"At a rally this evening near Green Bay, Wisconsin, Trump said his team had advised him to stop talking about how he was going to protect women by ending crime and making sure they don’t have to be 'thinking about abortion.”'

William Lindsey :toad:

@mlbellar I love that I can count on you to give me a chuckle, unfailingly. These days, the chuckle is appreciated even more!

Philip Cardella

@wdlindsy yeah. And as we talk about often, you and me...fascism.

It is an ideology that tries to drag us back while trying to murder its way forward.

It looks back on an imagined past where the grievance class thinks it had no grievances and where it, at that time, they faced no resistance.

The reality is they whined in complained at all times and at all times were resisted, particularly by POC and especially women.

William Lindsey :toad:

@JoCzechowska Yes, that's definitely true. But that's the sticking point for all these MAGA bros.

William Lindsey :toad:

@martinvermeer So well-stated and well-observed. And as we make that point, we should remind ourselves that divorce rates are highest in states controlled by white evangelicals and lowest in blue-voting states.

William Lindsey :toad:

@chefraven Indeed!

William Lindsey :toad:

@JosephMeyer I think that as the Republican Party has devolved into a personality-driven cult, the cultic mentality has prevailed, as always happens when social groups devolve into a cult.

William Lindsey :toad:

@seb321 Doesn't it, though?

William Lindsey :toad:

@FloydyStu Stupid is as stupid does, for sure.

William Lindsey :toad:

@StrangeCulprits Agreed!

William Lindsey :toad:

@MishaVanMollusq Shudder.

Martin Vermeer FCD

@wdlindsy Actually Watters isn't wrong when he characterises the thing as an extramarital affair - though *not like that*. Being seduced by an ideology that looks upon one's spouse as less than fully human and more like a kind of property is indeed the kind of 'extramarital affair' that ought to be a deal breaker for any self-respecting spouse.

William Lindsey :toad:

@peachfront Aren't there a number of states in the South (with Missouri thrown in) still fighting tooth and nail to permit young adolesecent women to marry? I smile, too, at the claim that Mary was 14 when she gave birth to Jesus. We know next to nothing about the historical Jesus and even less than that about Mary, other than what the gospels, which are theological statements and not biographies, tell us. I can't think of anything in the gospels stating Mary's exact age.

William Lindsey :toad:

@Illuminatus Thank you. Very good point. I appreciate the link. This is history I did not know.

Håkon Alstadheim

@wdlindsy It's really wonderful how Harris has taken back "freedom" from the MAGA cultists. The US constitution is part of the beginning of the tradition of "liberal democracies", where the rule of law ensures minority rights, and the system of government is based on what the majority wants. This duality, law vs majority can at times be strained. Striking the balance is usually framed in the quote "your freedom ends where mine begins" .
Authoritarians no longer own the word "freedom". ️

William Lindsey :toad:

@martinvermeer But what this rhetoric really tells us is that the claim of this set of citizens to have the "best" marriages, the ideal ones, is fallacious. Their own rhetoric undermines that claim.

William Lindsey :toad:

@philip_cardella "An ideology that tries to drag us back while trying to murder its way forward" is a great encapsulation of the fascist impulse, it seems to me. Thank you for that.

William Lindsey :toad:

@ferricoxide I see. Thanks for explaining. I'll have to glance back through the thread to see what I think.

William Lindsey :toad:

@buermann Didn't it, though? And as a cousin-friend of mine said today on Facebook in response to a posting about this, women have been lying to men for years and these men are only now realizing that?

William Lindsey :toad:

@hakona I agree!

econads

@wdlindsy
I know I'm privileged to live among people who respect my opinion, but that is partly my doing. Of course I'm also partly lucky, in my family and upbringing.
I think there's a difference between going out with someone who votes differently than you, and going out with someone who votes for policies and laws that actively are going to harm you.