best, but i don’t always succeed!