Serious answers only. For over a year I was told that trump “doesn’t have anything to do with that”.
I honestly need to know from an actual Republican who believed trumps words and is now witnessing p2025 almost hit 50% completion with the department of education getting dismantled.
And with that; how do these people feel that public schools, daycare centers and tech schools all going to cost 3-6x as much as it does now for tuition?
However they’re told to feel
Oh no, the lying liar who is best known for lying about literally everything lied and gullible people believed it (or conveniently ignored it, or didn’t care or thought it was just peachy because they thought it wouldn’t apply to them and were perfectly fine with it applying to other people)? Who could possibly have predicted that? Oh wait, I think literally every left wing person in the US predicted that.
Just for some perspective: in 2009 I was a Christian nationalist and I thought Obama was going to use FEMA to imprison conservative dissenters and would turn the US into a communist dictatorship. I hoped and prayed for an explicitly Christian government and an end to most federal programs. If I had the same worldview now, I would be orgasmically happy with the way things are going.
How in the name of sweet baby imaginary white Jesus did you get out of that mindset!?
I wrote a novel in reply to the same question asked by HarkMahlberg above.
Not the person you replied to but I also used to be a hardcore Christian convertitive.
Honestly just talking to people with different viewpoints than me. Back when Reddit was decent I would troll with conservative BS to get a rise out of commenters, but occasionally people would reply with points I couldn’t refute. Making IRL friends helped a lot too. I realized people actually have nuance in their opinions and there’s a lot more gray area than I realized. Leaving relgion was the last step for me. Once my identity was no longer my beliefs I was able to change them.
Its part of what scares me about the internet now, we all get locked in little echo chambers. Nobody’s viewpoints get challanged and there’s no honest debate any more. Defederated social media will only make it worse as there will be 10,000 different Lemmys, each one for an exactly specific set of beliefs that will never be questioned.
What denomination, primarily, were you? Did you manage to get anyone out with you? (I was unable.)
I’ve been part of several denominations: fundie baptist, charismatic, Lutheran, Eastern Orthodox. I’m now a bit of a free agent, but I attend a UMC when I’m feeling up to it.
Pray tell what changed your view?
I’m going to test the character limit for a Lemmy comment.
My views on religion and politics have evolved a lot over the years. I hope I remain open enough to continue to change and grow. I can think of several touchstone moments, people, events, podcasts, and books that have influenced my departure from religious fundamentalism and political conservatism. There was a book I read as a child, a skeptical professor in college, a compassionate neighbor, a contrarian friend, a challenging podcast, an insistent and feisty little girl, spiritual slavery, and a God who didn’t listen to a community in pain. It’s a story of exposure to new ideas.
I was brought up to be a fundamentalist baptist. I was faithful to the only baptist creed: “Don’t drink, don’t smoke, I’m don’t chew, and don’t run with those who do.” Well, I suppose there were additional “don’ts “ like dancing, swearing, listening to worldly music, and watching rated R movies, but those items don’t fit into a nice little rhyme. Anyway, when I was a kid, one of my relatives had a book called The Handbook of Denominations. I found it and spent an afternoon looking at it, having my mind blown. To that point, it had never really occurred to me that there were Christians who were not baptists. This primed me to pursue relationships in middle school and high school with people who believed differently from me. I thought the heathen kids were wrong and disobeying God’s word, but they were interesting. I had friends who were LDS, Catholic, Charismatic, even atheists. I enjoyed a wide exposure to ideas while my church mates were cloistered.
In college, I took Biblical Hebrew. The professor was a secular Jew. His breakdown of the wild poetic imagery in Genesis 1 exploded my fundamentalist idea that it was literal history. Throughout the class, we were to visit synagogues and report on our observations. This exposure to a different way of worship impacted me deeply. I saw people earnestly believing and praying in a way different from me, yet with the same sincerity and conviction.
When my wife and I started our family, we had an elderly neighbors who were life-long Roman Catholics. Throughout my life, the Catholics I had met only went to church on Christmas and Easter, drank, cursed, and fornicated, and were generally indistinguishable from the heathen around me. I saw them as not-serious idol worshippers, doomed to eternal hellfire. My neighbors were different. They were the kindest, most generous people I had ever met. Even now, years later, I tear-up thinking about their sweetness toward us, a struggling young family. It was like living across the street from Jesus Himself. They brought us meals, helped with home repairs, watched our kids, bought clothes and toys, and so much more I can’t remember. Their love turned the tables on the Protestant reformation for me. I didn’t convert, but I started to realize in every group there can be shitty people, ordinary people, and beautiful people.
During Obama’s first term, as I mentioned above, I was a Christian nationalist. AS far as I can remember, one single comment from a trusted friend and mentor upset my political apple cart. After a Bible study, I asked my friend if he had seen some story about the President on Fox News. He said, “I don’t watch that crap. He’s my brother in Christ, and I don’t appreciate a bunch of talking heads telling me to hate my brother.” That was a watershed moment. My friend was politically conservative and religiously extreme. I respected him and that put a lot of weight behind his words.
Another trusted friend recommended a podcast for entertainment’s sake where the hosts talked about their shared experiences in a fundamentalist religious upbringing and current-day divergence while getting drunk. I saw how two people can keep a close friendship despite holding different views; in this case, Catholicism and agnosticism. They also spoke favorably about Obama and when 2016 rolled around, they were huge fans of Bernie Sanders. I strongly related to their experiences and their left-leaning political views were challenging at first, then contagious. In 2016, for the first time, I did not vote straight republican down the ballot.
In my adult life, I have been a member or regular attender of five different Christian denominations. Some of these changes were quite significant and involved catechism and re-baptism. I’m always searching for answers.
Once upon a time, I was an Eastern Orthodox Christian. For many years. This is a culturally conservative and religiously fundamentalist expression of Christianity. The church has strict gender roles, especially within its rituals. Women are permitted to teach the children and perform domestic duties. In some Orthodox denominations, women may serve as cantors and choir directors. Women are prohibited from serving at the altar. They cannot even enter the sacred space surrounding the altar. After services one day, a few groups of people lingered, talking. They were mostly parents, as there was to be a short altar server class. When the priest announced it was time for altar server class to begin and for all the boys to meet him at the front of the church, a girl, maybe seven years old, declared excitedly, “can I go? I want to be an altar server!” The priest, caught off-guard answered “no, I’m sorry.” “Why not?” “We can talk about it when you’re older,” the priest replied nervously, looking at her dad for backup. This little exchange stuck with me. It seemed inappropriate that a child’s enthusiasm for wanting to feel helpful and important was squashed simply because she had the wrong biological equipment. This was the beginning of the end of my religious fundamentalism.
I had exercised my rights as a male in the Orthodox Christian denomination and performed vital roles in services for many years. I’m going to be brief here because the community is small and I am protective of my anonymity online. I was pressured to serve the church and be available for every service (at minimum three per week) on a volunteer basis. Although I became exhausted and frustrated, to entertain thoughts of quitting was considered spiritual weakness. This was an especially damaging time for my spiritual life.
While I was involved with this church, a tragic incident occurred in a nearby rural community. A mother was home with her four-year-old son and put him down for an afternoon nap. She also fell asleep on the couch. When she awoke, her son was nowhere to be found. She searched the house and property, called neighbors, and eventually called law enforcement for help. By the evening, dozens of friends, family, and neighbors were out looking for the boy. It was spring and the nights were still dangerously cool for a boy in pajamas. Word spread on social media and churches prayed earnestly for the boy and his family. I was especially touched because I had young children. The boy was found two days later, dead from exposure, lying in a ditch just 100 yards from the house. Many people had probably walked right past him. I hated God for that. This was a catalyst for my investigation into whether I believed in a personal God who actively intervened in his creation.
TL;DR: My faith and politics changed over a period of 10-15 years from Christian Nationalist and religious fundamentalist to progressive agnostic through exposure to new ideas, often introduced to me by people I trusted.
Wow… That’s quite the journey. Thank you for sharing it.
It’s particularly enlightening is that the diversity of information presented to you is what helped you change. Not just one “gotcha” quote from some online commenter, one snippy remark about a noticeable hypocrisy. Not one source of disruption, but many. I think that’s fascinating, and extremely helpful for those of us with family who only get their news and opinions and politics from one place.
Again, thanks for telling your story.
Reality
I’d also be interested in hearing about how you changed your views.
I wrote a novel in reply to HarkMahlberg above.
Not even trying to be mean but probably themself or someone they know personally got hurt.
Yep. That crowd never changes until they are directly impacted somehow.
You do see that quite a bit in “ex” subreddits. Personal experience can shake anyone’s views, not just “that crowd.” Spiritual abuse played a role in pushing me away from religious fundamentalism, but there were other factors that laid the groundwork. The process took years and key elements involved a mind-expanding book, two compassionate friends, a podcast, and a local news story that showed me God was quite a bit different than I thought he was. I’ll write the book about it under another comment.
This is very common, but was not the reason for my worldview change.
Not necessarily. In my case, psychedelics played a huge role in finally making everything click.
Oh, hey. That whole mind expanding thing really isn’t a joke. I look back, sometimes, on who I used to be.
Most are fine with it. Remember the people that died of covid denying it existed the whole time? That’s the type. They’re dumb af.
Not quite about just project 2025 but Nate Silver from what used to be 538 has Trump aggregated disapproval rating at 49.8% as of 03/20/25. That up from 40% in 2 months.
Source: https://www.natesilver.net/p/trump-approval-ratings-nate-silver-bulletin
Nate silver showed he was full of shit in 2016. Idk why anyone still listens to him.
People who have never experienced oppression just thinking it’s business as usual.
Wearing a mask ain’t oppression either 😂
That’s part of the problem, a lot of people don’t realize they are the oppressors
The other part is the ones that do.
What do we call the Herman cain award now?
i forgot about that haha.
And all of those people who had family die from covid and still thought masks were a form of thought control
Republicans lie. As any fascist party, they don’t have any consistent ideology beyond hurting people. They’ll invent whatever reasoning and justification they need to justify their bullying, and they’ll immediately abandon that reason for another convenient excuse when necessary.
Republicans lie. They knew damn well what Project 2025 was, and they were in favor of all of it. When they said Trump had nothing to do with it, they were lying. Republicans ultimately don’t care what happens to society, or even themselves personally. They would gladly vote to lower the quality of their own lives, as long as the undesirables were hurt in equal measure.
Honestly we knew that, even if Trump wasn’t involved, the people around him were. Y’all are too gullible. Even today I see posts on Lemmy about “Elon did this, Trump did that”, pure noise draining out the real news that happens once or twice a week.
Religious conservatives love project 2025. Most Republicans are Religious, so they love it.
Religious conservatives love project 2025. Most Republicans are
Religiousbrainwashed Christofascists, so they love it.I approve of this edit
Really, already 50%!?
Closer than you might think. 41%
You’re very unlikely to get a response from a Republican on Lemmy
I don’t expect them, either, but normal people might come in and share their experiences with Republicans.
“What do you mean you arent forced into 2 sentences max and have to structure your thoughts ??2?”
More like “how do I make an account? I give up. Fucking immigrants ruining my signup process”.
Truth.
Some will call Lemmy an echo chamber. Personally, I don’t give a damn. Sharing platforms with far-right lunatics is a deeply unpleasant experience.
Exluding intolerance doesn’t result in an echo chamber.
I don’t need dumbass opinions in any chamber I’m occupying, Republicans can stay gone for all I care
I like to fuck with em when I can. Keep the space hostile to them, it worked for punk bars it works for us.
Shout out to Turbohaüs in Montreal
Keep the space hostile to them, it worked for punk bars it works for us.
That was a confusing URL
I do have to agree with that.
I like to fuck with em when I can. Keep the space hostile to them, it worked for punk bars it works for us.
Heh come make a meme or 2 on !conservative@lemmy.world though I will admit it’s a tad less fun without actual conservatives to downvote, but it’s still fun lolol
I don’t mean to criticize what you’ve done with the place, but I do think it might’ve been interesting to have something that purported to be a sincere community for conservatives but that wasn’t moderated as a ‘safe space’ for them.
A honey pot?
It would be one thing if we were debating different ways to solve health care, education, incarceration, mental health, homelessness, wealth inequality, or something else.
While I personally think the right is wrong in their solutions I’d be happy to debate them.
But the right isn’t talking about these issues or solutions for them. You can’t have a debate when you’re talking about two completely different things.
Not just different things, but whether those things even exist
Like, I’m all about debating the best approaches to fighting climate change. I’m not about debating whether it exists.
You can’t debate solutions when you disagree about what the problem is
Especially when they think your views are the problem.
As much as I can understand your point, it’s a truth that if you can argue against your beliefs, you have a full understanding of both sides. You should be well versed in order to provide a solid understanding. Just as one side wants the other to hear reason, there has to be a common ground somewhere.
That’s fantastic advice. Every now and then you gotta check yourself. Those MAGA folks don’t know they’re brainwashed, and honestly, neither would any of us. Nobody is too smart for propaganda!
Oh great Garfield of the lasagna, share with us your wisdom.
But my government says that I am.
Those MAGA folks don’t know they’re brainwashed, and honestly, neither would any of us.
I challenge this line of reasoning. All that is required is asking the question “is that true?”, then attempting to answer that question. There are very few modern conservative talking points that cannot be riddled with holes via 10 min of googling. I understand that people of western society have had our attention robbed of us, but all that is required is a desire to know the truth. They don’t. They want to have an interesting story that triggers their emotions. I will not abide apologies for anyone still supporting the MAGA agenda.
Oh for sure. I did a deep dive into Fox News to try to understand where they were coming from and it’s all just blatant bullshit. And I honestly tried to find at least one valid argument that I probably wouldn’t agree with.
Just gotta check every now and then.
Understanding the other side doesn’t mean there will be a common ground. Understanding nazis doesn’t mean there is common ground to share with them.
Welllllllll, you’re probably right. I hope you’re right. But, just to be on the safe side of sane, please allow me to recommend this nicely-made retrospective about the 2001 film portraying the Wannsee conference, for your cerebral pleasure.
The problem is literally that people keep labeling anything slightly right of genderqueer marxist-lenninist a “nazi”. There’s plenty of common ground between what Lemmy considers a “Nazi” and actual Nazis.
Did you lived under a rock for the last two months??? The Republican are literally nazis. They are doing nazi salute at their rally, Deporting people to camp, Censuring scientific paper that disagree with them, Actively trying to genocide at least one group of person, dismantling law and order in the usa, Ect…
If you think we can have common ground with these people that say a lot about your political views… (And please “everything slightly right of genderqueer Marxist leninist” was absolutely pathetic. First its completely hypocrite, people using the word nazi is too much for you but the people you dont like are Communist? And further more … I mean yeah people who think we should prevent genderqueer people from existing are at the very least Nazi aligned "
We’re not talking about the politicians here, we’re talking about individuals in society who aren’t responsible for the things you point out. Normal people who visit Lemmy.
Nobody is calling anyone communist, it was used as an anchor point for the reference in the political spectrum. Hell, the word communist wasn’t even used, you’re putting words into my mouth.
The word “Nazi” has been devalued so much because of how easily the word is thrown around. It’s slapped onto anyone and everyone who doesn’t agree with wildly out of touch values commonly put forth on Lemmy.
Politics isn’t black and white. It’s not even a fucking spectrum. It’s a multi-thorned spider graph with an incredible number of facets surrounding everything from Employment, to Belief Systems, to Social Safety, and many other things. To immediately label anyone and everyone who doesn’t hit FULL FUCKING TILT on all of your issues a “Nazi” just means you’re not mature enough to have an adult conversation about the topic and that you’re living in a bubble of unreality.
We have more in common than we disagree on. The first step is not throwing a tantrum like a god damn child.
And very unlikely to get a serious response about P2025. They just have no response
Don’t kid yourself, they’re here. Make sure they know they aren’t welcome.
Even if you got a response it will likely not be genuine. They’d rather save face than say they were wrong.
I like it like that.
Schools won’t cost 3-6x as much stupid LIBTARD! Schools will cost 3-6x as much and your Taxes will be Raised to pay for the CEOs Mansion STUPID COMMIE!
That sounds about right
You were lied to, unfortunately. Project 2025 was always their plan, and as you’re seeing now, they’re going full steam ahead with it. The best thing you can do now is learn from this mistake. Don’t trust what politicians tell you they want, or tell you they’re doing; see for yourself what they’re actually doing.
By the way, you’re going to get responses from like 95% leftists since it’s lemmy. Doesn’t mean they’re wrong though.
What? Bro I voted for Harris lmao. I’m also a wannabe Canadian, don’t like this country.
The period is tripping everyone up lmao
I honestly need to know. From an actual Republican who believed trumps words
Fair lol. I try to type how I would speak so it’s meant to be a pause
What kind of a moron believes anything a politician says, especially a openly fascist cunt
Like 80% of the US apparently
They don’t think Trump and Musk are doing anything wrong. When quizzed they’ll ask you to name anything they’ve done wrong.
Everything Trump and Musk are doing is guised in Libertarian and Conservative values.So nothing wrong has been done on their eyes.
If you go places like r/JordanPeterson (to ask) and r/Conservative to observe the media landscape - you’ll see that “The Woke” are wrong and have turned violent against Tesla. You’ll see Trump and Musk are thought of as doing great things.
That’s how they think. They’re not in the same media landscape as everyone else is.
That’s how they think. They’re not in the same media landscape as everyone else is.
This is literally the cause of all our issues. Fucking propagandists creating an alternate “reality” for Magoos to exist within where they are the good guys fighting the evil evil communist far left scum.
I can blame a Magoo for being so susceptible to hate filled ppropaganda, but I really REALLY fucking despise the propagandists with every fiber of my being. If there were ever a group of people that deserved a firing squad it would be those like Sean Hannity who know exactly what they’re doing…
But they also think you’re in an alternative reality because of “leftist reactionaries” over blowing things in the media. Some of them would probably go as far to say that “We need anti-propaganda laws against the left wing media”…
…the problem for the left is, the right wing “alternative facts, alternative media landscape” is unfortunately MORE REAL in a legal sense because they own SCOTUS, and SCOTUS want to institute Unitary Executive theory… Which is what they’re doing.
It’s a very clean sounding bunch of words for a kind of fascism.
When quizzed they’ll ask you to name anything they’ve done wrong.
Why is this a thing? I’ve seen that so many times. “Oh yeah, well name Trump’s indictments” as if they got a trump card.
And, well… uhh there’s a summary right here. What do they expect? Secret knowledge? As if pretending nobody knows that they are gives them leverage? I don’t understand.
They’ll say a mix of “He’s clearly not guilty because nothing stuck! Teflon Don!” and “You shouldn’t go after politicians personal lives” and “Sucks for you he’s President now! You’re just a sore loser.”
…that might make you mad, which they enjoy.
I asked my MAGA coworker whether he thought Trump broke the law in the hush money case, and his response was “she should have kept her trap shut”.
Tell them research into women’s medical conditions (like endometrial cancer) is no longer allowed. I’d love to know how they’d spin that one as positive.
The problem is their spin isn’t designed to be positive or have mass appeal. It’s designed to create fervent followers who are desperate for something different and a sense they’re winning.
In your example I believe the response for them would be something along the lines of “Good, women shouldn’t be getting special treatment anyways - END DEI !!!”
Even though this means men are getting special treatment. Because research into prostrate cancer, for example, hasn’t been banned.
I think it’s so funny that Republicans have found this magical loophole to excuse just about any action by just saying it’s woke. The second anything is called woke, it instantly must be destroyed and there’s no disputing it because it is just simply too woke. Shit at this point I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Trump said that zelensky and Ukraine has gone woke and they will send military aid to Russia to stop them
This administration is woke …
Fuck, that didn’t work.
they’re not going to “snap out of it”. what he does for them isn’t the point. he could personally fire each and every Republican and fuck every one of their wives but as long as he’s a big tough guy triggering the libz, it’s all fine. this is just 21st century politics now.
Dang. At least in Black Mirror 21st century politics got to be shadow-ruled by an animated blue dog puppet, which took a modicum of the edge off the oppression.
I remember finding that episode annoying when it first came out.
I watched it again after 2016, and boy did I view it differently.
Why do you ask this question here? Do you actually want to know?
I don’t know anything about it. What is it? I guess it’s got some good stuff in. But I wouldn’t endorse it. Whatever it is.
some good stuff
If you want to live in medieval time with your wife/servant, sure.
