this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2024
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it really says all it needs to that dems are trying to get MORE people to vote, and GOP are trying to PREVENT as many people as possible from voting
Lets all remember that time one of the largest pop stars in the world gave a message to her fans on stage to remember to vote, and was instantly targeted by the GOP for being anti-american, and they started a beef with her that would drive thousands of people against the right.
How does anyone not see it and get what's happening? I feel like you would have to have eaten ALL the crazy pills for this to make sense.
I keep repeating this, and people don't like to hear it, but 75% of American Adults identify as religious, 68% as Christian.
The majority of Americans are willing to discard logic, reason, and evidence in favor of believing in an imaginary man in the sky. These aren't usually simple spiritual belief systems either, these are complex religious, historical, and social belief systems the rely entirely on "faith" to believe - or to believe it because you were told to, not because there are any real-world reasons to give these beliefs validity. The beliefs that the majority of Americans believe in range from "demonstrably false" to "having no evidence", and yet people believe in these things with their whole hearts.
With the most devout (read: immovably stubborn) Christians concentrated on the right, it is no surprise at all that the far-right is completely divorced from reality. Republicans treat their political views like they are a matter of faith already. They believe, despite the lack of any evidence of it, that Jesus Christ personally supports their party and their candidates.
Now, inevitably someone will chime in here to say "but Todd, I believe in the almighty skydaddy, are you saying that I am stupid?". Yes, I certainly am. My point here is that the further disconnected from reality we get, the worse our decisions get, and if you believe that there is a supernatural entity watching you from the sky deciding whether or not to torture you with fire, you are disconncted from reality and I trust you less than I would someone that doesn't believe obviously fake shit.
I don't see it changing anytime soon. If I may go off on a tangent.
If any of us have gained anything of material use from the "AI revolution" it wouldn't be plagiarized drawings of Taylor Swift as an anthropomorphic fox with six breasts, it would be the dawning realization that we're not so special.
If so many of us can be tricked with a predictive text app into believing something is aware and alive, a technology in its infancy, what are the next several decades going to look like?
I don't believe in the AI hype, the "singularity" subreddit is packed with the most delusional people in the world. And they sound exactly like Christians, Trump supporters or scientologists or any other cult.
It's inherent to our experience here, that our brains trick us into thinking that thinking is special, that our conscious experience is somehow separated from the universe.
The harsh reality is it's not separate from the world. Most of our decisions are made up to an hour in advance, most of our life is rehearsed by parts of your brain that don't talk, that don't narrate. You are made of thousands of layers of "entities" that sort and assemble information and then make you think you're able to control the world around you with something called "choice."
So now, understanding these hard truths about the human condition... when will it get better? When will we start to set aside superstition and fear and mythology to make us feel better about that gnawing fear we all have, the one lingering in the backs of all our minds that we can't quite touch, the fear that we really aren't in control, we really aren't that special. We made cities, but can ants. We travel in space but so can fungus. We go to war with each other but so do chimps.
We are not letting go of religion or mysticism. Not in our current form. Maybe if we're really, really lucky some of the most delusional techbros are right, and we will have a system in our lifetimes for "upgrading" our brains and expanding our ability to comprehend and understand each other. I am not holding my breath though. These are the same people who tried to convince us that NFT's were the future.
Right?!
Like...even if you had no idea what either party stood for, or what positions they took on the various specific issues that concern the population in the present, all you really need to know is how a democracy works in theory, how presidential elections work in the US in practice (and by extension, how these two things differ, thanks to the Electoral College)...and where each party stands on voting rights, voting access, districting (and gerrymandering)...and as a dark horse...public education.
One side wants as many people as possible to get out and vote (and while they obviously hope they'll vote Democrat, most of their messaging, to their credit, is focused not on 'go vote for us', but instead 'the most important thing is that you get out there and vote'), wants to make sure that everybody who wants to vote is able to do so, has no roadblocks, hoops to jump through, bureaucratic red tape, etc., wants every voter across the country to have a voice equal to every other voter, and wants everyone to have a good (and improving) baseline of education, as a foundation upon which to make an informed decision about their voting.
The other side wants to suppress the vote, wants to disallow voting by default unless the individual takes steps to prove themselves, wants to introduce obstacles to voting access, wants to maintain and perpetuate a system where some voters have disproportionately more impact than others on the overall results (a system which, by the way, has much of its origins in the political maneuverings of slaveholders)...and most telling (and disturbing) of all, in the long term, actively, directly, and overtly makes efforts to reduce and degrade the quality of public education, literally seeking to reduce access to quality education for anyone not fortunate enough to be born into a family with the means to provide for a private education.
Seen to its logical conclusion, one side is literally seeking to revert decades if not centuries of progress on education and return to a situation where an education (and the opportunity it provides) is a privilege reserved for the children of affluence, where wealth, opportunity, class mobility, and professional occupations are reserved and exclusive to the wealthy, and in effect secured to them and their future generations indefinitely. And the best part (for them) is that once this happens, the future generations of uneducated lower and middle classes won't have the education to understand what's being done to them, or how it might be different.
i couldn't have said it better.
but don't forget to include that one side chose to employ fake electors
one side staged an insurrection at the capitol to try to overturn the entire election process
even ignoring all the fraud, adultering, rape, pornstar hush money, criminal negligence, theft of classified documents, and everything else their wannabe dictator cult leader did, the 2 things above really tell you all you need to know about republicans
And the side that actually, verifiably tried to use fake electors to subvert the will of the people (even against the stacked deck of the electoral system that benefits their side)...is also the side that loves to spread constant (and constantly disproven) lies about their opponents' voter fraud.
Like...even if I agreed with their platform on the issues, the GOP would still not get my vote based on the way they try to get that vote...in order to gain power...to realize their goal...of getting to a point where my vote loses its power.