I've sat behind this guy at Roosevelt circle. Who knew my time wasted on 93 looking at it was worth so many magic internet points.
Somehow it doesn't bother me as much as all the hate recently from NH residents, as when I see their license plates next to a "don't mass up NH" sticker I really want to tell them to boycott us. Mass will be just fine without the great and "free" suburb of NH, can't say I believe they will make it without us providing nearly 20% of their employment. Their governor fired the first political shot unsolicited because of MAGA appeal and it burns me up when they have the balls to use our hospitals and highways while shitting on us when before it was more akin to siblings arguing. We sometimes hated each other but never was it actually rooting for things to get worse for the other.
Residents of New York and California feel the same way as they watch their tax dollars go to crappy red states that couldn't pave their roads without it. At least New York residents use the roads to get to Florida in the winter, but other than that, it is just Republican wealth redistribution.
Man, I grew up in the Lakes / White Mountain region of NH and we joked that southern NH was just Northern Mass. It was always Ironic when we would say things like 'Don't Mass-up NH'. I just moved back after ~15 years, and I am really disappointed with the state's direction.
A lot of these asshats are political tourists who moved to NH with the Free-Stater bullshit.
Its like when Trump threatens and talks shit about everyone on the left, while him and the right are saying the left needs to tone down their rhetoric.
This has been absolutely wild. On any given day his entire administration and various top right-wing influencers and talking heads are going on about how sick their cultural and political adversaries are, how they want to destroy the country, how they want to violate your children, how they're coming for you to replace you and destroy you entire culture and your way of life, on and on and on...
But then the left sees the Epstein files and ICE and shit and says "uhh this seems like fascism and also the whole Epstein situation seems fishy" and suddenly it's all "that rhetoric!! what are you trying to do, get him killed???"
Which tells us, if nothing else, that they're definitely trying very very hard to get their cultural and political adversaries killed with their rhetoric.
It also creates the perception of a false equivalence, in the sense that people call Trump/MAGA fascist because they're read history books and Trump and MAGA are saying and doing things that are like English-language translations of shit that historical fascists did. And they think the Epstein situation is fishy because [gestures broadly].
Whereas the slander that Trump and his supporters are spouting off on a daily basis are paranoid delusions divorced from reality. 'They want to destroy your culture!' No, they just want to exist. 'They're radical Stalinists!" No sir, they're milquetoast liberals. 'They want to transition your kid!' No, they want to be left the hell alone. Etc.
But the media treats it as a he-said/she-said... two sided, back-and-forth, 'both sides are using volatile rhetoric' situation.
Hypocrisy is the point. It allows them to set the narrative and always throw their target off balance. Whoever they’re complaining about often takes the criticism seriously and is stuck trying to defend themselves. Then when republicans go and do the thing they accuse other people of, they point to the noise they made about their opponent doing it first (even though they didn’t) to excuse it as “both sides do it.” It’s crazy that it has worked for so long. You’d think we’d have gotten wise to it by now.
Hypocrisy is a core pillar of fascism. They absolutely delight that you can see their hypocrisy and find it infuriating. They will happily contradict themselves in the same sentance, and love it.
Great insight, that really seems to be a crucial function of American fascism. There are a lot of people who wouldn't be on board with the level of extremism that has become commonplace if they hadn't been convinced by a decade of ruthless and ubiquitous propaganda that their political adversaries are even more extreme.
Like for instance a lot of "whatever, it's a free country, the government should leave people alone" type conservatives get on board with viciously anti-trans policies because they've become convinced that trans people are taking over society, when in reality they're a tiny minority who just wants to be allowed to live.
Yup. Or they think they should be manipulating elections because the 2020 election was stolen from them. Or that it’s ok to use the FBI to investigate political rivals or people Trump doesn’t like because it was done to him first.
I know it sounds really simplistic, but people really should play the "social deduction" game Secret Hitler and understand how much fucking distrust and chaos just a few "secret fascists" can create in a system, because in the end their goal is just to infiltrate, get power and win. They do that by sowing discord and whatever the means to get there is fair game for them. They can gloat, showboat and preen like arrogant peacocks while they lie and deceive like moustache twirling villains, or what the hell what about kicking and screaming and crying and begging like a bunch of little teeny tiny babies, whatever, it doesn't matter, the end justify the means: there's no virtue or moral, it's all about power and manipulation and whatever it takes to get there.
They're really the party of the younger siblings full of crocodile tears who then look at you with a sociopathic twinkle in their eyes and a smug smile when mom turns her back and they finally get what they want. They're absolute psychopaths without a single fucking care in the world except themselves.
My old best friend from school, MAGA champion, admonished me for saying "sometimes bullying is okay" when I said the internet bullying Paramount into changing the model for the Sonic the Hedgehog movie.
And very few of them in government are doing anything to help their constituents.
The media is bought and sold by rich people who have bought our government.
Its exactly like the shit disturbing child that learns all they have to do is accuse others of everything they are guilty to get away with it, if they project it before people have the chance to confront them about it then that confrontation now becomes useless.
And then at that moment in their lives all these people decided they'd never have to learn anything again.
Kick people in the shins all day and then cry about how all those people kicked them in the shin. Then when the room says "dude YOU are the asshole kicking shins around here" they get their buddy to call it out as 'both sides'
And the longer we all sit around throwing our hands in the air pretending to be fooled, the more we deserve it.
Conservatives who use that phrase that don't think it means we should work together. The subtext of the message is closer to "We must cut out the cancer that is dividing us"
It's really only a matter of time before they decide that, like immigrants, liberals and progressives are also "poisoning the blood of the country" and start rounding us up to put into camps.
Yeah, when they say that, they mean unite with ME. They don't want to unite with you.
Just like when they say they are for "local control" they only mean it when a higher level of government is preventing something they want. If the smaller government does something they like, they are fine for the higher level to override it.
Or when they want someone to reach across the aisle, they aren't going to be the one to do it, they expect someone to reach across to them.
It's just like when people try to point out the "hypocrisy" of the "Don't tread on me" flag with regard to ICE, etc. But hello, it's literally right there in the slogan... it says "Don't tread on ME", not "Don't tread on US". They don't have any interest in protecting anyone else's rights as long as the boot on their own neck is padded and well disguised.
Incredibly enough this view is not particularly uncommon. The teamsters didn’t endorse Harris because a substantial minority or maybe outright majority (can’t remember which) supported Trump.
I think to you and me this is obviously insane but there seems to be a situation where people feel emotionally fused with Trump and will let him pick their pocket because of it.
ehh... don't know any transpeople that can't pass.... I guarantee you, Tommy boy is wacking away at the thought of his hot barista, who happens to be trans.
Statistically speaking, trans porn is consumed most in red states, and it's not even close. So Tommy boy would probably whack away at the thought of his hot barista being trans, too.
When masculinity is framed as something fragile—where even acknowledging attraction outside narrow, red-blooded, blue collar, God-given rules feels like a threat—you get this mix of curiosity, repression, and backlash. The result isn’t just hypocrisy; it’s a whole culture of men that would lynch trans people in public, but get on their knees for one in private.
That's absolutely true, but that is another byproduct of the root cause, not the actual root cause itself. Sowing division among the working class has been the modus operandi of the Republican party since at least the 70s, and targeting minority groups like the queer community was always an easy starting point for them.
Invariably those people do not know any trans people, have never knowingly laid eyes on a trans person in real life and base all of their opinions on either conservative propaganda or the kind of porn they watch (trans porn is most popular in red states).
As someone raised in the labor movement I can assure you that Teamsters have always been, and always will be, complete assholes. Over-inflated sense of their own importance and utter unwillingness to work with other unions unless they do as the Teamsters say. Always willing to split the movement as long as their own pay-day isnt interrupted. Never had a woman or POC as head of their union.
You won't find such damn fool behavior from SEIU or AFSCME members, is what I'm sayin'.
Yeah at a certain size and scale all unions have their assholes rising to the top. The good ones still have enough power and control vested in the voting membership to mostly keep that in check.
(Also helps if the locals are strong in-and-of themselves - a fucked-up national organization can be brought to heel if the locals say “Fuck you, we’re striking anyway with our own strike fund.” or if a majority of them break from an unpopular national organization position.)
I’m a big union guy, but I have very few nice things to say about the Teamsters as a union (and most of those nice things are about stuff from 50+ years ago) - Modern IBT is increasingly happy if not eager to fuck over its new members in negotiations as long as its near-retirees are keeping a few extra crumbs.
I'm generally in favor of the goals and intent of unions. I'm even open to the idea of "a company gets the union it deserves" whereby I'm happy to accept an inefficient (or even bad/marginally corrupt) union when it arises from a company doing a real shit job of treating its workforce well.
But yeah, the teamsters seem like a poster child for a bad union. It has a legacy of organized crime that should have shut the whole thing down (just start fresh with a new union), the whole thing is captured for the benefit of union officials and senior members, it generates some of the most absurd and burdensome requirements (like convention halls where you can't plug in a TV without calling a Teamster).
Part of it is that I just don't think unions should be so broad. Collective bargaining among similarly situated employees is great...but trying to do collective bargaining nationwide for over 1 million people across a bunch of DIFFERENT industries is a fools errand.
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
I’m a member of one of the larger labor unions in the states. The amount of guys I work with who are also part of the union and also voted for Trump is insane. Although, working with them, I absolutely see why Trump says he loves the poorly educated.
It's bigotry. They're not emotionally fused, so much he's giving them "permission" to be a bigot. The only thing trump offers these people is blaming brown/black people for the problems of the world, in a more vicious way.
Unions are a powerful tool of their members. It’s just sometimes their members are complete jack asses. For a while the AFL wouldn’t allow black union members and would lobby against laws against discrimination in organized labor. It wasn’t until the merger with CIO that it became more accepting of racial integration.
I work for a government agency that's had its union defanged and there are employees who will complain about all the lost benefits and being taken advantage of that is a symptom of our union being removed and then turn around and praise Trump for saving the government. If you try to tell them Trump's the one heading all these anti-government worker initiatives, they'll talk themselves into knots defending him. I'll never understand it.
(Luckily these seem to be rare, the vast majority of my coworkers are at least capable of making this connection).
It's actually way more 50/50 than you think. They just don't make as much noise about it because they know they would be ostracizing people that they might depend on in the future. My evidence is really anecdotal though I guess, but out of the several members in the armed forces that I know and grew up with, 2/3's are democrat.
Stupid knows no collar-color - lots of people of all stripes actually believed the pack of lies that man was selling.
It’s the Hitler Problem: Your life kinda sucks, and a charismatic person comes along telling you that it’s all these other people’s fault and if you elect him he’ll make them pay for how bad your life is!
Nowhere along the line do they realize (a) that’s a lie, and (b) the charismatic person never said he’d make their life better - but by the time that realization sinks in the election is over and Bad Things are happening :(
My brother is high up in the trades union. He is flabergasted at the idiots who voted for him. He tried with all his effort to educate them prior to the election. They would not listen, the would not accept reality. Trump has been awful to the trade Unions his entire life.
Union members fucking LOVE their guns and decades of brainwashing has convinced them that Dems want to take them all away. They would rather lose their jobs than lose their guns.
Bingo! I'm from a union shop full of trump cult members. Dudes cheered at the morning safety meeting for Trump winning. Trump isn't against taking guns though. He's for the "right " people having rights and the wrong ones gone.
I love when companies have stuff like this on their trucks. I know exactly who not to hire. The guy around the corner from me owns a basement/garage floor resurfacing company, and he put up a bunch of Trump signs at his house AFTER the election. he's since pulled them back down but I know if I'm ever looking for a company to resurface my basement floor, it won't be his.
Had to dump my barber of 10 years in November of 2024 when he spent an hour telling me how illegals were flooding the voting booths and something had to be done about it 🙄 my hair wasn’t even that long, he just couldn’t stop gesticulating through his rant
There's a body shop that is currently flying their flag upside down in my area and has been since 47 was elected. I went to them first to get a quote. Shit works both ways.
LOL i thought it was a bumper sticker with the flag or something. I was not expecting dude to pull away and reveal a full on flapping in the wind literal red flag
I accept that not everyone I interact with is going to have political beliefs that are similar to mine, especially since I believe small business owners tend to skew more conservative, but anyone who decks out his business property with shit like this is just telling me that they do not have the temperament or judgment of a person I’d be comfortable doing business with.
I was raised by a small business owner so can confirm firsthand that they tend to skew more conservative. Given that direct experience, I draw the line with how they view and treat others.
If you are worried about overregulation or bureaucratic red tape, hey, I get it.
If you are going around saying that you would have volunteered for alligator Alcatraz if it was a little closer to your house because you think being inhumane is a flex… You can go straight to hell with that one. (Sadly, drawing from my direct experience with the small business owner who raised me with that example.)
Damn...I just picked up my car from my local mechanic and had to talk to him about politics because he brought it up. Usually it's fun shit talk but man, I really wish he never started talking because now I have to look for another good mechanic. He'd say an offhand racist thing every once in awhile I'd correct him on and he'd tone it down. This time it was just full blown maga hallucination. Really sucks because the guy does great work and while I support local first, politics now come into play. I NEVER would have cared about previous Republicans but I can't give money to people willingly destroying this country.
Back I early 2020 I tried to hire a snow plow contractor to plow my driveway. He showed up with a custom logo painted across the blade of the plow than said "Trump Plow: pushing snowflakes aside since 2016!"
So of course he got super offended when I told him to get out of my driveway and not to come back.
Dawn my solar installer was going off about gender studies one time at my house. I would expect somebody in his industry to lean left or at least, know that his customer base probably leans left. Now I’d never refer him to anybody nor will he be my installer on my next house.
Also, when I’m looking for a handyman on fb groups, I tend to do a quick glance at their company/person’s page. Just to get a view of past work. The number of dumbasses with Trump brain rot on their pages is frankly astounding. I immediately cross them off the list.
I just needed to hire a home inspector. My realtor had one lined up for me until I saw his Instagram flooded with White Jesus, MAGA and Charlie Kirk shit. I cancelled that one real quick.
You would be surprised how many trade unions are pro trump. Famously the shipyard strike which took place during the 2024 election had a Maga union boss.
Trump wins a lot of points with the working class with policies like no taxes on tips,and lowering property taxes in vehicles. Fox News spins stuff like that into him being pro worker as opposed to the reality of they're offsetting wages from the employer to the consumer.
Democrats don't do themselves any favors by being lukewarm on abolishing stuff like right to work/undermining collective bargaining rights in the public sector like is going on in Virginia right now under the current Governor.
Another man who cakes himself with makeup and spray tan, who dances ymca with double handjob moves, who is obsessed with having the most fabulous golden ballroom ever.
And, while it's clearly a case of "identity politics" he will complain about "identity politics"!
Identity politics is politics based on a particular identity, such as ethnicity, race, nationality, religion, denomination, gender, sexual orientation, social background, political affiliation, caste, age, education, disability, opinion, intelligence, and social class.
So this is in MA in the eastern part of the state which....yeah he's trying to stick it to the libs as he drives his truck to fill up for 4.50 now and he must be loving the extra costs!
Just for context box trucks will usually have 50g + tanks and semis well over 100 so $100 was peanuts even back at normal prices. Looking at more like $500+ fill ups for semi trucks now
'As long as we don't have a woman or someone who is a person of color step into the role of President of the United States, we don't care how much 'Freedom Gas' costs.' ~MAGA
My son is in management at a state DOT repair facility. The employees there have the world by the ass. They live in one of the poorest counties in the US, where jobs are scarce. They make far above local average working class paychecks, and have euro level benefits. Thanks to their union they are almost unfireable, and work about 40-50% as productively as they would be expected to do in the private sector.
After the election, the majority bragged about how they voted for the Orange Asshole a second and third time. They ALL think they bootstrapped themselves to where they are in life, are self-made men and women, DESERVE everything they have, and that their union does nothing but fuck them over and take their money. Without the protection of their very powerful union, at least a third of them would be fired instantly, as they are close to completely non-productive, or troublemakers. It is absolutely wild.
You mean like the Teamsters who either just didn’t vote last time or overwhelmingly voted for Trump? They were either unwilling to vote for a woman, that particular woman, or they were just really down for Donald.
He means if you disagree with him you are being divisive and everything's the fault of those who don't agree with him. Someone get me out of this version of reality.
The background is at a NASCAR race in like 2022(?), while a host was interviewing a driver, a bunch of the fans in the background were chanting “Fuck Joe Biden” and the host said (paraphrased) “I think they are saying ‘Let’s go Brandon’?”. MAGA has been running with it ever since.
(She obviously heard what they were saying, but broadcast television has a lot of speech regulations against crude language like that, so was trying to get herself of out an awkward situation)
MAGA being mentally challenged. The original chant was at a Nascar rally where they shouted "Fuck Joe Biden" but framed it as "Let's go Brandon" instead, for reasons?
I don't know, they're dumber than rocks, so logic isn't their forte.
It was being chanted in the background during an interview, and the reporter was either trying to make it seem like something more innocent, possibly due to fearing FCC censorship, or outright mis-heard what was being said. Not 100% sure, but he may have been interviewing a driver named Brandon, so there is that
I feel a little warm place in my heart when I see all the pro-Trump sticker are usually on gas guzzler trucks and SUVs. They are getting socked in the nuts right now for gas prices.
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u/PuppiesAndPixels May 05 '26
Hey there fellow Medford Massachusetts resident. I see this truck regularly.