this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2025
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Leopards Ate My Face
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Only half of the population voted for Trump. The rest is suffering without any eye for an eye reason.
Half of the population that voted, did it for Trump. All of the population that didn't vote (and could), did indirectly vote for him.
Ok? And the other half, that voted against him? Do you literally have no empathy for them?
The US has been fucking around with the whole world putting tariffs everywhere. We tried to warn you, the whole world tried to tell the US how bad for everyone would be to put the tangerine mussolini in the white house. The US ignored every single red flag and now that the country is in the find out phase, we should have empathy for them?
Poor americans, right?
This kind of emotional response is why there's an active genocide in Gaza right now. Hamas killed some folks, they technically represent the population, so...COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT. People yearning for suffering because some portion of a heterogeneous population is terrible. Go back to the 1930s and say "kill all Nazis" and I'm on board. If you say kill all Germans, though...it's a lack of nuance that at the very least borders on genocidal.
Plenty of us in the USA have suffered and fought our entire lives. We are a nation with an actively oppressed underclass. Even for those with the chance to leave (as I have in the past), we have friends and family here who don't have the means to leave even if they would. Many people are also brainwashed. I know people who had almost no fucking chance growing up. Living in a dilapidated trailer, Fox News blaring on TV, no good education, etc. Yes, people can get out of that, but when your parents are terrible shitheels, and you're surrounded by terrible shitheels, there's a big discussion to be had about how much of a chance someone has to pull themselves up by their bootstraps...and I don't just mean that in terms of improving their economic conditions, but literally the way they think. We need to teach class consciousness worldwide, not consider a large percentage of a population just collateral damage. I don't think it's moral to just consider a quarter of a population to be thrown to the wolves, or even another quarter that's apathetic because of the systems they have no control over brainwashing them into compliance.
Except nobody is punishing you? Sorry if I don't have fucks to give about you when the president YOU (not us) elected is fucking MY country and half of the world with tariffs and shit and you get to suffer the consequences of it.
You are not suffering a punishment, you are suffering consequences of your elections. The rest of the world is suffering a punishment because of what you elected.
I'm not claiming the US is being punished: that was a metaphor.
My point was critiquing folks who are gleefully reveling in the suffering of folks in the USA because of the actions of despots. It's easy to do when it's the USA, but when applying the same reasoning to other regions, it's more obviously shitty behavior. I have empathy for Persians suffering under the Iranian regime. I have empathy for folks living in El Salvador dealing with an autocrat abusing power. I have empathy for the kids growing up in Mississippi. I even have some amount of empathy for the redneck down the street who is too fucking stupid to understand that their Republican "leaders" are taking advantage of them. Just like despots around the world. Plenty of innocent enough folks still live in terrible regimes, and IMHO we shouldn't be happy about those folks suffering because a majority of their neighbors are assholes. We should...you know...help those minorities? Not just paint them with a broad brush and bask in their suffering?
TLDR I can have contempt and empathy at the same time, and I'm not going to cheer for the suffering of decent folks who just happen to have been born into a shitty regime, or who've had one foisted on them.