they're selfish and dumb and choose to be ignorant
simple as that. they might be nice people in some respects, but the above still holds true
this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2025
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Decades of propaganda
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I'm not trying to insult here, but your parents aren't that smart. One of mine fell for it too.
Bottom line is if you fall for extremely obvious propaganda you are not, and never were, very intelligent.
Party of suckers and losers.
It's easy to win over weak people.
Probably because he won't raise their taxes or the taxes of our oppressors.
It's all about the money, and money brings out the worst in people.
I've got a former military buddy who is all about Pete because "he's not gonna let the fatties and the faggots fuck up our military anymore."
Nevermind that the navy has been called gay since their inception, or that muhreens have zero self discipline outside of a military situation, or that the air force has run more drug than most cartels, it's the "fatties and faggots" that are the problem.
I always knew my buddy was dumb, but it took that conversation for me to figure out that it went all the way down to the core of who he was as a person.
Yeah, lot of bigots are self aware enough to try to hide their hatred and point to other things when it comes to making what they support more palatable to those who might not be. They aren't complete idiots like some immediately assume which is why they have been underestimated by the opposite side and gained such huge traction and seen increasing success.
Even the dumb ones don't try to show the full extent of the bigotry, since they know there are still some in society who resist such ideologies despite growing embracement of it.
Situational sexuality has assured that every navy has been pretty gay (that is, sexually adaptable) since the inception of maritime travel.
I've got a couple dumb friends/colleagues too but just change the subject when they mention politics
easy. he’s a white republican man.
They watched him on FOXnews, thought he was "cute", about like a Sajak or a Kardashian. So why not put him in charge of the world's most lethal military?
Because he's ever so pretty?
This comment section is comically unhinged and batshit crazy that it's a good reminder that this platform is infested by terminally online idiots who I should interact less with. Welp time to go touch some grass.
It's weird how this is the thread that would you think that.
Care to provide any specific examples?
I mean how does theoreticallyconservative small government folk support a real estate trust fund baby who openly take bribes, is building himself a castle, and floods the streets with masked, unmarked, paramilitary. Oh and constantly breaks the laws of the land put out by the forefathers along with a whole ton of other laws?
Rapes little girls too.
I mean they can choose to not believe that but trump has them make viral videos of his goon squad. Sure its edited to make them look tough I guess but its hard to disbelieve they are there and maybe just maybe look at the first person cell phone videos that are all around showing how aweful they are.
Your parents are bad people
Well, bad the way Edmund Povensie was bad while under the guile of the White Witch, or the way the Little Mermaid was bad (i.e. poor ) at seeing through the sea hag's hard sell.
Not bad per se, more very misinformed and very influenced dare I say manipulated, just sad yeah
I don’t make a distinction between the two. If you make a mistake, you made a mistake. If you keep making mistakes, and never learn from them, and insist that you don’t make mistakes then you are a bad person.
These are not children without life experience, they are adults who have seen, and experienced, and learned, and been corrected, and have still chosen evil.
I feel ya with this, but to paint this as black and white is to miss important nuance.
They're deluded. As such, it's an error to see them as evil in the same way that it is to see a person that's high on meth and dangerous or schizophrenic and hostile as being evil.
They're no less dangerous, don't get me wrong, but to see them as bad is, I think, a critical misunderstanding of what's going on here that leads people to think like this.
At this point, I'm not seeing much daylight between the two.
Yeah. It's hard. It's been hard for me too.
I'm teaching my kids as I learn for myself; it's critically important that you not dehumanize people and seek understanding and strive to be compassionate.
I've also known people that have voted for trump 1st term to be good people for long enough that I see it as valuable to deeply interrogate the process by which they came to be such as they are now. For me, at least, it feels lazy and dishonest to flatly dismiss them as bad. Even trump 2 voters, I can see that they, nearly all, were submerged in a propaganda machine designed to break people.
Are some of them sociopathic monsters? You bet! Society needs protected from them.
I see the groupthink on both sides as the most dangerous thing though. The manipulation (of all sides) as the enemy. The dismissal of human life as the root problem. Most especially when profit is placed over people, but also when it's done by either side.
My concern is that dehumanization plays into their hands and I see the dehumanization as a direct path to violent conflict. They want violence because it would free them to use the insurrection act as a means to their ends.
So, to bring it full circle, seeing them as bad and evil and unworthy of compassion or even dialogue plays directly into their hands.
I didn't say evil, I said bad people.
If propaganda can convince you to hate people just because of where they're from, you're not a good person.
Now, if you realize you were a bad person and work on being a good person, you can become one. If you know what you're doing is bad and have no desire to change, then you're evil.
And none of those are immutable qualities.
Yeah you're right. I shouldn't have used the word evil.
I would urge you to examine how propaganda has affected everyone.
Like other posters have said, probably the best choice OP can make is to actually talk to them and maybe not use lemmy for answers.
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Sorry to tell you this but the racism really resonated with them.
Honest answer, as someone in the military:
A LOT of military people lament how "soft" the military has become, and someone coming down on beards, fat, etc, as well as being up front with what the military is for (e.g. Department of War), scratches a whiny itch they've always had. Because every old salty sailor and sandy equivalent feels like they came from the Old Guard.
I came from the Old Guard that my peers are nostalgic about. It was terrible and unnecessarily cruel. It was inefficient and left new people floundering instead of supported. The whole thing feels like a cycle of abuse.
But back to the point, they don't care if he's underqualified, makes bad and inexperienced military decisions, or has a host of DUIs ("who doesn't?"). They only care that he's calling generals fat to their faces and getting rid of beard ememptions.
What's funny is that nobody alive today was alive and in the military for any major conflict that we were actually victorious in, so what "good old days" are these geezers even pining for? The days where we lost a bunch of soldiers in Vietnam and the ones who survived came back with PTSD and drug addictions?
The good old days where the people in charge could get away with anything, that's what it comes down to.
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30 years in the military and a shitty person? Man that is so weird, how could it be?
Are they white? Do they have an aversion to non-white people? Do they make enough money to materially benefit from the Trump era tax policies? Yes to any 2 and you’ve got an answer, no to all 3 and I’m as stumped as you are.
The comments here are wild. So much judgement about people we literally know one single thing about.
There should really only be one answer to this question: "I dunno. Why don't you ask them?"
Just because your parents like some guy that they've never met doesnt mean they are evil, sociopathic, racist monsters. The most likely explaination is that they got walked down the right wing media rabbithole by some network of acquaintences, and now they are trapped in a fairy tale depiction of the world designed to appeal to their baser emotions.
People believe in bigfoot and the flat earth. Why? Mostly because they feel lonely and powerless, and want to feel like they are part of a group that is united in their knowledge of The Truth.
Most reasonable answer. Propaganda is insidious. It is subtle, it can latch onto anything. It could be racism, that's one thing sure. It could be that they wanted lower taxes and over time it slowly convinced them it was all of the others. It could be anything. To assume like this, well, it's exactly why the right has so much just reasoning when saying we're quick to throw the racism card. Because, well just look at this thread.
Right, and those who supported Hitler were just poor misinformed good people.
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Yours is the best answer but my kneejerk gut feeling is:
.
Edit: The 'you' in this image refers to OP's parents.
I think their just trapped in a bubble of bad info and are influenced by racism subconsciously. I KNOW my parents aren't bad people, but they sure as hell arent talking like good people or even well thought-out people.
I guess I just thought my parents were smarter, that they could see through this admins BS. They seriously claim that Trump is doing much better than Biden, but I talk to everyone I know, and they are all having money problems, food insecurity and housing problems, all being made worse under Trump.
I think my parents are just selfish. And it breaks my heart that they are betraying everything I thought I learned from them. I guess maybe they didnt influence me as much as I thought.
It was kind of funny though, because my husband was like, "Now you know how I feel." At least they are a-okay with me and my husband, though, at this rate, I'm worried that wont be the case in a couple years.
I’m getting pretty convinced that as people get older, they get more selfish. The evidence is all anecdotal for me, but perhaps the mentality of “I don’t have much time left, better get mine” creeps in for those who aren’t satisfied with what they have. (Which, of course, is doubly so for those who were already selfish)
But yeah that propaganda “news” is a powerful bitch.
Recently I have been looking at how ai is likely to impact my job. There are things I would do career-wise, if I were in my twenties, that are not realistic at my age.
Ageism exists, so does the simple fact that an employee in their twenties can put in much longer hours (at least until they burn out) than I (who was worked to burnout in my 20's/30's).
I have to think carefully about what I am going to be able to do as I get older and weaker, in what I am sure is going to be a more economically constrained time.
That "I don't have much time left, better get mine" can be driven by fear, or legitimate concern, rather than selfishness, at least in some cases. Yeah others just want to pull up the drawbridge when they get economically secure. Capitalism pits us against each other, join a union, vote for genuine socialists or similar, or read a few books and try and change things.
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Your parents might lack empathy and are cruel, therefore they are looking for other cruel people to confirm their cruel behavior: The cruelty is the point
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelty-is-the-point/572104/
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