I’m here for your insights, not narrative that is free of grammatical error, although I do recognize your text is typically without fault on the grammar front and I share the compulsion to get it right. Thanks ever so much for the insights! As long as you find sharing them worthwhile, I’m here for it :).
Of course, much of their fear is of things Trumpists have created...
Fear destroys logical analysis.
Like all animals, humans are very uncomfortable with change. In the wild change is usually bad news.
Since the GOP has convinced them to keep their minds within the cult, not trusting anyone who criticizes him, they reside in an echo box talking only with each other.
This keeps out actual facts. It also ensures that desenting voices are suppressed, and expelled as traitors.
This is all standard for people and organizations which want tight control over their members.
There's actual basis for their fears, like all of us in this corporate oligarchy we live, income is about 1/12 of what it should be based upon productivity & inflation, corporate monopolistic practices have greatly increased costs.
Trump assigned these causes such as immigration, to push the agenda he wants in order for the GOP to do as the Nazis did in 1932, and dismantle democracy, while people are prevented from owning property, freely seeking work, voting, and getting proper medical care or paying reasonable prices for anything.
Blaming immigrants feeds upon humans natural xenophobia.
Their decades old tactic of blaming their opponents for acts which they themselves are guilty, muddies the water when they get caught.
This agenda is very wide, including most large companies.
The removal of right to repair equipment is killing small farms, while mega farms aren't affected because they buy much more equipment and can justify a full time repair technician.
This increases the ability of mega food suppliers to control food prices.
Control or elimination of government oversight permits them to produce cheap, low quality and even dangerous food products.
Trump isn't the problem, he's just the latest GOP candidate, and like Hitler, is merely a pawn of the oligarchs who began the Nazi party and ensured that nearly all members suffered little to no losses of illegitimate gains nor punishment for their crimes around the world after WWII.
The Axis countries were defeated, but those responsible made fortunes and survived to prosper and continue to work their agenda to own the world.
You can see clearly which countries they control by looking at nations which chose financial markets over the health and lives of their people.
Note that both parties in the USA have fought to keep third parties off ballots, and to take over those which are still capable of getting votes.
Both parties have been misrepresenting Communism and Socialism by pointing at autocracies calling themselves such, and confusing these economic systems with political systems to discredit them.
Remember that our 2 parties were originally a single party which split.
We're much closer to these assholes taking the world than ever in our history, not through warfare, but through manipulation of the people.
Remember that one of their stated goals is to reduce the world population to 500 million white skinned people, which means killing over 7.5 billion people.
I can relate. I have to do it often. And you know what? I get restacks of those unedited before I see the last typo or other error that I saw. Then I go back. It is embarrassing. to me but I don't hold it against anyone else.
These last three paragraphs succinctly put into words my feelings.
Thanks much
“I don’t trust anyone who still supports Trump. I don’t want them to file my taxes or clean my teeth or put tires on my car. I don’t trust their values or morals. I don’t trust their character. I don’t feel safe in their presence.
I don’t trust that they won’t put me or mine in danger if they thought they could make a point or gain favor with an egomaniac running for president.
They chose politics over family. They chose the cult. It’s on them.”
Long after Trump is gone, we'll be dealing with these damaged people. We need to vote every MAGA out of public office. That is going to take time and effort. What a nightmare!
3 Election Cycles at least, may MAGA and all far right populist movement/conspiracy nutters here (and around the world) go the way of the Whigs, Macarthyism, Nixon apologists. A repeated history lesson we have to learn over and over as there will always be predators of power and they have new prey every generation.
I did not vote for Nixon, and, like so many of us, glued to the Watergate hearings. At least Nixon believed in and upheld the US Constitution, in his own way. This is why he resigned, rather than cause an insurrection. Just saying.
Nixon Republicans placed party over the Presidency and told Nixon to resign or be impeached. What most people do not recall, Gerald Ford, became VP when Nixon's VP, Agnew, resigned after he pleaded "no contest" to felony charges of tax evasion, bribery amongst other scandals.
Jess. What a sad story. Last week one of my sisters came to visit me on her birthday. I had several gifts for her and much yarn (she is a knitter while I crochet). We were just sitting and talking when her husband just blurted out "I'm voting for trump." OK. I was offended. My home. My rules. No trumpism allowed. I went off on him. "You are married to my sister. You have daughters. You have granddaughters. How can you vote for a rapist?" He just laughed and said he didn't care. My sister said she doesn't like DT and will not vote for him but doesn't care for Kamala. And spouted nonsense about not having enough info etc. I told her to vote for Kamala anyway to cancel our her husband's vote, or to lock him up on election day so he can't get out & vote.
Trumpers have a sickness. It's like what I saw my roommates go through in the 1970s with the cult/groups they joined -EST, Lifespring, etc. Something happens that changes their brains, seemingly permanently. Maybe they need deprogramming or to be sent to re-education camps. I just try to avoid the people who have become that because it's just too awful to witness. It's so terrible that such a degenerate has so much control over people's minds, isn't it?
I hope you can maintain your sense of safety and knowledge by helping others to understand how important our freedoms are.
The saddest part is the fact that the supporters get blinded by lies which, if they were true, would make a little sense! Somehow, in that process an Ohio farmer believes a crooked con-man from New York about immigrants raping and pillaging, and mainstream media in general have refused to report a corrected, truthful scenario!!
Thanks for Jess and a few like her that call it for what it is!!
I saw through Trump the minute he made the statement that he could shoot someone and still get votes. I thought surely his crazy and dangerous words would help other people see through him. I was so wrong.
My neighbor was (sad to say "was") one of my best friends. We were always invited to their cook-outs and parties. We would be invited to go to nice restaurants, his treat. (He insisted.)
I knew he despised Democrats and loved Trump, and for eight years we managed to avoid politics. Then one night at his home, he made a statement that if Biden walked in the door, he'd shoot him between the eyes. I couldn't stand it any longer. I began to state my opinion and then he started baiting and bullying me.
He called me a "poor misguided child." Oh my!
He has not spoken to me since after I dared say that he worshipped Trump, because he does.
Anyway, I told him that we would never agree politically, but we agreed that family and friends were important, that fellowship was important, that good food was important 🙂, and that celebrating good times was important.
Sadly, he can't see past our political differences.
Yes, I've just experienced it again too. Dare criticize Trump, or point out any of his (endless) incoherencies and - oops! Just lost another friend. Definitely a cult.
Just perfect timing. My husband spent 3 hours on the phone last night with his son trying to convince him that something Eric Trump said on Fox News is true. As usual it escalated. He slept poorly and is saddened by this. His son is his only child and Thanksgiving is coming soon. One family member is considering not coming because we told her that, in fact, nobody is eating pets in Springfield Ohio. These people are college educated and by most standards successful. Make it make sense. Please. It’s heartbreaking.
Yeah. Two children out of three who are on that train with your son. We don’t talk about it at all. didn’t talk to each other at all for 3 years. So now we can talk. And I’ll take that. We talk about other stuff.
But yeah. I’m still up in the nights some nights either worried about them and/or unbelievably frustrated to have to keep quiet (I feel SO compressed) when I want to be able to connect on this. Want to warn. Want to be on the same page.
It is definitely heartbreaking. Voting blue. Doing the little I can. Very concerned and sad.
I have a similar reaction when I see the Gadsden flag flying over a $400k house with a $50k pickup in the driveway in the Des Moines suburbs. Exactly who is treading on you?
Yes, I used to work with some of these men. (Some were from NW Missouri.) They thought they were entitled to a house, truck, motorcycle, boat, and place at the lake. They were sure diversity and inclusion were an enemy threatening their lifestyle. As a single mom, I was thankful to be paying the bills and to have one house, one car-and decent paying job with benefits. I just could not understand their hostilities!
Thanks for that link. I actually have more hope than reality has given us a basis for. But I think hatred is learned, and not organic. The bad (evil?) behavior of the rank-and-file cultist can't be explained away so neatly. It's a willful decision by most.
If it is mental illness, should they be allowed to wreak havoc on our country? Remember - Charles Manson and Jim Jones suffered mental illness, also. Is that who you want as our leaders? I have un-friended and "un-familied" those who support tRump and his cronies.
Wait, what if its racism. White dominance/white supremacy is real. The fear amongst a large portion of white people believe that the others whom our ancestors deemed to be inferior-Mexicans, Blacks, LGBT, Haitians and women get in power and treat us the way we and generations before us have treated them. Just sayin.
“The outlaw and the hillbilly.” It’s laughable, but they are trying to turn an autocratic billionaire with a fascist bent into an “outlaw.”
JD Vance, a Yale-educated lawyer and venture capitalist, is now a “hillbilly.”
Wow, thank you for this helpful and articulate explanation.
Working in psychology, I recognize similarities to young children trying on different versions of who they might be.
This is normal at a young age. So much of Trump’s pathological parenting by his father has trapped him back there, and his skill is seducing others to join him.
Many years ago I helped a friend complete his Masters thesis on childhood trauma (I was the typist). That is how I became aware of Alice Miller's writing. Trump has often been compared to Hitler, and clearly shared a similarly miserable childhood. I have some sympathy for those two boys, but the thoughtless, consistent cruelty of Trump is still inexcusable.
Dear EFS - Please read "The Final Solution" ....it started out as one thing, quickly morphing into the genocide of millions, not just Jewish people, but also believers in right wing Christian groups such as the Jehovah's Witnesses. Circa 1941-1945....
The Final Solution is the preamble to Project 2025. Stay mindful.
Another enlightening read is Timothy Snyder's "Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning." According to Snyder, Hitler believed that life was a constant struggle and it was kill or be killed--there was only struggle and win...or die. (There was a reason he called his autobiography "My struggle.") He despised Jews because he believed they had introduced the idea of compassion into the world and were undermining the very foundations of "nature," which, according to him, demands a strong and ruthless leader. You can see a lot of this in the way Trump and the GOP are always framing others--especially people who want a kinder, gentler world and a government that serves to protect the most vulnerable--as enemies who must be destroyed.
Not to mention that where Jess saw the sign was a mountain before and where he Hadfields and McCoys kids transferred their fight! Of course the left-wing liberals levelled all that and put in crops so they could create a need for illegal immigrants to tend to them! Maga lies=facts in the "create zombies" formula!1
Once again, you hit the nail on the head. I no longer have a Facebook account because it was heartbreaking to watch friends and family get sucked into the cult. I was also tired of being insulted by those same people for being a libtard. I don’t feel safe in my community like I once did. I’m sad, confused and anxious but mostly, I’m just angry. I came across Jess here on Substack. Jess and those like her give me hope for MO and the rest of the US. I want the security, hope and joy these people have stolen from me. I want to live in the hopeful, joyful world she’s describing.
It is truly heartbreaking. Thank you for all you do Jess. You are such a treasure! Keep holding up the light. One day we will be out of this madness, and you have certainly done your share of keeping the light burning bright. I hope you get your loved ones back. Trumpism is a disease with the cure being hard to implement. It starts with turning off " Fox not the News".
You have described the hair-standing, blood curdling terror of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, from 1993 with Donald Sutherland (or, if you're older, 1956 with Kevin McCarthy). Nobody is safe, anyone could become a Q-Anon cultist or MAGA extremist. People you knew and loved, lost, converted and now dangerous to you and those not yet stained by the MAGA scourge. But this is not Hollywood, there is no script and this is not guaranteed to end well. Vote Blue.
The Brainwashing of my Dad - over and over again. Except it actually had a happy ending - they were able to cut out right wing media during a hospital stay
Oof! This SO captures this mindboggling descent into madness I've witnessed. You and Heather Cox Richardson today both nailed the process we're seeing, you from the more personal perspective, her from the more historical perspective. Helpful to have words to describe it and process it. Thank you SO much for sharing your wisdom and being a voice that speaks truth to dark power.
Thank you for saying these hard things, Jess. For exactly these reasons, I wish we had local directories of businesses owned by Democrats. I don’t want my dollars supporting those who deliberately choose candidates and policies that are harmful to the people I care about.
Agreed. Maybe your local Dem county party could help you identify some? I asked ours if they knew any Democratic financial planners after I was so disgusted by ours' screeds against Obamacare. They knew someone and he was great!
Have you looked at the App, "Goods Unite Us?" It gives info on which political party companies contribute to. I drive a Subaru, have Progressive Insurance, and shop at Food Lion. Look it up!
Vance as a hillbilly, that's a laugh. These folks need to realize he was raised in Middletown Ohio and barely spent a summer or two in true Appalachia. Suburban boy.
They need to talk to real Appalachians, the real hillbillies, who are pissed as hell at this poseur who dumped all over his "kin", blaming them for their lot, and pouring extra special contempt down on his poor addicted mother. He's a cruel little man twisted by the psychotically violent grandmother who raised him and sharpening of his skills at one of those elite schools these folks love to hate, Yale.
I had one laughable moment in South Virginia, similar territory, where the farmers also like to post gargantuan Trump billboards and bastardized versions of our flag. A huge sign for Trump standing at the corner of a cornfield was countered right across the fence with an even larger Harris Walz sign, cunningly slanted towards the oversized sign of cult devotion.
Thank you for this. I have told a couple of clients that if they wear a Maga hat or start going down the rabbit holes in my office they better find another CPA firm. They have all backed off, only because it is so hard to find another decent CPA.
If you are reading this in your email, I found the grammatical error and corrected it. My apologies!
I’m here for your insights, not narrative that is free of grammatical error, although I do recognize your text is typically without fault on the grammar front and I share the compulsion to get it right. Thanks ever so much for the insights! As long as you find sharing them worthwhile, I’m here for it :).
Why? Because they're afraid!
Of course, much of their fear is of things Trumpists have created...
Fear destroys logical analysis.
Like all animals, humans are very uncomfortable with change. In the wild change is usually bad news.
Since the GOP has convinced them to keep their minds within the cult, not trusting anyone who criticizes him, they reside in an echo box talking only with each other.
This keeps out actual facts. It also ensures that desenting voices are suppressed, and expelled as traitors.
This is all standard for people and organizations which want tight control over their members.
There's actual basis for their fears, like all of us in this corporate oligarchy we live, income is about 1/12 of what it should be based upon productivity & inflation, corporate monopolistic practices have greatly increased costs.
Trump assigned these causes such as immigration, to push the agenda he wants in order for the GOP to do as the Nazis did in 1932, and dismantle democracy, while people are prevented from owning property, freely seeking work, voting, and getting proper medical care or paying reasonable prices for anything.
Blaming immigrants feeds upon humans natural xenophobia.
Their decades old tactic of blaming their opponents for acts which they themselves are guilty, muddies the water when they get caught.
This agenda is very wide, including most large companies.
The removal of right to repair equipment is killing small farms, while mega farms aren't affected because they buy much more equipment and can justify a full time repair technician.
This increases the ability of mega food suppliers to control food prices.
Control or elimination of government oversight permits them to produce cheap, low quality and even dangerous food products.
Trump isn't the problem, he's just the latest GOP candidate, and like Hitler, is merely a pawn of the oligarchs who began the Nazi party and ensured that nearly all members suffered little to no losses of illegitimate gains nor punishment for their crimes around the world after WWII.
The Axis countries were defeated, but those responsible made fortunes and survived to prosper and continue to work their agenda to own the world.
You can see clearly which countries they control by looking at nations which chose financial markets over the health and lives of their people.
Note that both parties in the USA have fought to keep third parties off ballots, and to take over those which are still capable of getting votes.
Both parties have been misrepresenting Communism and Socialism by pointing at autocracies calling themselves such, and confusing these economic systems with political systems to discredit them.
Remember that our 2 parties were originally a single party which split.
We're much closer to these assholes taking the world than ever in our history, not through warfare, but through manipulation of the people.
Remember that one of their stated goals is to reduce the world population to 500 million white skinned people, which means killing over 7.5 billion people.
Tisk!
I can relate. I have to do it often. And you know what? I get restacks of those unedited before I see the last typo or other error that I saw. Then I go back. It is embarrassing. to me but I don't hold it against anyone else.
Jess,
These last three paragraphs succinctly put into words my feelings.
Thanks much
“I don’t trust anyone who still supports Trump. I don’t want them to file my taxes or clean my teeth or put tires on my car. I don’t trust their values or morals. I don’t trust their character. I don’t feel safe in their presence.
I don’t trust that they won’t put me or mine in danger if they thought they could make a point or gain favor with an egomaniac running for president.
They chose politics over family. They chose the cult. It’s on them.”
I agree totally! Loss of trust in your fellow human beings is one of the saddest things.
I don’t trust their character or their morals. That sums it up for me.
Jeff, I was getting ready to offer the same sentiment. Thank you Jess and Jeff!
Long after Trump is gone, we'll be dealing with these damaged people. We need to vote every MAGA out of public office. That is going to take time and effort. What a nightmare!
3 Election Cycles at least, may MAGA and all far right populist movement/conspiracy nutters here (and around the world) go the way of the Whigs, Macarthyism, Nixon apologists. A repeated history lesson we have to learn over and over as there will always be predators of power and they have new prey every generation.
I did not vote for Nixon, and, like so many of us, glued to the Watergate hearings. At least Nixon believed in and upheld the US Constitution, in his own way. This is why he resigned, rather than cause an insurrection. Just saying.
Nixon Republicans placed party over the Presidency and told Nixon to resign or be impeached. What most people do not recall, Gerald Ford, became VP when Nixon's VP, Agnew, resigned after he pleaded "no contest" to felony charges of tax evasion, bribery amongst other scandals.
Republicans have been criminals since 1960.
Yup! Spiro Agnew (under Tricky Dick) was the Precursor!
They need to be tried, convicted and jailed. At their own billionaire expense, not the taxpayers of the USA
Well said Nancy.
Jess. What a sad story. Last week one of my sisters came to visit me on her birthday. I had several gifts for her and much yarn (she is a knitter while I crochet). We were just sitting and talking when her husband just blurted out "I'm voting for trump." OK. I was offended. My home. My rules. No trumpism allowed. I went off on him. "You are married to my sister. You have daughters. You have granddaughters. How can you vote for a rapist?" He just laughed and said he didn't care. My sister said she doesn't like DT and will not vote for him but doesn't care for Kamala. And spouted nonsense about not having enough info etc. I told her to vote for Kamala anyway to cancel our her husband's vote, or to lock him up on election day so he can't get out & vote.
Trumpers have a sickness. It's like what I saw my roommates go through in the 1970s with the cult/groups they joined -EST, Lifespring, etc. Something happens that changes their brains, seemingly permanently. Maybe they need deprogramming or to be sent to re-education camps. I just try to avoid the people who have become that because it's just too awful to witness. It's so terrible that such a degenerate has so much control over people's minds, isn't it?
I hope you can maintain your sense of safety and knowledge by helping others to understand how important our freedoms are.
Stay True.
Vote Blue 💙🔵
The saddest part is the fact that the supporters get blinded by lies which, if they were true, would make a little sense! Somehow, in that process an Ohio farmer believes a crooked con-man from New York about immigrants raping and pillaging, and mainstream media in general have refused to report a corrected, truthful scenario!!
Thanks for Jess and a few like her that call it for what it is!!
People bought into Charles Mansons' craziness, too
But nowhere near this many!
I saw through Trump the minute he made the statement that he could shoot someone and still get votes. I thought surely his crazy and dangerous words would help other people see through him. I was so wrong.
My neighbor was (sad to say "was") one of my best friends. We were always invited to their cook-outs and parties. We would be invited to go to nice restaurants, his treat. (He insisted.)
I knew he despised Democrats and loved Trump, and for eight years we managed to avoid politics. Then one night at his home, he made a statement that if Biden walked in the door, he'd shoot him between the eyes. I couldn't stand it any longer. I began to state my opinion and then he started baiting and bullying me.
He called me a "poor misguided child." Oh my!
He has not spoken to me since after I dared say that he worshipped Trump, because he does.
Anyway, I told him that we would never agree politically, but we agreed that family and friends were important, that fellowship was important, that good food was important 🙂, and that celebrating good times was important.
Sadly, he can't see past our political differences.
Yes, I've just experienced it again too. Dare criticize Trump, or point out any of his (endless) incoherencies and - oops! Just lost another friend. Definitely a cult.
Just perfect timing. My husband spent 3 hours on the phone last night with his son trying to convince him that something Eric Trump said on Fox News is true. As usual it escalated. He slept poorly and is saddened by this. His son is his only child and Thanksgiving is coming soon. One family member is considering not coming because we told her that, in fact, nobody is eating pets in Springfield Ohio. These people are college educated and by most standards successful. Make it make sense. Please. It’s heartbreaking.
Yeah. Two children out of three who are on that train with your son. We don’t talk about it at all. didn’t talk to each other at all for 3 years. So now we can talk. And I’ll take that. We talk about other stuff.
But yeah. I’m still up in the nights some nights either worried about them and/or unbelievably frustrated to have to keep quiet (I feel SO compressed) when I want to be able to connect on this. Want to warn. Want to be on the same page.
It is definitely heartbreaking. Voting blue. Doing the little I can. Very concerned and sad.
So sorry. We have one like your son. Big hug.
I have a similar reaction when I see the Gadsden flag flying over a $400k house with a $50k pickup in the driveway in the Des Moines suburbs. Exactly who is treading on you?
Yes, I used to work with some of these men. (Some were from NW Missouri.) They thought they were entitled to a house, truck, motorcycle, boat, and place at the lake. They were sure diversity and inclusion were an enemy threatening their lifestyle. As a single mom, I was thankful to be paying the bills and to have one house, one car-and decent paying job with benefits. I just could not understand their hostilities!
Saw a Gadsden flag with JD on it saying “don’t fact-check me”
Ugh.
Yes!!!!
Perfect description of the descent into madness that is MAGA.
But what if it isn’t madness so much as mental health that has been left unattended? Like heart disease? Or Cancer? But rather PTSD — and it could be treated? See Thom Hartmann’s piece today for a more hopeful comment https://open.substack.com/pub/thomhartmann/p/trumps-death-cult-how-the-trauma
Thanks for that link. I actually have more hope than reality has given us a basis for. But I think hatred is learned, and not organic. The bad (evil?) behavior of the rank-and-file cultist can't be explained away so neatly. It's a willful decision by most.
I agree.
If it is mental illness, should they be allowed to wreak havoc on our country? Remember - Charles Manson and Jim Jones suffered mental illness, also. Is that who you want as our leaders? I have un-friended and "un-familied" those who support tRump and his cronies.
Wait, what if its racism. White dominance/white supremacy is real. The fear amongst a large portion of white people believe that the others whom our ancestors deemed to be inferior-Mexicans, Blacks, LGBT, Haitians and women get in power and treat us the way we and generations before us have treated them. Just sayin.
“The outlaw and the hillbilly.” It’s laughable, but they are trying to turn an autocratic billionaire with a fascist bent into an “outlaw.”
JD Vance, a Yale-educated lawyer and venture capitalist, is now a “hillbilly.”
Wow, thank you for this helpful and articulate explanation.
Working in psychology, I recognize similarities to young children trying on different versions of who they might be.
This is normal at a young age. So much of Trump’s pathological parenting by his father has trapped him back there, and his skill is seducing others to join him.
After all, we have all been age 3, four and five…
Thank you so much again!
Many years ago I helped a friend complete his Masters thesis on childhood trauma (I was the typist). That is how I became aware of Alice Miller's writing. Trump has often been compared to Hitler, and clearly shared a similarly miserable childhood. I have some sympathy for those two boys, but the thoughtless, consistent cruelty of Trump is still inexcusable.
Dear EFS - Please read "The Final Solution" ....it started out as one thing, quickly morphing into the genocide of millions, not just Jewish people, but also believers in right wing Christian groups such as the Jehovah's Witnesses. Circa 1941-1945....
The Final Solution is the preamble to Project 2025. Stay mindful.
Another enlightening read is Timothy Snyder's "Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning." According to Snyder, Hitler believed that life was a constant struggle and it was kill or be killed--there was only struggle and win...or die. (There was a reason he called his autobiography "My struggle.") He despised Jews because he believed they had introduced the idea of compassion into the world and were undermining the very foundations of "nature," which, according to him, demands a strong and ruthless leader. You can see a lot of this in the way Trump and the GOP are always framing others--especially people who want a kinder, gentler world and a government that serves to protect the most vulnerable--as enemies who must be destroyed.
Not to mention that where Jess saw the sign was a mountain before and where he Hadfields and McCoys kids transferred their fight! Of course the left-wing liberals levelled all that and put in crops so they could create a need for illegal immigrants to tend to them! Maga lies=facts in the "create zombies" formula!1
Google Terra Vance, a distant relative for a contrasting view of JD. Also Facebook.
Once again, you hit the nail on the head. I no longer have a Facebook account because it was heartbreaking to watch friends and family get sucked into the cult. I was also tired of being insulted by those same people for being a libtard. I don’t feel safe in my community like I once did. I’m sad, confused and anxious but mostly, I’m just angry. I came across Jess here on Substack. Jess and those like her give me hope for MO and the rest of the US. I want the security, hope and joy these people have stolen from me. I want to live in the hopeful, joyful world she’s describing.
It is truly heartbreaking. Thank you for all you do Jess. You are such a treasure! Keep holding up the light. One day we will be out of this madness, and you have certainly done your share of keeping the light burning bright. I hope you get your loved ones back. Trumpism is a disease with the cure being hard to implement. It starts with turning off " Fox not the News".
You have described the hair-standing, blood curdling terror of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, from 1993 with Donald Sutherland (or, if you're older, 1956 with Kevin McCarthy). Nobody is safe, anyone could become a Q-Anon cultist or MAGA extremist. People you knew and loved, lost, converted and now dangerous to you and those not yet stained by the MAGA scourge. But this is not Hollywood, there is no script and this is not guaranteed to end well. Vote Blue.
The Brainwashing of my Dad - over and over again. Except it actually had a happy ending - they were able to cut out right wing media during a hospital stay
Many of us have lost friends and family. The only way my husband has been able to retain a childhood friend is to agree to not talk politics.
Oof! This SO captures this mindboggling descent into madness I've witnessed. You and Heather Cox Richardson today both nailed the process we're seeing, you from the more personal perspective, her from the more historical perspective. Helpful to have words to describe it and process it. Thank you SO much for sharing your wisdom and being a voice that speaks truth to dark power.
Thanks Bonnie! Subscribed to Richardson today. Excellent commentary!
Glad to hear it! I find her stuff so helpful because she puts things in the historical perspective in ways I never learned in history class!
Thank you for saying these hard things, Jess. For exactly these reasons, I wish we had local directories of businesses owned by Democrats. I don’t want my dollars supporting those who deliberately choose candidates and policies that are harmful to the people I care about.
Agreed. Maybe your local Dem county party could help you identify some? I asked ours if they knew any Democratic financial planners after I was so disgusted by ours' screeds against Obamacare. They knew someone and he was great!
Kendra, please see my post above about Goods Unite Us!
Have you looked at the App, "Goods Unite Us?" It gives info on which political party companies contribute to. I drive a Subaru, have Progressive Insurance, and shop at Food Lion. Look it up!
Wow.
Vance as a hillbilly, that's a laugh. These folks need to realize he was raised in Middletown Ohio and barely spent a summer or two in true Appalachia. Suburban boy.
They need to talk to real Appalachians, the real hillbillies, who are pissed as hell at this poseur who dumped all over his "kin", blaming them for their lot, and pouring extra special contempt down on his poor addicted mother. He's a cruel little man twisted by the psychotically violent grandmother who raised him and sharpening of his skills at one of those elite schools these folks love to hate, Yale.
I had one laughable moment in South Virginia, similar territory, where the farmers also like to post gargantuan Trump billboards and bastardized versions of our flag. A huge sign for Trump standing at the corner of a cornfield was countered right across the fence with an even larger Harris Walz sign, cunningly slanted towards the oversized sign of cult devotion.
Vance wrote a book called Hillbilly Elegy. Perhaps they are using the title of his book as a shortcut reference nll
Thank you for this. I have told a couple of clients that if they wear a Maga hat or start going down the rabbit holes in my office they better find another CPA firm. They have all backed off, only because it is so hard to find another decent CPA.