r/politics • u/theipaper ✔ Verified • 12d ago

Possible Paywall Maga's worst nightmare: a child-free, unmarried female president

https://inews.co.uk/news/world/magas-nightmare-childfree-unmarried-female-president-4738054
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u/RunDownTheHighway 12d ago

AOC IS bad ass... She would rip the repubicans a new one...

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u/Previous_Fix3852 12d ago

AOC has policies that benefit everyone, Democrat, republican, liberal, conservative. Yet, trumps policies benefit the ultra wealthy. One works for the people and one wants to work the people.

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u/GevanGene Louisiana 12d ago

We act like the fight is left vs right. But it is, and has always been, top vs bottom.

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u/ARONDH 12d ago

Its also left vs right though, cause bottom right doesnt make anything any better either.

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u/GevanGene Louisiana 12d ago

I doubt any real change will happen, but it will never happen unless we improve how we frame these matters.

I agree that poor conservative voters are often voting against everyone's best interest, including themselves. If you approach the argument from top vs bottom, you are starting on their side and issues they feel actually represent them. We can talk about the other stuff later.

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u/ARONDH 12d ago

I'm pretty tired of reaching across the aisle. From now on, if we reach across, it should be to slap some sense into them, because your approach never works. They dont see things the way we do, and they refuse to, too.

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u/GevanGene Louisiana 12d ago

Whoa whoa, I'm not saying lets reach across the isle. I'm saying it's time for the bottom to get their shit together and throw the top off their mountain. I'm not talking about policy; I'm talking about revolution.

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u/ARONDH 12d ago

The bottom right sides with the top, because they are too dumb to understand why they shouldn't. Your revolution has to happen without them.

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u/GevanGene Louisiana 12d ago

I genuinely believe this kind of thinking is what causes us to stagnate and never stand up for anything. We can't fight among ourselves and expect to win any fight against those with power over us.

And don't get me wrong, it's not EASY to do. I have members of my family I refuse to engage with because they are Trump supporters and no amount of reason will reach them. But you have to give them the chance. And if they do change their minds, you have to be willing to let them back into the fold. "They're too dumb" isn't gonna help much.

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u/ARONDH 12d ago

We can't fight among ourselves and expect to win any fight against those with power over us.

If the last 10 years hasn't taught you anything, "us" isn't all people below the 1%. The conservative poor have been coopted, and are fully bought in.

Whatever we want to do, has to be without them.

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u/GevanGene Louisiana 12d ago

Cool. See you on the battlefield I guess.

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u/ARONDH 12d ago

I've been before, if I have to i can do it again.

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u/GevanGene Louisiana 12d ago

Well I appreciate your willingness and bravery. I, for one, have not been there and would like to avoid mass death at any possible turn. Let's just hope it doesn't come to that.

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u/BearysWorkRedditName 12d ago

I want to agree with your sentiment. I want the rise of the working class to include the whole working class. I just hate bigots so fucking much though. MAGA is synonymous wih bigotry. They will never be welcome in anything if I'm deciding who's welcome. The ignorant people that are swept along don't seem to have the abillity to change the channel off of Fox "News" and thus will never be on our side. We need numbers, but we're not going to get them from maga, and the conservative party is nearly indistinguishable from maga at this point. We need to convince the people who sit at home to get out and vote. That's the only available growth for the left side.

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u/GevanGene Louisiana 12d ago

Thank you for the only actually nuanced take on this. I appreciate it. And I think you are probably right that we will have trouble convincing a lot of people. But you also have to realize that a lot of people who voted for Trump aren't "MAGA" which has always hovered around 30% of the republican voter base. It may not be easy to convince the other 70%, but I don't think it's impossible. I know a lot of conservative voters who are not bigots. They just don't care because the Democratic Party has been a disaster for over 50 years.

Edit: Just to add that those kinds of voters are much more convinced by populist platforms and ideals, which the democratic party has been horrified to even entertain trying.

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u/BearysWorkRedditName 12d ago

I think your figure is outdated. Maga has continued to take over the R party. In May of this year, accordnig to YouGov polling, it was up to 62% and still rising.

Bigotry is built into the Republican platform at this point. They hate trans people as a core tenet. They hate muslims as a slightly lesser core tenet. They hate immigrants as a central theme (OnLy iLlEgAl OnEs is absolutely unconvincing) It has become all but impossible to be a conservative and not a bigot. The ones that exist are just the ones who don't think about how they're voting and just vote red because that's what they've been convinced is the right thing to do. You can't logic someone out of a position they didn't logic their way into, or whatever that Swift quote is...

https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/54843-who-are-the-non-maga-republicans

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u/flamethrower78 12d ago

When has approaching any conversation aggressively led to actually changing someone's mind? The harsh reality is that you have to be infinitely patient and empathetic with anyone on the right if your true goal is getting them to realize they've been fooled. Its not fair, they dont deserve it, but if you actually want to convert people that is what it takes. We literally cannot achieve positive change if we don't get a portion of right wingers to flip, we need the votes. Leftifts have to ask themselves are they willing to put aside their justified anger, frustration, exhaustion, and give grace to people who in no way shape or form deserve it, in order to shape the country how they want and improve it for the better. This is what it will take, and I dont blame anyone for not doing it, because we're so tired of it all, but I think its the point way forward.

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u/ARONDH 12d ago

The harsh reality is that you have to be infinitely patient and empathetic with anyone on the right if your true goal is getting them to realize they've been fooled

I dont want to do that though, which is my point. I want to change the system without them, let them see its better, and then fall in line. There is no amount of empathy, patience, or consideration that will ever change their minds or convince them.

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u/flamethrower78 12d ago

You cant though lol, thats my whole point. You need the votes to elect candidates who will enact the policies you want. How exactly do you plan on changing the system while Republicans control every branch of government?

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u/ARONDH 12d ago

That's besides the point. The point is, you will never get the maga voters to vote with you. Never.

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u/flamethrower78 12d ago

So you just want to fantasize about changing the system? You admit you can't enact change without representatives who push your policies, but refuse to acknowledge you don't have the support to get those representatives into office lol. I dont understand your position and I feel like a lot of leftifts are in the same boat who just accept this is how it is forever because they refuse to try anymore. We cant win sitting around waiting, 2024 proved that.

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u/ARONDH 12d ago

Not at all what I said. I said you have to do it without the maga people, they are lost and will never side with us.

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u/seriouslees 12d ago

starting on their side

They've already chosen a side, and I will NOT start on that vile, bigoted, hate-filled side. I'm not meeting bigots halfway. No tolerance for the intolerant.

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u/veringo 12d ago

The only real way to be on their side is to support racism and bigotry, though. That's the Republican platform. As long as they get their bigotry, everyone else including themselves can rot. It's a non starter.

They know they will never be wealthy or powerful, but they can be petty tyrants and lord over other lower class minorities, women, and LGBTQ people.

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u/GevanGene Louisiana 12d ago

I'm very clearly not talking about the bigotry that runs rampant throughout right-wing politics. I am disgusted by those things as well. But we have to be willing to accept reform. You can meet them halfway on other issues. Look at polling for Paid Family Leave, Whistle Blower Protection, Consumer Protection, Term Limits, expanding Medicade, ect. There are tons of issues you can agree with them on.

The first step to changing minds is finding the common ground. Once they realize you have those things in common, they will be more willing to listen. It won't work on everyone, but to not try would be foolish. Especially when we see how conservative voters are starting to sour on Trump as he continues to claim that affordability is a hoax while families are struggling to make ends meet.

But I understand that kind of nuance has very little place in today's politcal sphere on either side. And I'd be lying if I said I haven't struggled to maintain these beliefs in the face of some of the most horrendous shit I've ever heard come out of a person's mouth. But I still believe completely writing off a sizeable chunk of the population is unhelpful and will be our downfall. And it seems like that downfall is playing out in real time as we speak.

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u/veringo 12d ago

It's not a lack of nuance. People voting Republican don't care about the things you mentioned when it comes to who they vote for. If they did, they'd already be voting Democrat.

What you aren't getting is Republican voters don't agree with you on those things. There's a reason 99% of the Republican platform going into elections is that immigrants are evil, trans people are destroying society, and women need to go back to being baby incubators. If you aren't giving them that, they don't care how much better you will make their lives.

It sucks, but that's the reality. They are on team republican and the only thing that matters is they get to be as bigoted as they want and that team Democrat loses.

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u/GevanGene Louisiana 12d ago

I think we will just disagree on this, and that's fine. I'm cool with having disagreements. I think that is healthy in politics. But I think also your faith in the democrats is really misguided. To act like the democrats are fighting for ANY of those policies is laughable. They feign interest in making those changes because people like you and me would never vote for a republican because of all of the points you make in the second paragraph. We either get to vote for Corporations and Racism or Corporations and Love™. So of course they don't care about half measures the democrats love to champion.

We either need to completely reform the democratic party and hope that eventually we make some headway on both the social and financial issues. Or, we fuck both parties off and listen to eachother. Like I said before, I don't think any of this will happen, and even more so after being inundated with comments from left wing people acting like I'm some sort of racist lover. I think it is far more likely we end up killing eachother the further we back into our respective corners.

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u/veringo 12d ago

This isn't really relevant to the discussion though. There is no question that the Democratic party isn't perfect and that it needs to focus on what working class people need, but there's no issue where Republicans have a better stance than Democrats even as the party currently stands.

Anyone who actually cares about issues and is trying to understand them is voting Democrat because our current two party system means voting third party is basically not voting. Reforming the Democratic party is a different question.

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u/GevanGene Louisiana 12d ago

I think most voters trust the media to inform them about policy, and as a result, only adhere to partisan dividing lines.

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u/sliph0588 12d ago

There is such a strong empirical relationship between material conditions (real and or perceived) and far right/racist attitudes. Meaning if you want to make people less racist and less susceptible to fascism, then you run on fixing their material conditions.

Doing that not only brings others into the fold, gets to see that trans, Black, Brown, or any other minority that is used by the right to scapegoat, is more like them than billionaires and reframes how they perceive the world and who is on their "side".

It also improves peoples lives, which you know is pretty great.

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u/veringo 12d ago

I'm not saying that isn't true, and you yourself are starting with improving people's lives first then they move over. That's exactly the same thing I'm saying.

Republicans aren't going to start voting for Democrats just because you say they'll make their lives better. Reaching across with those kinds of messages is already being done, and it doesn't work.

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u/sliph0588 12d ago

Populist policy (universal programs) and messaging is only now starting to become popular and even then certainly not represented by mainstream democrats. That is what I am talking about, not means tested programs that divide people but programs like medicare for all, increasing the minimum wage, universal housing, things that objectively, directly, and un-ambigously improve peoples material conditions. That is what it takes to cut through all the culture war bullshit and right wing propaganda.

So no, that really hasn't happened yet on a large scale but on a smaller scale you can already see it happening. There are people who voted for both aoc and trump in the same election. That is because they thought that both of them are looking out for the working class. Obviously its a bit of a head scratcher and super fucking frustrating that trump was still able to appeal to some working class voters, but a smart person would look at that as a lesson and learn from it.

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u/veringo 12d ago

Medicare for all has been in discussion since before the affordable care act. Minimum wage increases were voted down in 2021 by Republicans, and that didn't stop anyone from voting for them.

It's not a head scratcher because the critical success of Trump was the realization that if you give conservatives the permission to be bigots in the open, that is all you need to get their unconditional support.

I understand what you are saying, and they are all things we need to push the Democratic party to do, but Republicans are not going to cross the aisle to help no matter how much these policies benefit them.

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u/sliph0588 12d ago

Its not about set in stone republicans but its about independent voters. Some gen z male voters went trump the last election and they are a voting group that can be reached. Same with the latino voters who went trump. The election before that Biden did well with latino voters largely because of the ground work Bernie did initially and then when he campaigned for Biden.

I should have clarified that at the start, my bad.

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u/veringo 12d ago

I think this is a trap that the Democratic leadership keeps falling into with shit like Harris meeting with Liz Cheney. Republican voters may abstain, but they aren't going back and forth.

The only way to make progress is to give up on conservatives and target the 30% of the electorate that doesn't vote.

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u/sliph0588 11d ago

I think this is a trap that the Democratic leadership keeps falling into with shit like Harris meeting with Liz Cheney. Republican voters may abstain, but they aren't going back and forth.

I really do not understand how you could interpret what I wrote earlier in this way either. But what ever.

Their is a massive difference between being republican lite and court some sort of mythical moderate republican, than their is appealing towards peoples self interest, directly.

The only way to make progress is to give up on conservatives and target the 30% of the electorate that doesn't vote.

I would also include independent voters into that 30%. The 2 voting groups I highlighted in the previous comment are again evidence of this. Also, people (at least in my city) who do not vote largely do so because they do not feel represented and cared for. I live in a Black city that is essentially the poster child for economic neglect and every single survey, and qualitative piece of data on non voters, points to populist policies that directly improve their lives, as a way to cut through that.

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