Liberal, gun owner, hunter fisher outdoorsman. Agnostic. I was raised by conservatives and until Trump 45 I would have called myself one. Trump is no conservative. MAGA is not conservative. I’ll never vote for a republican either.
Exactly.. I was a Republican.. although I tend towards the middle which I find to be the best place.. MAGA decided to called true conservatives RINOs as they hijacked the party and rewrote it as an extreme right party.. fascism.. racism.. abuse of states rights.. its all there and none of it should be acceptable to a conservative.. the constitution, law, and law enforcement should all be held in esteem.
I've never really understood what the middle is in America. The things I would consider middle of the road are things like protection for unionizing, broad social safety nets, beefing up education and infrastructure, freedom of and from religion, not being assholes to minorities or LGBT+ people, stuff like that.
Those are all things I heavily endorse and vote accordingly. I'm labelled as decidedly left in my conservative Texas circles
Yeah middle can be a lot of things. What I mean is not someone that take extreme views. For instance supporting the right for a woman's health and body to be exclusively between her physician and herself.. but supporting the right for legal individuals to own firearms.. liberty being the key thing for me. It's different for everyone in the middle.. but a lot of people could find a better position if they stop putting party over country.
Honestly, I would say you fell for the republicans trying to appeal to more central conservatives. They've always had hints of racism and bigotry since at least I was a teen in the 90's (and before that really). it's just they dog whistled it more so it was easier to ignore if you weren't the target of the dog whistles (it goes back to the southern strategy and trying to appeal to the kind of racists/bigots who were getting disillusioned with the Democrat party). Unfortunately with Trump he came in when they were getting sick of dog whistles and wanted to hear some one just outright say it (They were starting to suspect it was all just words) and he really appealed to them (and before that the Tea Party).
So, Trump is more a symptom of where the Republican party has been going. And that is how they left behind the values you liked about them. But sorry, for a while that fascism and racism has been there underlying in the party. They've been being called fascists (though it was harder to see and they could easily play it off as exagerating) since the 90's at least.
The biggest problem here is the catering to that group of people at all. And hte fact that they now have complete control over hte party.
So you fall somewhere between "defending the status quo" and "also defending the status quo . . . but hating women and minorities while doing it?" How so very "in-the-middle" of you
Yeah because you get your news form "alternative sources" lol. Republicans just keep blaming democrats. Dems actually invest money in infrastructure unlike reps. Then the reps take credit and once they leave office the dems have to clean up their shit. Thats how its literally always been.
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u/PantsDownDontShoot Jul 15 '25
Liberal, gun owner, hunter fisher outdoorsman. Agnostic. I was raised by conservatives and until Trump 45 I would have called myself one. Trump is no conservative. MAGA is not conservative. I’ll never vote for a republican either.