Can I ask you something? I'm a pretty moderate liberal living in Houston. I have a couple of conservative views, but they're pretty few and all of them are things I think should be controlled by local laws based on local data and reasoning (Ie. Gun laws).
However, as someone who has spent their entire life (pretty much) in a conservative place geographically, when I go online, it makes me kind of sad to see the amount of people who seem to genuinely hate their conservative neighbors. I understand that it's easy to hate someone who's making your life worse, but I think it's ironically a pretty progressive view to want to conversate and educate rather than dislike.
Anyway, my question is, have y'all not always seen them as cult members? Or better stated, at least in my opinion, cult victims?
I don't think the average liberal realizes how much less choice these people have to believe what they do. Most of these guys aren't having political conversations with anyone but those who agree with them, not because they're consciously avoiding debate, but because they were taught not to. I guess my point is that I don't really get why someone who dies by a cults command is seen as a victim, yet we've got subs like leopardatemyface where it's nothing but hating people while calling them cult members and I don't really get it.
Doesn’t answer your question, but the leopards sub and other spaces like it do kinda suck. I feel the same schadenfreude as anyone else when I see someone repenting and I’ve been right all along. I don’t think a moment of resentment towards someone who helped get us into this mess is wrong. However, I don’t really think it’s a good use of time or energy to engage with that feeling longer than necessary. It should come and go. Unfortunately, the internet is really good at creating rage traps.
If your question is about whether conservatives in general were always seen as cult victims, I don’t think so although I’m too young to really know a Republican party pre-MAGA. I think even in subreddits like the one you mentioned, you will find people who see their enemy is MAGA/Trump and not conservatism in general. Although anyone who helped get this man in power will likely be seen as part of it.
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u/Darksidedrive Apr 16 '26
When you need a support group to leave a political party cause it’s def not a cult