Comment by daft_pink

> I’m pretty sure that they weren’t voting for those candidates for the express purpose of stripping away those rights and there were other policies and values that they were voting for.

I thought the GOP was pretty clear throughout the election cycle, from President to local office, that their desired world can only come to be through a drastic restructuring of the Constitutional status quo ante.

I don’t know that “I only voted for (e.g.) tax cuts, everything else is collateral damage and I’m not culpable for it,” is a defensible moral stance.

> I’m pretty sure that they weren’t voting for those candidates for the express purpose of stripping away those rights and there were other policies and values that they were voting for.

Voting for a party explicitly demonstrates at least acceptance of if not outright support for its platform. You don't get to absolve yourself of support for kicking puppies because the FooBar party also includes a modest tax cut in its policy agenda that you really want.

It doesn't matter if the opposing party advocates for raising taxes or even eating kittens.

That's true even if realistically, there are no other parties capable of winning. You can support a third party, abstain out of protest, or even begin a grass-roots campaign to start yet another party. You can even try changing the FooBar party from within, so long as you don't vote for them until sufficient change has occurred.

First you try to argue tolerance and understanding, and then you say that "most pro-Palestine views are antisemitic" and that you cut off all contact with people who hold those views. Your hypocrisy is astounding and you should be embarrassed.

I totally get where you're coming from. But regardless of their reason for voting for a candidate, if the net effect is that 150m+ women lost rights and other horrible outcomes, it's the same as endorsing it.

But.. You're going against your own principles here, you can't say that purity test bad and then have a purity test yourself.

> than applying purity tests to your friends and family

It's more about watching people pivot towards unquestionable evil. "Empathy is a sin" is such a deep, dark line in the sand. I'm not going to just stand there and watch you cross it.

I think there is value in trying to understand the other "tribe". If for nothing else, then for practical reasons in figuring out how to defeat the other tribe at the next encounter.

I also think especially in today's political environment, political beliefs at least partially reflect an individual's core values. In some cases I may not want to associate with people that have fundamentally opposing core values to my own. For example this guy's interviews with his parents: https://www.tiktok.com/@thenecessaryconversation

> I’m pretty sure that they weren’t voting for those candidates for the express purpose of stripping away those rights and there were other policies and values that they were voting for

I don't know, man. If they're really your friends, those should be non-negotiable.

Didn't these friends and family essentially apply purity tests to us?

I've cut off my aunt who still claims the 2020 election was stolen. The data I worked with to support fragile communities was removed/altered in the transition (CDC Social Vulnerability Index). I've already lost my job in the federal purge. I have a [former] coworker who was born intersexed that cannot be legally recognized by the government. I'll likely lose my right to marry due to my aunt's beliefs. My boyfriend will likely lose access to lifesaving medication with cuts to funding. My grandma is paying for hospice care with social security and claiming Trump is fixing the country. I'm renewing my passport; several friends have already left the country.

> I’m pretty sure that they weren’t voting for those candidates for the express purpose of stripping away those rights and there were other policies and values that they were voting for.

I'm sure there were people who voted for the Republican party in the last USA election for purely economic reasons. However, "anti-woke" policies were absolutely the most important issue for a lot of people. Just this week the attorney general in my state posted an "April Fool's Day Joke" where the "joke" was him standing next to a LGBT flag.

Most views on Palestine are just different priorities or different viewpoints too. You can equally say that not all support for Trump is rooted in misogyny and xenophobia, but most is. Perhaps you should not recommend that other people engage in such tolerance when you won’t.

> I’m pretty sure that they weren’t voting for those candidates for the express purpose of stripping away those rights and there were other policies and values that they were voting for.

Well, Alabama outlawed abortion except for life of the mother. A federal judge had to rule that the state can't prosecute doctors and reproductive health organizations for helping patients travel out of the state to obtain abortions. The Project 2025 plan is for the Republican controlled Congress to at some point pass the most restrictive federal abortion law they can get away with.

That is stripping away the rights of women to choose. There are many religious conservatives who support this.

> I’m pretty sure that they weren’t voting for those candidates for the express purpose of stripping away those rights and there were other policies and values that they were voting for.

In some markets, about one third of the entire Trump campaign advertising was fear-mongering about how dangerous LGBTQ people are. They wouldn't have spent so much on this if they didn't think it was a uniquely important to their constituents.

I think you're unequivocally wrong if you don't think that Conservatives in the US are above voting for a single issue.

I don't know enough about the Palestine/Israel conflict to be able to make an informed opinion on it, so I won't comment on that.

> I think essentially tolerating other peoples opinions and trying to understand where they are coming from is more useful than applying purity tests to your friends and family.

Most of the time this is just being an enabler, who excuses, makes up rationales and blames "the other side" for not being nice enough to extremists. Especially when we talk with about fascist close groups. People who say this achieve only limitations on the opposition to extremists. They rarely or never manage to move extremist into the center.

> I’m pretty sure that they weren’t voting for those candidates for the express purpose of stripping away those rights and there were other policies and values that they were voting for.

Why are you so sure? There are plenty of conservatives who openly talk about it. It is not being tolerant when you decide that no one is allowed to do that observation. You are not being neutral here, you are biasing the discussion toward the extremism when you do it.

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> I’m pretty sure that they weren’t voting for those candidates for the express purpose of stripping away those rights and there were other policies and values that they were voting for.

Sure. But this is that age-old meme: You know those people (most people?) in 1930s Germany who supported the Nazi party but they perhaps weren't really for annexations and genocide. You know what they call those people? Nazis.

People who voted for Trump are responsible for the fate of Ukraine, the demise of Nato, the fallout with Canada and Mexico, the inevitable inflation and economic turmoil of tariffs etc. And that's of course even if they only voted for Trump because they hold "traditional republican values", or because of single issues like gun rights, migration or taxes.

> tolerance is necessary

Tolerance stops at intolerance. You can never tolerate intolerance. Apart from that, politics also relies on a few fundamental things like the reliance on facts and experts, and respect for the rule of law. Obviously you can't ever tolerate "politics" which starts to tamper with either of these. Luckily I can keep a tribe which consists of people who agree with this, which can vote for any party in my parliament, and is 98% of the population. I'd hate to be in the US though where the tribes cut down the middle of the population.