I agree. There’s no middle ground when it’s good vs. evil. One party might be inefficient and inept, but the other is literally protecting a child-rapist. They fucking know he raped kids, and they just don’t want it to come out, because it would be an inconvenience for them. And that’s just one of the MANY, out in the open crimes they’re committing on the regular now. They are fascists. They are nazis. My grandfathers generation knew how to deal with nazis.
Because you don’t suddenly get better from behavior like that. That’s a critical moral failure of the innermost self. These people are irredeemable pieces of shit, and they need to die of old age for us to be able to move forward.
Hillary was being kind when she called them “deplorables.”
jsreyn on
You cant start working towards a solution until you agree on the very basics of the problem. We have totally different realities and until that is addressed, its impossible for people to agree on a path forward.
The Right wing info-bubble has created a world where kids are pissing in litter boxes and cutting off their dicks because the teacher said they were girls. Of course if someone believes that they’ll want to fight tooth and nail against it.
DoubtSubstantial5440 on
I aint going to find common ground with folks who want kidnap people who look me and traffic them to Uganda, nor will I find common ground with people who will gladly suck off their orange rapist and pedo demigod.
sugarlessdeathbear on
I will never work with or deal with or tolerate those who protect child rapists. That means fuck every conservative, they’re all complicit.
ennuiinmotion on
These sorts of divides take generations to heal. And since our businesses, influencers and media make money off riling us up it’s not going to change.
mcgarvey216 on
We are definitely passed the point of no return
DonorBody on
No common ground with shitbags who voted for a guy who raped kids.
nwgdad on
The MAGA cult mind is incapable of dealing with reality.
sonny9636 on
You can’t trust Nazis. The Democrats in Congress better learn this or be voted out of office. You can’t go back to business as usual after this administration, voters will want major changes.
StormOk7544 on
Yeah, not sure how we’re supposed to agree with the people who think it’s justified to put fascists in power because of pronouns in bio or because they think tariffs, despite what every economist on the planet says, will completely solve the economy. Tens of millions of people have been completely brain broken by reich wing propaganda and it doesn’t seem like that will be fixed overnight.
poeticfuture on
Having grown up in the 80s and 90s where both sides were still able to talk to each other – how much of this furthered division is from outside actors?
All this because Republicans won’t reach across the aisle.
That’s literally all they have to do.
This is ridiculous.
Only1Nemesis on
And who, might I ask, is working tooth and nail to keep the people divided? Take a jaunt over to the WH official page and have a perusal. Strategically placed banner with “Democrats shut down the government” timer. List of democrats who oppose illegal kidnapping. Besides that, this regime is destroying the government and stealing money from it’s citizens for either frivolous things or to build more wealth for themselves and their rich pals.
Also, Trump is a 34x convicted felon, sexual abuser, pedophile, bigot, and misogynist. No, I will not stand with him, or his base that adores him. His lackeys can kiss my ass too.
CAM6913 on
Considering the current administration has targeted democrats and states he lost the election in and ordered the GOP not to compromise with democrats and the GOP are goose stepping to his orders including illegal orders the division can not be mended. It doesn’t help when he has the Supreme Court in his pocket allowing him to violate the laws and the constitution on a regular basis or take away peoples rights and subvert the rule of law.
aradraugfea on
There are those who cannot even agree on objective, observable reality. You present them with formerly live video of someone saying something and they call it fake. Like CSPAN is making shit up to make someone look bad. You’ll show them PHOTOS disproving their shit and they’ll give you a half dozen reasons the photo can’t be trusted.
You cannot have a meaningful, productive discussion with someone who cannot even agree on the basic facts of an issue. 20 years ago, we all agreed on the facts and argued about what they meant, or how to best address the issue we all recognized as an issue. Now we’re arguing over whether a clearly fake video the president posted is real or not. Whether Associated Press photographs of his inauguration are photoshopped or AI.
Until we get everyone back on the same page about REALITY, there‘s no productive conversation to be had.
I don’t need to agree with everyone on everything. A difference of opinion is healthy. But this immunity to FACT, the democratization of Truth, where your least favorite uncle’s opinion matters just as much as the facts of a dozen experts in their field? Until we fix that, we’re not unifying the country.
hdiggyh on
Donald Trump is the worst thing – by far (since the civil war) to ever happen to this country.
Fit-Fly8740 on
Absolutely not. I will never respect a political party that wants trans people dead and pedophiles protected. I don’t mind MAGA saying the same things toward me. I get disappointed with Dems actions sometimes but I will continue supporting them in elections until we have a political landscape that doesn’t include fascists.
r3dt4rget on
Social media basically guarantees that our population will never agree on the same facts or reality. Take social media away and force people to only interact with their community in person, and you will find common ground and common goals. The problem is that the internet and social media have broken humans instinctive desire for community. We worry about what’s happening in places we will never visit. We make up our own reality about other communities based on headlines and out of context info online. That’s why a liberal in California “hates” a conservative in Texas and the other way around, even though neither one know each other or know what it’s actually like in the others community.
TheMF on
Not when, the leaders and propaganda machine keep it going. Change has to happen at the top before it will get better overall. The problem is that only works if both sides cooperate. Biden tried the whole “let’s heal. I’ll be a president for everyone” thing, but the republicans just kept fanning the flames and show no signs of stopping. Now the democrats are abandoning that strategy to fight back.
Listening_Heads on
There’s only one way the US becomes unified again: a terrible tragedy or war. When things like bathroom laws, Tylenol, and presidential temper tantrums are so insignificant due to famine, disease, and death on a massive scale, then we can rediscover our commonality. But it’s gotta be massive. Not COVID size. Maybe like someone nuking NYC. Or Yellowstone erupting.
J-the-Kidder on
This has been the hardest thing to wrestle with. How do you have a rational, fact based, come together discussion with a swath of people you know disregard facts, have zero compassion for humanity and vote out of hatred versus prosperity? I’ve listened to countless podcasts discuss this across the canyons of our divide and I’ve yet to hear anything close to reality other than Tim Miller saying “I don’t know, it’s very fucking hard.” And he’s right. Some say to focus on common ground. I’m sorry, that’s great in theory but these people don’t care for common ground, they’d rather hate or fear monger. Others say forgive and forget to move on. I’m sorry, but fuck that bullshit. If you want to openly support racism, and other human degradation, I’m not going to let you off the hook so you can do it again to the same group of people or another group. If other people are willing to let racists fascists be racist fascists without consequences, so be it. I for one, am not so inclined and rather relegate them to a fate they deserve.
Osm3um on
I think we are already in a civil war, without clear borders. The thing is the states bringing in the most revenue disagree with the poorest…how well is it going to go for the right leaning states?
xwing_n_it on
I tend to agree and feel we should consider an amicable breakup of the country. The fascists won’t accept it, though. The 25% of the country that’s off its rocker wants to trap us in here with them as we descend back into the middle ages.
And even if we could work it out…I’m not going to be comfortable with Jesusland next door if it has nukes. That’s a no-go for me and we owe it to the world to ensure that never happens.
One_Cantaloupe_9522 on
Probably not considering 1/2 of your country feverishly or blindly supports Nazis and pedophiles.
Three_Froggy_Problem on
I recently got into it over the phone with my parents because they were horrified that I posted negative stuff about Charlie Kirk. My mom texted me after telling me I “needed to repent.”
Anyway, I told them that CK was a terrible person with abhorrent views and they insisted that he was “a good man.”
How do you find middle ground in a situation like this? We don’t even agree on what constitutes right and wrong. This is a person who I believe was evil, and they think he was “a good man.” That kind of division is insurmountable.
Enough-Collection-98 on
We can’t reason people out of a mindset that they didn’t reason themselves into. People on the right are preconditioned by religious dogma to believe things that can’t be seen or proven and to reject any ideas contrary to that as their great demon trying to trick them.
There’s no middle ground between objective reality and manufactured fantasy.
Tails6666 on
Fascists are not reasonable people.
Anacalagon on
Today, trump called Democrats Satan worshippers.
Link50L on
From the outside looking in, it’s really difficult for me to believe that with the intensity and entrenchment of the hostilities, that there could be ever be a meaningful reconciliation.
I guess that if a country could reconcile from The American Civil War, then anything is possible, but — did the USA ever really heal from that war?
shoule79 on
They can’t be overcome as long as propaganda/info-tainment is building people’s reality. Reinstating the Fairness Doctrine would go a long way, but in reality it’s going to take a generation to overcome this because they will see unbiased information as too woke.
TransbianMoonGoddess on
When one party is full of fascist racist child rapists there not only cant be an “overcoming the the divide” there shouldn’t be an overcoming. There should be a massive restructuring that forces these people out of power and makes the people who voted for it afraid to ever speak openly about their bigoted bullshit ever again.
The biggest mistake (slavery was not a mistake, it was fucking monsterous and fundamentally wrong and was the direct reason for the civil war, the mistake was not crushing every single person and institution that fought and killed to keep their perceived right to own other humans) American history is the amount of confederates allowed to live after the Civil War.
thingsorfreedom on
One side is “Let’s work together- you get some of what you want, we’ll get some of what we want.”
The other side is issuing death threats and calling their political opponents “The party of hate, evil, and Satan.”
There is no working with that side. The best case scenario is marginalizing them since they are about 35% of the voters. The other 65% need to come together and oust them from political life. The worst case scenario we can’t talk about.
Oldschoolhype2 on
Theres one side that wants multiculturalism, integration and economic equity.
Theres another side that wants “white” christian monoculture, segregation/deportation and hypercapitalism.
So yeah, going to be hard to overcome that division without serious interventions.
Inside_Fix_4412 on
America truthfully was never unified. N the only time we ever had some semblance of unity is when we are at war and have hate towards something else. But at the end of the day; this is a country built on hatred. Built on division. Built on white supremacy and it was never punished, held accountable and now there’s voices to not even ACKNOWLEDGE the existence of it. The blunt truth is it only feels like this because now there’s large swaths of WHITE Americans finally feeling how oppressive this country has been. But for ppl of color, women, and any other group outside of hateful white Christian conservative men has been a hell hole of fake civility. Imagine the best position u have in life on earth is to be in a country that hates you, denies your existence and ur humanity. Tbh I’ve grown apathetic. MLK said the greatest threat wasn’t the radicals, but the average white American who stayed quiet. Stayed silent. Saw how the system destroyed their fellow man but existed in that status quo because it was comfortable for them. They allowed this snow balling. And as a black American tbh, I am apathetic but the one silver lining is that for the first time; hate won’t be our unifying force as a country. No, it will be our unifying pain , wailing and gnashing of teeth in despair.
Haasonreddit on
My boss really likes this other department bead who is really bad at his job. Way under qualified for the position. Never follows through with work. His reports are constantly messing up. Decent guy, but his departments quality of work is always shitty.
My boss loves him. Thinks hes a rising star.
I figured out the reason is he always says what my boss wants to hear. And my boss doesnt care what happens after cause he already heard what he wanted to hear and moved on. He couldn’t give a shit about the actual outcome as long as the platitude he heard one time matched his desires.
Both of these guys are republican and i think all republicans must hold this delusion.
ProfessorPickaxe on
They can’t.
The MAGA crowd doesn’t want free speech. They don’t want people who don’t agree with them to have any rights, at all. They will chuckle mirthlessly as any dissenters are dragged away to gas chambers because they don’t consider liberals to be human.
They don’t want you to study what you want, read what you want, watch what you want, or love who you want.
When one party is fundamentally disinterested in one of the founding principles of this country – individual freedom – how could we ever reconcile?
36 Comments
I agree. There’s no middle ground when it’s good vs. evil. One party might be inefficient and inept, but the other is literally protecting a child-rapist. They fucking know he raped kids, and they just don’t want it to come out, because it would be an inconvenience for them. And that’s just one of the MANY, out in the open crimes they’re committing on the regular now. They are fascists. They are nazis. My grandfathers generation knew how to deal with nazis.
Because you don’t suddenly get better from behavior like that. That’s a critical moral failure of the innermost self. These people are irredeemable pieces of shit, and they need to die of old age for us to be able to move forward.
Hillary was being kind when she called them “deplorables.”
You cant start working towards a solution until you agree on the very basics of the problem. We have totally different realities and until that is addressed, its impossible for people to agree on a path forward.
The Right wing info-bubble has created a world where kids are pissing in litter boxes and cutting off their dicks because the teacher said they were girls. Of course if someone believes that they’ll want to fight tooth and nail against it.
I aint going to find common ground with folks who want kidnap people who look me and traffic them to Uganda, nor will I find common ground with people who will gladly suck off their orange rapist and pedo demigod.
I will never work with or deal with or tolerate those who protect child rapists. That means fuck every conservative, they’re all complicit.
These sorts of divides take generations to heal. And since our businesses, influencers and media make money off riling us up it’s not going to change.
We are definitely passed the point of no return
No common ground with shitbags who voted for a guy who raped kids.
The MAGA cult mind is incapable of dealing with reality.
You can’t trust Nazis. The Democrats in Congress better learn this or be voted out of office. You can’t go back to business as usual after this administration, voters will want major changes.
Yeah, not sure how we’re supposed to agree with the people who think it’s justified to put fascists in power because of pronouns in bio or because they think tariffs, despite what every economist on the planet says, will completely solve the economy. Tens of millions of people have been completely brain broken by reich wing propaganda and it doesn’t seem like that will be fixed overnight.
Having grown up in the 80s and 90s where both sides were still able to talk to each other – how much of this furthered division is from outside actors?
[https://www.reddit.com/r/OptimistsUnite/comments/1ilszfv/youre_being_targeted_by_disinformation_networks/](https://www.reddit.com/r/OptimistsUnite/comments/1ilszfv/youre_being_targeted_by_disinformation_networks/)
All this because Republicans won’t reach across the aisle.
That’s literally all they have to do.
This is ridiculous.
And who, might I ask, is working tooth and nail to keep the people divided? Take a jaunt over to the WH official page and have a perusal. Strategically placed banner with “Democrats shut down the government” timer. List of democrats who oppose illegal kidnapping. Besides that, this regime is destroying the government and stealing money from it’s citizens for either frivolous things or to build more wealth for themselves and their rich pals.
Also, Trump is a 34x convicted felon, sexual abuser, pedophile, bigot, and misogynist. No, I will not stand with him, or his base that adores him. His lackeys can kiss my ass too.
Considering the current administration has targeted democrats and states he lost the election in and ordered the GOP not to compromise with democrats and the GOP are goose stepping to his orders including illegal orders the division can not be mended. It doesn’t help when he has the Supreme Court in his pocket allowing him to violate the laws and the constitution on a regular basis or take away peoples rights and subvert the rule of law.
There are those who cannot even agree on objective, observable reality. You present them with formerly live video of someone saying something and they call it fake. Like CSPAN is making shit up to make someone look bad. You’ll show them PHOTOS disproving their shit and they’ll give you a half dozen reasons the photo can’t be trusted.
You cannot have a meaningful, productive discussion with someone who cannot even agree on the basic facts of an issue. 20 years ago, we all agreed on the facts and argued about what they meant, or how to best address the issue we all recognized as an issue. Now we’re arguing over whether a clearly fake video the president posted is real or not. Whether Associated Press photographs of his inauguration are photoshopped or AI.
Until we get everyone back on the same page about REALITY, there‘s no productive conversation to be had.
I don’t need to agree with everyone on everything. A difference of opinion is healthy. But this immunity to FACT, the democratization of Truth, where your least favorite uncle’s opinion matters just as much as the facts of a dozen experts in their field? Until we fix that, we’re not unifying the country.
Donald Trump is the worst thing – by far (since the civil war) to ever happen to this country.
Absolutely not. I will never respect a political party that wants trans people dead and pedophiles protected. I don’t mind MAGA saying the same things toward me. I get disappointed with Dems actions sometimes but I will continue supporting them in elections until we have a political landscape that doesn’t include fascists.
Social media basically guarantees that our population will never agree on the same facts or reality. Take social media away and force people to only interact with their community in person, and you will find common ground and common goals. The problem is that the internet and social media have broken humans instinctive desire for community. We worry about what’s happening in places we will never visit. We make up our own reality about other communities based on headlines and out of context info online. That’s why a liberal in California “hates” a conservative in Texas and the other way around, even though neither one know each other or know what it’s actually like in the others community.
Not when, the leaders and propaganda machine keep it going. Change has to happen at the top before it will get better overall. The problem is that only works if both sides cooperate. Biden tried the whole “let’s heal. I’ll be a president for everyone” thing, but the republicans just kept fanning the flames and show no signs of stopping. Now the democrats are abandoning that strategy to fight back.
There’s only one way the US becomes unified again: a terrible tragedy or war. When things like bathroom laws, Tylenol, and presidential temper tantrums are so insignificant due to famine, disease, and death on a massive scale, then we can rediscover our commonality. But it’s gotta be massive. Not COVID size. Maybe like someone nuking NYC. Or Yellowstone erupting.
This has been the hardest thing to wrestle with. How do you have a rational, fact based, come together discussion with a swath of people you know disregard facts, have zero compassion for humanity and vote out of hatred versus prosperity? I’ve listened to countless podcasts discuss this across the canyons of our divide and I’ve yet to hear anything close to reality other than Tim Miller saying “I don’t know, it’s very fucking hard.” And he’s right. Some say to focus on common ground. I’m sorry, that’s great in theory but these people don’t care for common ground, they’d rather hate or fear monger. Others say forgive and forget to move on. I’m sorry, but fuck that bullshit. If you want to openly support racism, and other human degradation, I’m not going to let you off the hook so you can do it again to the same group of people or another group. If other people are willing to let racists fascists be racist fascists without consequences, so be it. I for one, am not so inclined and rather relegate them to a fate they deserve.
I think we are already in a civil war, without clear borders. The thing is the states bringing in the most revenue disagree with the poorest…how well is it going to go for the right leaning states?
I tend to agree and feel we should consider an amicable breakup of the country. The fascists won’t accept it, though. The 25% of the country that’s off its rocker wants to trap us in here with them as we descend back into the middle ages.
And even if we could work it out…I’m not going to be comfortable with Jesusland next door if it has nukes. That’s a no-go for me and we owe it to the world to ensure that never happens.
Probably not considering 1/2 of your country feverishly or blindly supports Nazis and pedophiles.
I recently got into it over the phone with my parents because they were horrified that I posted negative stuff about Charlie Kirk. My mom texted me after telling me I “needed to repent.”
Anyway, I told them that CK was a terrible person with abhorrent views and they insisted that he was “a good man.”
How do you find middle ground in a situation like this? We don’t even agree on what constitutes right and wrong. This is a person who I believe was evil, and they think he was “a good man.” That kind of division is insurmountable.
We can’t reason people out of a mindset that they didn’t reason themselves into. People on the right are preconditioned by religious dogma to believe things that can’t be seen or proven and to reject any ideas contrary to that as their great demon trying to trick them.
There’s no middle ground between objective reality and manufactured fantasy.
Fascists are not reasonable people.
Today, trump called Democrats Satan worshippers.
From the outside looking in, it’s really difficult for me to believe that with the intensity and entrenchment of the hostilities, that there could be ever be a meaningful reconciliation.
I guess that if a country could reconcile from The American Civil War, then anything is possible, but — did the USA ever really heal from that war?
They can’t be overcome as long as propaganda/info-tainment is building people’s reality. Reinstating the Fairness Doctrine would go a long way, but in reality it’s going to take a generation to overcome this because they will see unbiased information as too woke.
When one party is full of fascist racist child rapists there not only cant be an “overcoming the the divide” there shouldn’t be an overcoming. There should be a massive restructuring that forces these people out of power and makes the people who voted for it afraid to ever speak openly about their bigoted bullshit ever again.
The biggest mistake (slavery was not a mistake, it was fucking monsterous and fundamentally wrong and was the direct reason for the civil war, the mistake was not crushing every single person and institution that fought and killed to keep their perceived right to own other humans) American history is the amount of confederates allowed to live after the Civil War.
One side is “Let’s work together- you get some of what you want, we’ll get some of what we want.”
The other side is issuing death threats and calling their political opponents “The party of hate, evil, and Satan.”
There is no working with that side. The best case scenario is marginalizing them since they are about 35% of the voters. The other 65% need to come together and oust them from political life. The worst case scenario we can’t talk about.
Theres one side that wants multiculturalism, integration and economic equity.
Theres another side that wants “white” christian monoculture, segregation/deportation and hypercapitalism.
So yeah, going to be hard to overcome that division without serious interventions.
America truthfully was never unified. N the only time we ever had some semblance of unity is when we are at war and have hate towards something else. But at the end of the day; this is a country built on hatred. Built on division. Built on white supremacy and it was never punished, held accountable and now there’s voices to not even ACKNOWLEDGE the existence of it. The blunt truth is it only feels like this because now there’s large swaths of WHITE Americans finally feeling how oppressive this country has been. But for ppl of color, women, and any other group outside of hateful white Christian conservative men has been a hell hole of fake civility. Imagine the best position u have in life on earth is to be in a country that hates you, denies your existence and ur humanity. Tbh I’ve grown apathetic. MLK said the greatest threat wasn’t the radicals, but the average white American who stayed quiet. Stayed silent. Saw how the system destroyed their fellow man but existed in that status quo because it was comfortable for them. They allowed this snow balling. And as a black American tbh, I am apathetic but the one silver lining is that for the first time; hate won’t be our unifying force as a country. No, it will be our unifying pain , wailing and gnashing of teeth in despair.
My boss really likes this other department bead who is really bad at his job. Way under qualified for the position. Never follows through with work. His reports are constantly messing up. Decent guy, but his departments quality of work is always shitty.
My boss loves him. Thinks hes a rising star.
I figured out the reason is he always says what my boss wants to hear. And my boss doesnt care what happens after cause he already heard what he wanted to hear and moved on. He couldn’t give a shit about the actual outcome as long as the platitude he heard one time matched his desires.
Both of these guys are republican and i think all republicans must hold this delusion.
They can’t.
The MAGA crowd doesn’t want free speech. They don’t want people who don’t agree with them to have any rights, at all. They will chuckle mirthlessly as any dissenters are dragged away to gas chambers because they don’t consider liberals to be human.
They don’t want you to study what you want, read what you want, watch what you want, or love who you want.
When one party is fundamentally disinterested in one of the founding principles of this country – individual freedom – how could we ever reconcile?