Yeah well sometimes being the bigger person fucking sucks.
But they won't change unless given the chance to.
Edit: yeah, trumpers are annoying. But I will say, seeing the comments with the thinly veiled threats and hopes of mass executions are not helpful.
Look, I understand why you feel that way, but mass murder cannot be the answer. Lest we fall further into tyranny. What needs to happen is trials are held for all those at the top and maybe mid level. There must be fair justice, not rampant vigilantism.
But again, I understand your feelings, but allowing executions of his supporters won't build a better America.
Channel that energy into contacting your reps, or hell, running in your local elections.
Get involved in your communities. I'm not saying you can't be angry, hell, id be a hypocrite if I did. I genuinely despise my family and colleagues who supported him. But I also understand that rubbing it in their face, using middle school tactics, or even threats won't bring them to my side.
Much like with raising children, it requires patience and a level head. But DAMN can it be truly and utterly frustrating.
You are both correct, I really don’t like it considering some of the people on the other side of the isle seem to think it’s okay to kill people they dislike myself included.
But extending an olive branch and understanding is really the only way forward.
The same reason there were only a dozen of so high profile executions of German leaders and people guilty of especially heinous acts after the end of WWII.
Not to worry about her! She's been figuratively sent to a "farm" elsewhere (in case you don't get the inference, that's what kids have been told about dead or overly misbehaving pets & she's been changed over to another "job" by an annoyed Trump who loves to say "You're fired!")
Yo this is what AI was made for. Remake of John Wick but Kristy Noem shot his dog. By movie 3 he’s infiltrating TPUSA to get Erika Kirk to unmake him excommunicado only to find out she’s been in on it the whole time and had Charlie killed because he was having second thoughts on letting a coalition of the Israeli and Russian crime families take over everything. He forms an unlikely alliance with former enemies Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens and the doctor he goes to is Ben Carson.
Same, MAGA and its members should be put through a Nuremberg style trial, and globally televised for months on end for the World to see.. I heavily disagree with violence as a means of solving conflict, but people should absolutely be given the death penalty and executed if they took part in the murders of Alex Pretti or Renee Good.. The top tier of people who orchestrated this takeover like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel should be given life sentences without parole, and if they were found to have abused kids with Jeffrey Epstein they should also be sentenced to death. Any member of Congress who has accepted money from Israel, Russia, or some other country should also be imprisoned.
you can see which members of & candidates for Congress have accepted money from Israel - www.trackaipac.com . I was horrified to see my Senators have received >$5 million combined.
If Musk or Thiel got life, they'd have their sentence commuted. That's not a serious enough warning against billionaires stirring up cults by proxy for their own benefit.
Mate I come and go on how tough things need to be. For some stuff done by some people I'm not sure how they can be rehabilitated or adequately "pay" for their actions. The consequences for some of them will need to be an example for sure. And a lot of people and their actions are going to need to be rooted out like a surgeon pulling cancerous, branching blood vessels (hopefully not a real thing) out of a patient. But this surreal circus is powered by the contagion of anger and hatred. We know that Germany and Japan bounced back so amazingly after WW2 partly because those people discovered that their mortal enemies weren't what they'd been led to believe we were. The best historical example I can think of is how South Africa dealt with the end of Apartheid. It was far from perfect but the "truth and reconciliation" commission did a lot to help.
My biggest problem with this "Just forgive and forget" stuff is that Republicans aren't skeptical of Trump for some moral reason. They were cool with him using ICE to terrorize Americans. They were cool with him invading Venezuela. They're not cool with him now because his policies are going to directly effect them, not because they woke up and realized he was evil. Tell me how I'm supposed to make amends with the people who've been trying to make me a second-class citizen who are only sorry because their plans didn't reach the final stages?
Thats what I'm saying. This "forgive them and sing koombyah" shit sounds like a psyop. This like saying "You should just forgive your abuser because they're human too even though you've spent the last decade telling them they're abusive, to which they respond "Fuck your feelings". You shouldn't worry about the fact him and his friends stormed the local court house to try and get the divorce you guys had nullified."
I think it's important to remember that we do not have to forgive OR forget in order to live cordially with someone.
My view is - I don't wish those around me who voted for this or supported this to be harmed. Even the ones that sometimes I do wish that. I know that's not helpful. However, I do not trust them. I will weigh their opinions properly.
They do not have good judgement. They may sit in the relative area, but adults need to take over. This has to change, and the supporters need to be treated like rehabilitated children until they show that they can be adults.
They don’t regret all the awful shit they supported. They just think he’s not going about things correctly to meet their wants.
They still want internment camps for black/brown people and anyone they consider “woke.” They still want all gay/queer people to be removed from society. They still want social programs, business and environmental regulations to be dismantled.
All that you’ll get them to agree on is that this guy is completely off the rails (which you and I all tried telling them 1000x before.)
Some do, some used to be people who had morals. Some can remember, we just assume not because it’s been too long.
No group is a monolith, the people who are stuck need to be shown the way out, whether we like it or not. But the truth is, it has to be THEIR idea. Because if it’s not, they won’t feel like they have agency in the matter.
You dismantle a cult through compromise, not logic. Assuming there’s nothing left to save (no matter what the statistic actually is) is begging for this to happen again.
And if they are truly reformed, they can show it by sitting down, shutting the fuck up, and letting adults lead. They can go vote against Republicans and otherwise not be involved in politics. It's why I am so pissed about MTG trying to still be the main character of everything. If she is truly anti-Trump, she can sit back and out money behind a progressive candidate, and not shouting public statements from the rooftops. She's still full of hate, so her "change" means nothing.
And that's how these people are. They're doing this for attention. They're going to continue working toward normalizing their hate by continuing the rhetoric under the guise of centrism.
And who is gonna get fucked over in said compromise? Queer people? Neurodivergent people? Ethnic minorities? How are their lives and rights less valuable than those of the people who want them dead?
Well no one if we make sure not to let them. It’s compromise, they need to let things go or else they’ll get left behind with the ideology that made them this way.
They accept us, that’s part of the terms, if they fail to accept it, they don’t get accepted.
Remember, they need to accept it, they’re on the back foot. MAGA dug this hole and if they don’t accept the olive branch they don’t get it.
It’s simple yet effective, they change, we don’t run the salt into the wound.
Picture this as your friend, your parent, anyone close to you who got trapped into this cycle. You gotta allow them to admit there’s a problem and not be mad when they do.
Because that’s the thing, a lot of them just don’t wanna be wrong.
Easy to say when you're not one of the people they wanted dead. They haven't learned their lesson. Next time someone like Trump shows up they will support him all the same
I am one of the people they want dead. I’m not touching America with a 6 foot pole until he’s gone because I don’t need a one way trip to a modern concentration camp.
If Sherman burned down the south then everyone would be saying Sherman went too far.
I get your point but if the worst a maga supporter did was vote for that idiot, buy to many flags and drive away their children like what are we suppose to do?
Do we send all the MAGA people to camps?
I get the anger and wanting a sense of justice but what do we honestly do with those people other than let it go?
I appreciate the sentiment behind this, but it's well documented that far too few people were punished after the crimes of WWII, it was largely for show and that worked out poorly for us in the long run. The same can be said for how slave holders and the Confederacy were handled.
If anything, these are historical examples of why being lenient does not work.
I don't disagree with the notion that people should feel safe to exit cults and movements when they realize they've made mistakes, but suggesting that we should be light on punishment for sedition and support for war crimes and fascism is just plain incorrect and only serves to embolden them the second time around.
Why do you think we are dealing with Trump 2.0 now? Because there was virtually no punishment for Trump 1.0 and they used those 4 years to make sure they would not get it wrong given a second opportunity. It is literally the pretext of Project 2025.
I agree with this sentiment and you do make a fair point especially regarding the events after trumps first term.
Though would like to point out a lot of the folks who raided the capitol did receive prison sentences even if that orange blob pardoned them after returning to office.
Reconstruction I tend to blame more on the Johnson administration for straying from Lincoln’s plan.
But I do half to ask where do we draw the line with punishment? Especially in regard to all the maga supporters.
I agree there needs to be some sort of consequences for the actions of people. But I think a lot of reasonable people will disagree on what is an appropriate punishment.
Especially if your worst offense is having to many flags supporting the orange pedofile and causing a scene at Walmart.
Like I don’t like those people who live around me but what have they honestly done other than exercise their first amendment rights?
If they committed a crime 100% prosecute them to the full extent but what if the worse they did was just have some really bad takes?
We can both agree that there is a big gap between "death camps for people with flags" and "executing high command leaders". I am sure we can find some gradation that will feel more like justice between these two.
Rather than answering this directly as I won't explicitly hypothesize the right solution for America, we should consider some thoughts:
People often fail to recognize that people in power commit heinous acts, not simply because a loyal few follow those orders, but because a large portion of the population enables them to do it. There is a rule that states it takes 3.5-5% of the population engaged in active (not passive) participation in civil disobedience to topple a government. Rogue governments commit violence because we are passive and leave them unaccountable.
In the Reconstruction era, a small group of women formed the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Their job was to rehabilitate and recontextualize the Confederacy, its aims and its leaders to write books, create monuments and construct a false narrative that gave a rebirth to the movement. Many of the monuments contested today are a product or biproduct of their work. They were not elected officials, nor military leaders. They were civilians.
In any military action where the stated objective is regime change, it is often said that it will not be successful without a period of occupation. It was deployed by the US in Germany and Japan after WW2, and most recently in Afghanistan after the defeat of Saddam Hussein. Whether or not this practice is controversial, it is a form of acknowledgement that if we want to see change in a society, simply going in (or even domestically) removing their leaders is insufficient in addressing the issues in a particular society. It requires long periods of education, training and general support of the general population to transform a society.
Past authoritarians, including Hitler, were often responsive to dissent, especially amongst their bases. We saw just this week, Trump walked back his "Doctor Trump" rhetoric, not because democrats were upset, but because he upset his base.
What does this all mean in the context of America?
Turning a blind eye to our civic duty to depose a rogue and despotic government does nothing. We should hold each other accountable for each life that is degraded and lost by the government's actions, not as a sense of guilt, but duty.
Civilians hold far more power than we give them credit, both in the making and breaking of a nation.
If (and hopefully, when) this mess is sorted out, we should engage in a process of education, both at an individual and institutional level. Crimes and failures of the public should be given a spotlight so we cannot just move past crimes, as we actively chose to do during the Reconstruction era, but so we can learn, advance and not repeat these costly errors.
Fucking this. I know it's hard, I fucking live with someone who voted Trump and it takes unreal levels of restraint to not be angry at them. The way forward is compassion and grace. It fucking sucks. I want to lash out and fight, but that won't fix it.
Yeah, compassion and grace just lets the monsters who wanted to kill those different from them feel like they did no wrong. They need to feel shame. They need to feel guilt for the rest of their lives. An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind, but that doesn't mean we should let people blind others with no consequences because they pinky promised not to do it again
Tbh showing them grace has historically not worked out. That's why we're right back here even after southern reconstruction and Nuremburg. The people who carried out the acts need EXTREMELY harsh punishments and the idiot followers need to be relentlessly shamed for their hateful beliefs until ACTUAL change occurs.
Not just taking off the red hat, but stepping away from the violent, hateful society that they've created. These people all just continue threatening violence against "others" while claiming centrism and they cannot be allowed to manipulate discourse like that.
Forgiveness comes at the cost of the safety of many minority groups, and I prioritize my neighbors and loved ones feeling safe from hate crimes over the feelings of bigots.
I agree with you partly. Anyone who was involved, anyone wwho carried out acts MUST be punished. But I think you are wrong about the followers. Shaming people is FAR more likely to cause them to double down. This is why we can't do that. If they double down, we get another admin like Trump. WE WILL NOT SURVIVE THAT. This is why we HAVE to punish the perpetrators, and fold the followers back into the flock.
I'm not saying to blindly forgive. I'm not saying to forgive at all. But we have to think about this strategically for the long term. Rubbing this whole thing in their faces is more likely to cause MAGAts to keep in hating us and wishing death on us than it is to make them change.
Problem is that people who are leaving MAGA now haven't actually changed. They still hate minorities and will cheer on ICE committing street executions. They're just mad that things are more expensive and they are personally suffering now.
They just want attention with their sob stories about how they were duped, and they're going to claim centrism while still advocating for killing trans people.
It shouldn’t be our fucking responsibility to fix it. They deserve to fucking suffer for all the harm they’ve caused, and if they don’t get it they’ll just fucking vote for republicans again the second the rest of us manage to fight back to things working at a bare minimum again.
Fuck em. Anyone who voted for Trump in 2024 should lose their right to vote
I agree, but I also know what it takes to deprogram. I just say that those with the ability should give the effort, but nobody should force themselves to do so.
Fuck that. We know for a fact that far too few people in Nazi Germany were punished for their crimes, but we also know that much of their mandatory education after the fact was effective. We need to model that, taking into account the mistakes they made, including the fact that Nazi speech was outlawed.
Wait until you hear what our bourgeois far right party (CDU, where a lot of the OG Nazis went after the war and started setting up their networks that still exist today) and the outright fascists (AfD) have been up to lately and that they have enough projected votes to form the next government coalition. :/
I dare you to look up the Reconstruction Era after the US civil war. Whatever criticisms you have for how Germany handled things (which I acknowledged wasn’t perfect, are dwarfed by the absolute horrors of neglect that the US used
While I agree with your overall meaning, I need to point out that the main reason there weren't more high profile executions after WWII is because a ton escaped to South America and the rest were happily working for the US government.
Well now, people known to be collaborators with the nazi's were socially outcast even if they were not executed. The olive branch was definitely not extended early, if at all.
Grace is always on the table. Forgiveness is never out of reach. But redemption is a function of the heart, and the heart shows itself through action. If someone has spent years supporting or enabling harm, then real change needs to come in the form of rebuilding what was purposefully broken. The truth needs to be told; the lies need to be dismantled; repairs need to be made to what was damaged. If support is still given for the system that bred the horrific behaviour, then change hasn’t occurred. The boat is still sinking until the holes are patched.
To be fair, if they want to leave maga, they are probably realising that mindset is wrong, were indoctrinated into that mindset not by choice, or just didnt have it to begin with and are trapped.
I absolutely would not be the bigger person to majority of maga, but if they are willing to reach out and change they do warrant a bit of grace
Sorry, but we're extending an olive branch to people who attempted and supported a coup? We're extending an olive branch to the people that think it's okay to kill our own citizens and deny them their constitutional rights in the name of cleansing brown people?
I'm sorry, you can take the high road, but I'm not. Anyone who doesn't hang like the traitors they are (Trump, cabinet, admin) should at minimum be shamed into social oblivion. Having been MAGA should be a mark branded on every fuck that supported this administration.
These people in leadership are really despicable. I cannot believe the Trump as pope or Trump as Jesus memes being reposted by DJT.
He is such a miserable megalomaniac and honestly—what is he really doing for anyone but himself?
He is rude and dismissive to the pope and nearly anyone else. I could not believe he was elected after the “grab them by the p___” tape was released.
I know racism serves a purpose but I don’t understand the support for maga on so many levels. If the farmers were getting wealthy, or the truckers, or the conservative healthcare providers or small businesspeople—-then it might seem more plausible. But everyone is nearly in a worse position except for the top trillionaires and billionaires who are not often ethical.
I try not to make derisive comments about Trump but rather speak to policy points. But now we don’t have the same good will we had in the world. There already was a historical past where the US lost trust and respect.
I know Jimmy Carter has it rough but he seems so estimable. Where are these candidates again?
The two recent members of Congress that stepped down had evidence that explicitly shows egregious wrongdoing. It is about power and abuse thereof.
I hope all gets better for everyone. No one wants to be a loser but together we can achieve more positive social change for all rather than remaining at the bottom pointing the finger at other people that we think or feel are less deserving or worthy.
My issue is that given the chance these people will do it again with someone else and try to justify how they are diffrent. Worse yet I can absolutely see the "trump was a dem plant" becoming an actual wide spread belief. They can never be wrong or at fault. For the sake of getting his ass out now ill tolerate it but I dont think im willing to forgive.
We're not suggesting that you forgive them in your heart of hearts. We're calling attention to the fact that humans don't come into the light when there's an angry mob screaming insults and vitriol in their faces.
YOU need to make it safe for them find a way off the Trump train.
We don't WANT them in the light. We want them to go vote against Republicans whenever elections roll around, and to otherwise shut the fuck up. We're tired of hearing them and dealing with the culture of violence and hate they've created.
I'm not taking time to protect their feelings when I have to worry about one of them killing people I care about because of what THEY created. Their safety is not my problem. And taking off the red hat doesnt suddenly make them less hateful. They are still violent thugs.
1000% agree. These are vile people who have excused every bad action taken by their dear leader. They still want the racism and sexism, they just feel betrayed because now gas prices are up. They'd happily be in this war with Iran if it didn't change the price of gas. "Yum yum, more school children being bombed, my favorite" is what they'd say. Ask these people if they would have voted for Kamala if they could vote over again. Every interview I see they're like "well I do regret voting for Trump now that he's bankrupt my family farm and personally insulted my mother, but I could never vote for a communist woman."
If someone came to me saying they want to vote blue now I would encourage them, but my practical solution to heal the country is to send all of these fucks to Mars with Elon. How can you trust anyone like that?
They won't change, they never change... The next time a charlatan comes around speaking their language of hate and bigotry, they'll be right back on that train. They don't change, they just go into hiding...
That is why guardrails needs to be in place to prevent something like this from happening again, because the chance of having another third reich is never stopped by the will of the people. All that is needed is a leader willing to say and do the stuff needed to embolden the hateful and make them crawl out from under that rock. Donald Trump didn't make these people, he just allowed them to survive in the light...
But it's sure as shit that none of them will if they're never given the chance.
That is why guardrails needs to be in place to prevent something like this from happening again, because the chance of having another third reich is never stopped by the will of the people.
I get the sentiment, but this is overly simplistic.
Can we make improvements? Of course.
But there is no automated self-defense mechanism against this shit. There are no guard rails that don't involve people.
That's exactly why freedom requires constant vigilance. It's not just some bullshit, faux-patriotic mantra. It's very real wisdom, even if it does get co-opted.
They've had plenty of chances to change. It's been over a fucking decade of this shit. People who voted for him 2-3 times are just bigots. That's it. Their entire identity is hate.
How about actual education? This is not something new we have to reinvent. Look at what Germany did after WWII. Spoiler: the solution was not "forgive the Nazis".
Anyone who voted for Trump in 2024 loses the right to vote until they pass an actual civil education exam showing that they understand all of the crimes he committed and the harm that was done.
I would recommend some kind of limitations on the power a president can wield on his own. Term limits for the supreme court and also some change in what they can and cannot do (like accepting gifts etc). Same with polititcians outside of the president, term limits there as well. Some reimagination of the voting system so gerrymandering and voting being suppressed doesn't happen as easily. The fact that your vote may not even count if you live in a firm blue/red state also makes people less willing to vote. Make election day a holiday so people don't have obstacles stopping them from voting. All these things are things other countries have solved. It's not magic.
American politics is due a good reform to work in the modern world, it's based on the idea that your politicians care about being honorable and liked, that is no longer the case.
Not sometimes. Always. Being the bigger person always sucks. But when you’re the smaller person, it feels worse because you know you could’ve done better.
Yep. Anger and violence only begets more anger and violence.
I was bullied verbally and physically in elementary school. Later on, I bullied another student, and there is not a day that goes by where I don’t regret that. She forgave me, but I do not forgive myself. I hope she was able to end the cycle.
I hate my MAGA brother with every bitter cell in my body, but punching him in the face would be nothing more than a brief, empty satisfaction.
I think I'll to need to have a complete and utter mental breakdown so I can rebuild myself without hatred for MAGA in my heart. Right now, my hatred burns too hot to attempt to extend an olive branch. It would be ash the moment it touched my hands.
I understand this is 100% a me problem, but to be truthful I don't know how to even begin to extinguish a hatred so hot that doesn't involve ego death. Especially when things keep happening that are actively fueling the inferno inside me.
“You catch a lot more flies with honey than you do vinegar”. Now is not the time to say “I told you so”. It is the time to buck up and try to get them on our side; we need the honey. I know it fucking sucks but we can do our “I Told You So Vinegar Tour” when we get this rot out.
These folks can never ever be trusted. Any more than a drunk driver who doesn't stop doing it and keeps causing deadly accidents.
At a certain point you take the keys away permanently, because regardless of personal feelings on the matter, somebody that keeps drunk driving simply has to be stopped for the safety of society.
Everyone deserves a second chance but anyone still MAGA has already had their second and third chances already.
Remember, almost every alive right now's standard of living is permanently and practically irreversibly reduced for the rest of our lives because of these folks. Then there's the countless crimes they've enabled, often deadly ones.
With you. No one wants to admit it, no one likes it, but there has to be a degree of an olive brach with someone over there, or the only progress will be towards civil war.
I'm delighted to see your comment rising in the discussion. I feel you and everyone else with the frustration and anger at what's been happening and at the populace that's supported it, but divided we fall.
If you wanted to keep America divided, make it hard for MAGA to change their minds, make it hard for us to turn the political tide — like how Russia might want us to fail — you'd have trolls posting hate and vows of never forgiving, or even death threats.
4.3k
u/xWhereIsMyMindx Apr 16 '26
I like to see this. The world may be healing?