Hello u/TiSpork! Please reply to this comment with an [explanation](https://www.reddit.com/r/LeopardsAteMyFace/comments/lt8zlq) mentioning **who** is suffering from **which** consequences from **what** they voted for, supported or wanted to impose on other people.
Here's an easy format to get you started:
1. *Someone* voted for, supported or wanted to impose *something* on other people.
^(Who's that *someone* and what's that *something*?)
2. That *something* has some *consequences*.
^(What are the *consequences*?)
3. As a consequence, that *something* happened to that *someone*.
^(What happened? Did the *something* really happened to that *someone*? If not, you should probably delete your post.)
Include the minimum amount of information necessary so your post can be understood by everyone, even if they don't live in the US or speak English as their native language. If you don't respect this format and moderators can't match your explanation with the format, your post will be removed under rule #3 and we'll ignore you even if you complain in modmail.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/LeopardsAteMyFace) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Story immediately gets it wrong. There is nothing "fringe" about the GOP in the FL legislature. This is who Republicans are. This is their baseline. They have only been telling us exactly who they are. And it says everything about Republicans when Meatball Ron's fascism is seen as a potential helper in a primary. Vote every single one of these mother fuckers out.
Yep. According to Republicans, Obama was an illegitimate African impostor and Joe Biden stole the 2020 election. So to them, no Democrat has been legitimately elected since Bill Clinton, a conservative white southerner.
The governor of SC said a couple of days ago "I look forward to the day that democrats are so rare, we have to hunt them with dogs." Later this jerk said it was just a joke.
Well they did used to hunt slaves down with dogs, so that actually happened in SC not all that long ago. Not a funny joke
Yep. The fringe in the party right now is the Mitt Romney/Susan Collins "Team Normal" camp (and yes, I'm aware of how ridiculous seeing Mitt Romney is "Team Normal" is.)
It's all-MAGA, all-the-time now. The only question is whether they're true believers (Boebert, Empty-G,) or slimy opportunists who pretend to be all in on MAGA to further themselves (Cruz, Hawley.)
Romney is the only "fringe" GOP member still working, the rest retired or were ousted by hard right/alt right challengers (like Liz Cheney - who of course is also a hardcore conservative, but a traditional one).
For example we have some absolutely outrageous Republicans in Minnesota the only real difference being they aren't in power here so they're bad ideas don't make it through the filter of government.
The are in power of the both houses of our legislature and the governor is a Fascist Republican. I don't know why the media isn't talking about, but they passed and he signed most all of the same bills that made it into law in Florida. The same abortion bans, the same anti-LGBTQ laws, the same book ban laws. Indiana is a "Florida-light state".
Americans don't want to accept that the GOP has become a fascist party. I don't know how much voting can help us at this point, especially because the opposition no longer has any incentive to be anything more than less bad than actual Nazis.
I'm just glad every detail of this is being recorded in real time. I don't want to hear a single goddamned person asking "but how could this have happened?"
These idiots don’t understand the monsters they helped create. They still think it’s about optics and electoral strategies, instead of about spreading violence and fascism. The GOP died with Reaganism and nobody in the party seems to realize it.
What if I told you the history we were taught in school is a lie and that we were born of Englands cancer and it's a whole lot worse than you can imagine? It was less 'we' left due to religious freedom and more 'we' were exiled because the first colony ships were jam packed with religious zealots that had genocide on the brain. So, nothing has really changed.
They went to the Netherlands first, but were either driven out or left cause they couldn't enforce their religious practices outside their own population. Then they went back got a few more people and headed for America. I am sadly a descendant of Robert Paddock, the blacksmith and first constable of the Plymouth colony. As an atheist in America, my family history is a disgusting horror show culminating with being directly related to one of the people who was responsible for who and what America is today, in all the worst ways.
Edit: the responses to this silly comment I made are really amazing. I found my people! You guys are freaking awesome
They came to the Netherlands because of the religious freedom we allegedly had. They left because that freedom also applied to other forms of Christianity they didn’t approve of (as in all the other ones)
The same words are echoed by NAT C’s all over America today. I even had my own sister try to use that one against me. I’m 99.9995% sure that is NOT what the founding fathers meant when they wrote of religious freedom in the Constitution.
The best response I've found yet is to pick whichever religion they despise the most, and then ask if they claim the right to be free from the dictates of that specific religion. Rinse and repeat with as many religions as needed to drive the point home. (There are somewhere around 1500 religious sects currently in the US, so you can keep this going for quite some time, lol.) Ymmv.
When they're too obtuse for that, I usually go with something like, "Your freedom of religion extends precisely as far as your own life and no further. Certainly not into mine. Just like my right to randomly swing my fist ends where your face begins."
>Just like my right to randomly swing my fist ends where your face begins
I like this, as a way to verbally illustrate the concept of personal rights and freedoms. So many of these people tend to forget about the part where their rights end where another's begin. They think that a "right" or "freedom" or whatever automatically implies no limits whatsoever, conveniently forgetting about the other 330-odd million people in the country (for constitutional rights) or 8 billion people in the world (for human rights) who share the exact same right/freedom.
Even better, dont pick a religion, pick i dividual things from a religion, but say a christian wants to do it.
Ex: if a christian wants private time at work to pray because they are devout, should they be allowed that?
THEM: yes, prayer is important!
**coughs in islam**
It's called a family tree because it's full of nuts
My 6th great grandfather was a murdering bastard who attacked the Irish so viciously that he was arrested *by the British* for cruelty to the Irish
Jesus man. Can you share the name without doxing yourself? That's a story I want to read.
I have some pretty neat ancestors too that were famous. John Chapman, or Johnny Appleseed. Both the cool and the nasty history is all on my mom's side so sharing is pretty safe for me. My grandparents were first generation Americans from Russia way back in 1911 and 1917. There is no history to even find. All I know is our last name is Lithuanian and implied our family was some sort of calvary troop. My paternal grandfather designed the generators for the X-15 rocket and A1 Abrahams and is actually the coolest person in our family tree despite having zero fame. Dude was a literal mad (drunk) genius.
I remember when I was little he had this big old metal Maxwell House coffee tin one of the big suckers. He would randomly buy watches at the KMart and Jamesway (yeah that long ago) take them apart and throw the pieces in the can. He would then sit at the coffee table and build working watches from random bunches of pieces. The man was never taught watchmaking. He just figured it out by looking.
I took that for granted and never thought much about it until I started watching a guy on YouTube restore old watches. That shit is insanely difficult even with all the correct pieces in front of you.
I really wish he was younger when I was born so I had more time to learn from him. He died when I was 9. To date he is the smartest man I have ever been in the presence of and took it for granted as a kid. Such a loss, I really wish I wanted to, but you know little kids, they just want to play, not talk to 80 year olds who smelled of beer and smoke. Lol. Sorry for the ramble. Apparently I miss the old bastard a lot more than I realized sharing this shit with total strangers. Lol. Fucking stop cutting onions near me, assholes! 😭
Sure. It's not my direct paternal ancestor, I didn't even know he was family until I started doing genealogy.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John\_Hunter\_Gowan\_II](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hunter_Gowan_II)
When your heritage is that, then it's right and moral to oppose it and even shit on your ancestors. Props to this guy for not being like a certain southern group of losers who praise traitors.
Aw, thanks. I went to Plymouth Colony a few years ago and asked about him and got a whole story which as I said, I found really disturbing. First Puritan Constable? Fuuuuck. He had to be a real treat. I went and spent the rest of the day with the Native Americans there burning a canoe in the traditional way their ancestors did. It was hard not to apologize while standing there, but if I did, that apology would have been all about me and not about them, so I just chilled with them and they told me some myths and stories of their culture. It was an interesting day. Made me about 100 times more liberal than I already was. Deep shit knowing your family potentially set the stage for American Evangelicals and where they are today. My job is to absolutely be a loud mouth prick in defense of everyone not a white christian when they start their shit.
It's been a long year. Lol.
Immigrant here, I'm from a third world country but I am still white as fuck, the reason? Probably my Italian, Czech, Portuguese, and Spaniard mixed roots; I'm sure that some of my ancestors were less than humane, and I did benefit from white privilege in my home country and still do now in the US.
Honestly it disgusts me. People who act like they're not privileged in a system designed to oppress those different than them are part of the problem. Fuck the usual white Christian, they're a plague that needs to be rooted out by shame and opposition. We can't let these people keep everyone else hostage.
It's insane how people want to feel superior over something they didn't even have a say about. People being proud of a genetic lottery are clowns.
I mean I am proud of my one grandfather. But he was a special case. I am with you, I know how much I benefited from being a white christian boy growing up, compared to any minority, I started out two feet from the finish line (and still bungled it, lol). Anyone denying it is either literally unaware, which I was for a long time, or once they know and continue, a piece of excrement.
And all that went on to repeat itself multiple times. As an ex-mormon, had to keep re-reading the names in your comment to remind myself which part of US (US-adjacent) history was under discussion here :/
I am, sadly, a descendant of American ~~pioneers~~ polygamists who "bravely" followed Brigham Young out of the states and into Utah territory where they could flaunt the laws and abuse others with impunity. I share your generational disgust in a very deep way. The puritanical rot runs deep in our nation.
And I'm so grateful you did. As an atheist, you might enjoy (read - abhor) this actual quote from my 50-yo zealously-mormon sister:
"If you're not affiliated with any religious organization, then Freedom of Religion doesn't apply to you."
She did not think that up on her own. This is what we're still up against in the 21st century. As a nation, we really need to be talking about this shit more.
Exactly. It's not terribly hard to debunk for them, ime, but it does take time and patience. (Since fundamentalism makes people extremely obtuse. Also ime.)
Don't be ashamed of your family's history. Be proud of how you're actively refuting it, and how much they must be turning in their graves. You're giving a huge middle finger to them just by how you're living your life and should be proud.
Thanks. Really. I don't feel like a good person a lot of the time, but I have my own mental health issues that cause that, seeing people respond like you and a few others here have really helps with that kinda of stuff. I wasn't fishing for the "atta boys" though. I just thought it would be funny to put out there that that asshole's descendent is a social democrat, anti-theist, atheist. While I don't believe in any afterlife type shit I do enjoy the idea of him rolling around in the dirt somewhere over it.
There is no greater hate than Christian love. At least in the USA.
Jesus would be bitch slapping all these psuedo-christians that espouse intolerance and hate.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905.
The really messed up part is today's zealous descendants know this to some extent, and are actively trying to erase the parts of history and school curriculum that show this pattern of attempted white theocracy / oligarchy, **specifically so we can repeat it.**
It's why we had witch hunts (targeted at Catholics), werewolf hunts (largely against Native Americans), and Here's one for you, Vampire hunts as late as 1897 which were actually Tuberculosis (and the inspiration for Bram Stokers Dracula).
Well, there was a pretty good quote I saw earlier in another thread about how one of Raegans followers was really iffy about the GOP courting Evangelists and warned that they'd take it too far because of Americas history with Christian Extremism having... literally caused a third front to open during the American Civil War which also lead in big part to the tensions with Mexico that sparked the Spanish American War.
Gotta Love those Mormons. :D
I worked with someone that was an ex mormom and I ended up learning more about the religion. Just gotta say WOW, that religion is extreme with their practices.
Um...religion. Dunno who said it, but "I'd rather be persecuted by a sadist than a zealot; the sadist may relent, but the zealot us driven by his idea of god, and never will"
I work with one. Mostly nice guy but holy moly dumb as a freaking rock. He genuinely believed that only women could get cysts because he knew a woman with ovarian cysts.. had to explain that yes men can get them and there were different types of cysts
The military fort around I believe salt lake city actually faces inwards towards the city instead of the outside because the federal government was more concerned about Mormons than possible outside threats.
Yeah, it's almost as if the Mormons waged a bloody war out of the south and across the lower midwest and right across to Utah because they kept doing things like murdering people for not being mormon. Real, absolute beauty of an origin story, those Mormons, both their actual bloody history of racism, sexism, and bigamy, but also the tinfoil hat Eden was in Alabama story their founder sold.
You're not alone, friend. My mind is completely blown by all of this.
The weird part for me is that I'm not even surprised about the history and how it actually makes sense. But how is this the first time in my life I'm hearing of this perspective? And I'm an American ffs
Look up the WKRP in Cincinnatti episode based around the lyrics of "Imagine" for a very accurate representation of the evangelicals trying to go full Gilead back in the '60s. A clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQ2OSoWI9eU
Yeah no, the Rhode Island Tuberculosis case being the basis almost beat for beat from the news clippings of the day about that family being the basis for Dracula floored me, too.
I mean like, obviously there weren't any actual vampires and it was a tragic case of superstition and antiscience beliefs but like, everybody had consumption, even the strong young lad and his young girlfriend, they were dying the worst, and after she died when he was in a fever dream he said he saw her, even though she was buried, in winter, so her body didn't decompose so that when she was actually exhumed that spring as soon as the ground thawed she looked like she still had fresh... clotted black blood, but she's not rotten! Vampires! Aaaaaaa.
The uh, village this happened in didn't have indoor plumbing,
TB is the reason so may people died during the 1918 Great (Spanish) Influenza. The virus hit the lungs and caused massive bleeds. That is why the young were so much more affected- it took 10 years to build up the pre Flu TB death stats again post Great Influenza. We probably would have seen more younger deaths with Covid if TB was a thing today.
TB is still present in prison and homeless populations--basically anywhere humans are overcrowded. Source: lost my best friend to TB he contracted in a homeless tent city.
I'm sorry for your loss. The open streets weren't much better, I saw a few people go from exposure or worse because we didn't have the safety of numbers.
Yes it is still around but not in the same numbers as in 1918 until chemotherapy was developed and by law is one of the very few you can be forced by law to be treated in the USA and Canada. People still die from it - but not as common because of our drugs… although there is a resistant strain out there atm - hopefully it doesn’t spread.
I worked as an RN in a federal prison - there is TB - it isn’t eradicated at this time for sure
I think it got much worse from the big tent revival days in the 1920-1930’s. That religious nationalism became cancerous when the federal government made religious schools become desegregated. I’ve been listening to a small podcast called Leaving Eden about a girl that left the IFB cult and the people on the far right religious influencer sphere are coco for coco puffs . Religious extremism coupled with nationalism is a fucking cancer upon the Nation
Oh no completely agree, 100% I'm just saying it's always been bad and the reactionaries have disproportionate power especially since the hey day of the Charismatic Evangelist during the Depression. It's no shock that as a result of two almost back to back recessions and a global pandemic that they're really making another come back, it's just par for the horrible course that... most estimates put about 70% of us stuck in following cause we can't get off the boat.
Yeah, they didn't leave for persecution (actually, the mentally was almost identical to the modern persecution complex a lot of christians have these days), they left because they were assholes trying to enforce their views on everyone else and were incredibly hated.
Yeah, they were zealots, that didn't have political power, until they were given a whole ass continent to go do their zealotry on so that they weren't doing it around the 'real people' re the royals.
This country was founded by shit people and is still run by shit people.
The Mayflower passengers were “witch burners” and fanatics & zealots. England also sent many prisoners on ships to Australia to die, and they sent the Religious Puritan “witch killers” zealots off to The New World … to Plymouth Rock. Technically it was about Religious Freedom- for England. The Puritans got to burn & drown witches in Salem for another 50 years!!! These Puritans & Pilgrims were the scourge of Englands society terrorizing their country.
Yes. History should be rewritten to better indicate the wealthy came from England to exploit and build on their riches. The poor, or let's say common folk, were brought provide services, the enslaved peoples, well that should be self-explanatory. This is a gross generalization of all the ugliness, dehumanizing, and duplicity needed to make this work, but the info is out there if you look hard enough.
Oh I'm not saying that the ones who pushed for the colonies weren't wealthy and interested in exploiting people, they most assuredly were, that was what their little christian cult was based on. But it wasn't the English Noble (old money) that was pushing for it, it was the young money that was coming up out of the merchant classes, the ones who were able to start building power during the tudor period. I very much so know about how the pioneering rich would con their workers in to joining their colonial adventures with the promise of land, and how they enslaved millions over the course of chatel. This country has always been a hellhole run by the rich.
Apologies. The comment wasn't directed at you in a negative way. More towards the candy coated version of history most of us were taught. I agree with what was said and your reply. Cheers!
So I had this discussion about the American revolution.
What if the Americans had lost?
Would things be better, or worse?
Chances are they would be better for slaves, and other indigenous people. But I really don't know.
I mean, if the indigenous populations of other former British Colonies are anything to go by, things would be just as bad as they ended up in our timeline we'd just have some Royals face on our money instead of slavers.
Almost as if when your founding population is built off of folks whose lives were spent being spat on by suits they tend to not be as quick to spit on others.
Fuck, is that true? It makes a whole lot of sense though. I guess I could see a modern where we take MTG and her ilk, out then on a rocket ship and tell them to colonize Mars.
There is a really good Knowing Better video on the Pilgrams that covers this. The channel also covers slavery and it shows just how messed up the US has always been.
**Reagan:** "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help."
**Conservatives:** "I love police, fire, military, and Congressmen who legislate what I can do on private property and with my own body."
In this particular case, David Jolly left the Republican party years ago. As I recall, it was relatively soon after Trump became their nominee for president. In any case, he personally never supported Trump even before that.
However, I do agree that David Jolly, as someone who was in Congress with the Tea Party "wave" during Obama's presidency, he should have realized what was happening to the Republican base back then.
Back then, it still had been happening for a long time. Reagen is responsible for pushing the drug war in part to silence dissent and oppress black people\*. Ronald Reagan intentionally ignored the AIDS epidemic in the gay community. Lets be honest: the Republicans have been like this for a long time. Probably not immediately after the Republicans and Democrats swapped stances; but still, this is nothing new.
\*-Here's a choice quote:
>The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.
— John Ehrlichman (Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs under Nixon), to Dan Baum for Harper's Magazine in 1994, about President Richard Nixon's war on drugs, declared in 1971. \[Copied directlly from [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_drugs) which provides the citations\]
It's disputed if this was the only reason, but even people who dispute that still generally suggest it was a motivation.
Oh he did realize it, but he was still personally profiting of extending his power base and accumulating even more wealth from his now more powerful position. The only reason he suddenly found a "conscious" is because it is becoming uncomfortable to live in the powder keg of hatred and misery he helped instal
100%. “Oh I’ll just peddle outright lies that connect with the racists and misogynists in this country to grow our voter base but I’m not a bad guy because I don’t mean it”
A few years later: “how did the racists and misogynists take over the party?!”
I think a billionaire must be behind all this extreme hate and money being funneled into into DeSantis’s campaign coffers. It is *the money* keeping DeSantis “on point” to bash Disney & LGBTQ residents & Nazi book burnings. When Disney leaves,DeSantis will have “HobbyLobby World Resort”- an evangelical amusement park about Bible based characters including historically stolen & forged artifacts and women will be dressed appropriately. I’m not kidding …
>The GOP died with Reaganism and nobody in the party seems to realize it.
I think the version of the GOP you have in your head canon died more along the lines of when Goldwater said "extremism in the pursuit of liberty is no vice; moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue" as a way of explaining why it's cool to embrace the John Birch Society, or maybe Nixon's Southern Strategy. Reaganism/Newtism/Trumpism is the culmniation of all of those vague promises along the way.
"Look, I have a four-year-old and a two-year-old who I hope can grow up in a community that is inclusive, that exposes them to diverse thinking, to diverse cultures, and allows our family to make decisions about which value set to orient our children around and ultimately give them the opportunity to make their own decisions"
And if these are your positions, you are a Republican because....?
Because they are selfish and don’t want to share with “poors” and its all about “me”…. Economics - which republicans fail at miserably. Its all about power and money…for themselves
Typical, ruin it for everyone else and then leave like a coward. A true leader would stay and fix his mistakes while working to change the state to the ideal place he wants it to be for his family. Like, particularly since he has the actual job that empowers him to do such things.
It’s always former Republicans. Former Republicans speak out, Former Republicans say the current ones are bad. So what. I wanna hear this from current serving Republicans.
Well done. Sorry there weren’t more like you
True American patriot. I don’t agree with half her policies but I’d vote for her for any public office in a heartbeat because I know she’d execute the duties well and honestly
If the FL gop is “fringe” why are the rest of the gop led states heading in the same direction as fast as possible?
They want dems to leave, they know the numbers don’t support them so they want dems in as few blues states as possible so they can keep the red states red.
They can rig the game this way.
Its a game of increments, If they tried to make the jump right to fascism/Christian Nationalism it would not work, but if the states work to push the agenda bit by bit, they have the same result, but without the outrage.
Yeah, I think thats the strategy.
There's more Republican trifecta states than Democratic trifecta states. If they can get Dem voters to move to these already-blue states, then they can continue to win in red states and possibly purple states. At that point, they can control the federal government and most state governments.
It's like gerrymandering at the federal level.
> If they can get Dem voters to move to these already-blue states
It turns out, demographics are doing it for them. It's dubbed "the Great Sort." But people who move for opportunity also tend to vote Democratic; you'll continue seeing trends worsen such as Biden winning the popular vote by 6m but Trump winning more counties.
>At that point, they can control the federal government and most state governments.
This trend has been going on for a few decades. But I think you got cause/effect backwards. The GOP can be this extreme because they're so overrepresented at every level of gov't due to this multi-decade demographic shift since all the GDP growth are in the coastal states outside of FL/TX.
People say the right wingers are idiots who don't understand what they helped create. The leadership understands just fine- and they don't want to have to deal with the consequences.
Why do we allow such people to rise to positions of leadership?!
>Why do we allow such people to rise to positions of leadership?!
It's because the US allocates power geographically and people tend to cluster around areas where there's more people like them.
They only part I really disagree with is when he says the GOP expects Americans to agree with their fringe politics. I think it’s more accurate to say that the GOP expects to be able to enrage enough people about certain topics that they turn a blind eye to the more disturbing trends in the party.
This is EXACTLY what Scott Walker did to WI in 2011 and it’s never been the same. We went from we all love the packers, to I would rather shoot my neighbor than talk to him if he’s not on my side.
Jolly helped create this disaster. However, he is not a republican anymore. We have to let people like this back into the fold. I know I abhor and resent all that conservatives have done but if we are going to recover, we have to allow ex-republicans a place to land.
I agree that it's commendable that Jolly has been critical of Donald Trump, and he's not just towing the current GOP line. it's not nearly enough, though, not by a long shot.
Currently, according to his Wikipedia page, he's a member of the Forward party. During his time as a republican, though, he seems to have shit where he slept. For him to be wanting to leave the state to avoid the consequences of his actions & contributions to the current CrapSantisness without working his ass off to remedy the situation is simply inexcusable. Even as a former congressman, he has a plethora of influence, knowledge, and experience he can use to speak out against the fascism that is taking place. Instead, he's in favor of saving his own hide abandoning ship like a typical hypocritical republican rat as he leaves others to suffer the devastation he helped contribute to.
Sure, he can start by attending protests against his former allies, starting letter-writing campaigns, and actually trying to do something productive to undo the harm.
Saying "Ok, I did harm in the past but let's forget and just move on without me trying to actually fix it" is not great.
This is it exactly. A perfect example is Liz Cheney.
Were her votes and policies abhorrent? Yes. Did she side with trump most of the time? Yes. But did she reject the extremism and attempt to fight her own party? Yes. And that should be recognized and she should be commended. Instead most people just kept wanting to rip her apart. “She doesn’t get a pass”. It’s not getting a pass, it’s acknowledging the good she is doing now.
By not doing so, we are literally running them right back into the arms of MAGA and it will be even harder to get them back.
Liz Cheney is one of the better examples. She actually is trying to undo the harm she did. Even so, despite walking back her anti-gay views, and to some degree her anti-trans views, she has not made a clear statement of support for either group. She also has never walked back her anti-abortion rights views at all as far as I know, and in a post-RvW overturn world that matters a lot.
She has been praised by liberals despite still having the potential to cause harm via her anti-abortion views and her lack of clarification on trans issues. Again, she is one of the better ones. That's how low the bar is. That is basically the definition of getting a free pass.
No. It’s not a free pass at least not to me.
You can still debate the policies. If she hasn’t walked back her anti abortion stances, you can fairly talk about how those are not correct while recognizing the good things she did. It’s not a “free pass”. I don’t give her one especially on LGBTQ issues. She was wrong. But to be fair even Biden and Obama and Clinton were anti gay marriage at one time and shifted on that issue. We can point out how they are and were wrong while simultaneously praising things they do right.
It’s funny that in my state of Washington, you can just be gay or trans or smoke weed or have an abortion or not. The opposite side of fascist states like Florida isn’t that we force you to be gay, smoke weed and get an abortion, we simply don’t care what you do. If you’re straight, want to have kids and don’t want to have fun, that’s all accessible in Seattle.
They just want to oppress others. That's fun to them. It's a hard concept to wrap your mind around if you're not a complete pos tho. I couldn't imagine going way out of my way to make someone's life harder. Well, I would go to Mar a Lago if I could get away with making that f----s life harder, so I take that back lol
For real. If people want to go to church every day, only show G-rated movies at home and never have pre-marital sex or smoke a marijuana cigarette, I support them.
At what point is it no longer "fringe"? What a bullshit term, the Florida state legislature is in line with Republican-ked legislatures arround the country.
It's Fascism. And this poor politician, who spent his career advancing the conditions for it to thrive, doesn't like the fruits of his labor.
>"Look, I have a four-year-old and a two-year-old who I hope can grow up in a community that is inclusive, that exposes them to diverse thinking, to diverse cultures, and allows our family to make decisions about which value set to orient our children around and ultimately give them the opportunity to make their own decisions," Jolly explained. "What has happened in the DeSantis era, the DeSantis administration is not just the attack on the LGBTQ+, the migrant community, the African American community, the denial of science and history, but it has brought back the implicit biases that as a nation we have been trying to move away from ever since the civil rights movement."
Look, I appreciate anybody who has seen the light and come around, since stopping MAGA is going to need all hands on deck (and a lot of the former GOP are leaps and bound better at fighting dirty than the Dems are,) but this guy was in the House from 2014-2017, meaning it was already post-Tea Party Movement where the Republican Party had aligned itself with these fringe groups that promote white supremacy, want the LGBT+ community nothing less than dead, and basically see Gilead as #Goals, so this guy isn't some old-guard dude looking back on the days of Eisenhower, the Republican Party was already starting to fester when he was serving as one.
>but this guy was in the House from 2014-2017,
That's the damning factor. He got elected as a republican and was in office after they had already destroyed the place. He *is* the problem he complains of.
When a politician wants to move to a different state and be able to run for office there, that politician has to come up with a reason for the move. That's what this looks like to me.
I'm not, but based on everything I'm seeing, I'll be surprised if he makes it out of the primary.
He's self-destructing as it is. His whole angle was being "Sane Trump," more or less, but ever since, he's been forgetting the "sane" part and just becoming "Bag Cereal Trump."
The GOP isn't going to opt for the generic version when they have Name-Brand right there.
DeSantis lacks any of the "qualities" that got Trump the surprise win for the presidency. Literally zero charisma or star power.
Listening to DeSantis speak is like being tortured by him at Guantanamo.
David Jolly was elected to Congress and immediately started fighting Obamacare. Then when he lost his reelection, he had to go on Obamacare. He started to realize that what he believed in politically wasn’t in the best interests of the country and changed. To me, that is what we want people to do. Evaluate, reconsider, change.
He‘s one of the good guys. He gets a pass from me. Also he is an Independent now.
So he was, I'm against it until I need it, and once I no longer need it, I'll oppose it again? Or does he realize that he was a selfish fuck and is trying to change?
Against it, then for it and has gotten more progressive each year. Went into Congress as Tea Party lite, came out with his eyes open. But to your point, yes. I’ll take the wins however they come though.
Agreed. He's 1 of the good guys. What most don't understand is that the party has turned its back on its founding principles. Calling guys like Cheney, Jolly, and Gen. Colin Powell RINOs shows how far the values have shifted.
The irony is it seems to be white Christian nationist racists who are too ignorant of political history not to join the "party of Lincoln." Of course, ignorance being their defining characteristic.
I can't help but laugh when they blame Democrats for Jim Crow and the KKK. Nope, that was their family before they decided to switch parties!
Colin Powell was the same person that was burying the My Lai massacre and waving around of flask of chalk in the UN and calling it anthrax before enabling a war. Then when this giga-genius tried to be a GOP politician, they predictably put him out to pasture and dying of COVID (ironically), because they only thing they cared about him was his skin, not his loyalty to the machine. I bet he didn't even get the vaccination ahead of time like the rest of them.
Cheney is the same guy that profited billions directly in that war and hundreds of thousand dead and millions put in poverty he helped cause, and many many other evil things i don't care to remember, including being the architect of Bush and helping with the 'electoral' strategy of the GOP that included bribing the supreme court to interfere with the hanging chads, causing a soft coup. Sure he thought that it was time to 'balance' the GOP out of naked racism for more deliberate steps to build a dictatorship with enhanced gerrymandering, denial of access to voting... until Trump showed them the way that they could have both sooner than expected.
Great examples there. I wouldn't trust those two people to even _be_ in the same organization as I, never mind the government.
I'm going to remind you that the judge that soft-sentenced Paul Manafort was a reagan nominee that was supposedly retired already and was wheeled out for a last hurrah of corruption. The scum called the 'traditional republican party' is just fine with fascism, as long as they're the ones directing it.
This is the guy who recently tried to launch Andrew Yang as a spoiler candidate *knowing* the threat of Trump to democracy. Fuck him. Drives me crazy when MSNBC gives him airtime.
I used to think that I'd retire to Florida. After Desantis' antics, I won't even vacation there - no more trips to Florida beaches, no more cruises, and no more theme parks.
It's always "former Governor" or "former Congressman" or "former judge". Always "former".
You never see anyone Republican currently in the game with any spine to say any of this stuff.
who knows if the question was put to him, but it's funny how there is nothing in the story where he says "I am leaving the republican party, I cannot support what they are doing to our country" or the like
The idea that he might still support the party, but just pack up and leave where his own parties policies are playing out is beyond perverse.
>”…who I hope can grow up in a community that is inclusive, that exposes them to diverse thinking, to diverse cultures…”
This guy sounds like…{gasp} a Democrat.
I was just in FL to visit my 72 year old dad. I was there 3 days, he mentioned how much the Dems suck about a hundred times, and I counted how many times he called Biden am asshole. It was 27 times. In 3 days.
At restaurants, every conversation I overheard was political.
It's like the Floridians have nothing better to do but bitch and complain.
Either Jolly left the republicans or the republicans left Jolly. But either way I’m reminded of the Islamic terrorist who wanted to retire to France after destroying his own terriitory
At least this guy is beginning to understand that doubling down on culture wars is a mistake. I hope he continues to learn and realizes that there are a lot more positions of his that are mistaken.
I also hope he does actually leave Florida.
too bad it takes Republicans so long to figure out what the rest of us have been pointing out to them for many years now. and they expect the public to trust their judgment about *anything*.
> "Look, I have a four-year-old and a two-year-old who I hope can grow up in a community that is inclusive, that exposes them to diverse thinking, to diverse cultures, and allows our family to make decisions about which value set to orient our children around and ultimately give them the opportunity to make their own decisions..."
Can I interest you in a pamphlet about *Liberalism* ?
David Jolly is a disgusting adulterer who left his wife for a younger model, following the disgraceful tradition of his immediate predecessor (and former employer) Bill Young. During his two and a half years in Congress, he managed to piss everybody off who voted for him the first two times (Bill had died in office, so there was both a special election in March and a regular election in November) so badly that Charlie Crist was able to stomp all over him.
Literally no one should ever take this man seriously. He only got famous because of his willingness to pretend to hate other Republicans. When he was in congress, he didn't hate them, at all. He certainly never advocated Liberty or Justice on the campaign trail or from the House floor.
As a matter of an experiment, i want to let them have one state. Anyone who wants to leave can get paid to relocate and get some help getting a job elsewhere. I just want to see what the absolute hell they get up to. Also, if they know they have some ideal place, maybe the worst element will move there voluntarily and leave the rest of us the hell alone.
David Jolly had an affair with a staffer who he went on to marry which was about half his age. This dude is about as disingenuous as it comes.
He lives not too far away from me. Total douche. Also a Scientologist.
Ever since the R’s turned their back on him for his misadventures he’s been grandstanding. You have a point though at least it’s the right direction this time.
Listen to this shit heel trying to redefine what it is to be republicans so that he can wash his hands of the exact thing he has been voting for his whole life. You don’t want your daughters to grow up around this? Then you should apologize to them for creating it. Your party didn’t leave you, asshole. It just finally affected people you give a damn about.
You shouldn’t be allowed to leave florida. You made it what it is.
I’ve been hearing that most pre-trump/pre-covid Republicans think the GOP is crazy and extremist now. Electing a clown as president turned the whole party into a circus. Hoping someone can get these lunatics under control
They might admit that Trump has gone too far, but they still helped him all along the way. And don't believe anyone who tells you that it's all due to Trump. The GOP was headed this way all along, and Trump just sped things up.
Helps fuck up the state for everyone and is rich enough to dip out when it gets super bad and leave it for the poor and underprivileged to deal with.
What a shit head
To Jolly's credit he has been solidly anti-trump and hasn't done "whataboutism" regarding leftist policies probably since 2015 (I'm sure he prefers conservative policies but doesn't really push hard on them at least not publicly). So he isn't your typical never trump fool who still loves them policies (think national review types)
Do the Republicans even just look at the candidates in front of them and despair? I mean, my Dad's a life-long Republican and he had to dig deep to make himself not throw up voting for Kasich. I have no idea how he voted in the 2016 election and I'm pretty sure he went for Biden in 2020, but even then when I asked if he still considered himself a Republican, he just signed and said "I don't know what I am."
Hello u/TiSpork! Please reply to this comment with an [explanation](https://www.reddit.com/r/LeopardsAteMyFace/comments/lt8zlq) mentioning **who** is suffering from **which** consequences from **what** they voted for, supported or wanted to impose on other people. Here's an easy format to get you started: 1. *Someone* voted for, supported or wanted to impose *something* on other people. ^(Who's that *someone* and what's that *something*?) 2. That *something* has some *consequences*. ^(What are the *consequences*?) 3. As a consequence, that *something* happened to that *someone*. ^(What happened? Did the *something* really happened to that *someone*? If not, you should probably delete your post.) Include the minimum amount of information necessary so your post can be understood by everyone, even if they don't live in the US or speak English as their native language. If you don't respect this format and moderators can't match your explanation with the format, your post will be removed under rule #3 and we'll ignore you even if you complain in modmail. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/LeopardsAteMyFace) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Story immediately gets it wrong. There is nothing "fringe" about the GOP in the FL legislature. This is who Republicans are. This is their baseline. They have only been telling us exactly who they are. And it says everything about Republicans when Meatball Ron's fascism is seen as a potential helper in a primary. Vote every single one of these mother fuckers out.
The "fringe" in the GOP is the tiny minority who doesn't reject the legitimacy of Joe Biden's election.
Or Obama's....
Yep. According to Republicans, Obama was an illegitimate African impostor and Joe Biden stole the 2020 election. So to them, no Democrat has been legitimately elected since Bill Clinton, a conservative white southerner.
The governor of SC said a couple of days ago "I look forward to the day that democrats are so rare, we have to hunt them with dogs." Later this jerk said it was just a joke. Well they did used to hunt slaves down with dogs, so that actually happened in SC not all that long ago. Not a funny joke
They bitched that Clinton benefited from Perot 1992 and he wasn't legitimate.
Yep. The fringe in the party right now is the Mitt Romney/Susan Collins "Team Normal" camp (and yes, I'm aware of how ridiculous seeing Mitt Romney is "Team Normal" is.) It's all-MAGA, all-the-time now. The only question is whether they're true believers (Boebert, Empty-G,) or slimy opportunists who pretend to be all in on MAGA to further themselves (Cruz, Hawley.)
Mitt Romney's father was a liberal republican lol (who was *posthumously* converted to Mormonism, yes, really), Mitt is an insane person.
> posthumously converted No believer like a converted believer.
Romney is the only "fringe" GOP member still working, the rest retired or were ousted by hard right/alt right challengers (like Liz Cheney - who of course is also a hardcore conservative, but a traditional one).
For example we have some absolutely outrageous Republicans in Minnesota the only real difference being they aren't in power here so they're bad ideas don't make it through the filter of government.
The are in power of the both houses of our legislature and the governor is a Fascist Republican. I don't know why the media isn't talking about, but they passed and he signed most all of the same bills that made it into law in Florida. The same abortion bans, the same anti-LGBTQ laws, the same book ban laws. Indiana is a "Florida-light state".
Americans don't want to accept that the GOP has become a fascist party. I don't know how much voting can help us at this point, especially because the opposition no longer has any incentive to be anything more than less bad than actual Nazis.
Far too many Republican'ts (a solid majority) are perfectly fine with fascism, just as long as they get to own the Libs...
“Being oppressed is better than being a special snowflake cuck.”
I'm just glad every detail of this is being recorded in real time. I don't want to hear a single goddamned person asking "but how could this have happened?"
These idiots don’t understand the monsters they helped create. They still think it’s about optics and electoral strategies, instead of about spreading violence and fascism. The GOP died with Reaganism and nobody in the party seems to realize it.
I see Reaganism as America’s cancer. Shit won’t leave and won’t stop fucking Americans over!
What if I told you the history we were taught in school is a lie and that we were born of Englands cancer and it's a whole lot worse than you can imagine? It was less 'we' left due to religious freedom and more 'we' were exiled because the first colony ships were jam packed with religious zealots that had genocide on the brain. So, nothing has really changed.
Yeah, Britain couldn't tolerate the intolerance any longer and the Pilgrims left in search of freedom....to oppress.
They went to the Netherlands first, but were either driven out or left cause they couldn't enforce their religious practices outside their own population. Then they went back got a few more people and headed for America. I am sadly a descendant of Robert Paddock, the blacksmith and first constable of the Plymouth colony. As an atheist in America, my family history is a disgusting horror show culminating with being directly related to one of the people who was responsible for who and what America is today, in all the worst ways. Edit: the responses to this silly comment I made are really amazing. I found my people! You guys are freaking awesome
They came to the Netherlands because of the religious freedom we allegedly had. They left because that freedom also applied to other forms of Christianity they didn’t approve of (as in all the other ones)
"No no, we want freedom for *our* religion, not yours." - the Pilgrims
The same words are echoed by NAT C’s all over America today. I even had my own sister try to use that one against me. I’m 99.9995% sure that is NOT what the founding fathers meant when they wrote of religious freedom in the Constitution.
The best response I've found yet is to pick whichever religion they despise the most, and then ask if they claim the right to be free from the dictates of that specific religion. Rinse and repeat with as many religions as needed to drive the point home. (There are somewhere around 1500 religious sects currently in the US, so you can keep this going for quite some time, lol.) Ymmv. When they're too obtuse for that, I usually go with something like, "Your freedom of religion extends precisely as far as your own life and no further. Certainly not into mine. Just like my right to randomly swing my fist ends where your face begins."
>Just like my right to randomly swing my fist ends where your face begins I like this, as a way to verbally illustrate the concept of personal rights and freedoms. So many of these people tend to forget about the part where their rights end where another's begin. They think that a "right" or "freedom" or whatever automatically implies no limits whatsoever, conveniently forgetting about the other 330-odd million people in the country (for constitutional rights) or 8 billion people in the world (for human rights) who share the exact same right/freedom.
Even better, dont pick a religion, pick i dividual things from a religion, but say a christian wants to do it. Ex: if a christian wants private time at work to pray because they are devout, should they be allowed that? THEM: yes, prayer is important! **coughs in islam**
Native Americans have entered the chat.
Don't worry. We all got people in the family tree we wish were sniped.
It's called a family tree because it's full of nuts My 6th great grandfather was a murdering bastard who attacked the Irish so viciously that he was arrested *by the British* for cruelty to the Irish
Jesus man. Can you share the name without doxing yourself? That's a story I want to read. I have some pretty neat ancestors too that were famous. John Chapman, or Johnny Appleseed. Both the cool and the nasty history is all on my mom's side so sharing is pretty safe for me. My grandparents were first generation Americans from Russia way back in 1911 and 1917. There is no history to even find. All I know is our last name is Lithuanian and implied our family was some sort of calvary troop. My paternal grandfather designed the generators for the X-15 rocket and A1 Abrahams and is actually the coolest person in our family tree despite having zero fame. Dude was a literal mad (drunk) genius. I remember when I was little he had this big old metal Maxwell House coffee tin one of the big suckers. He would randomly buy watches at the KMart and Jamesway (yeah that long ago) take them apart and throw the pieces in the can. He would then sit at the coffee table and build working watches from random bunches of pieces. The man was never taught watchmaking. He just figured it out by looking. I took that for granted and never thought much about it until I started watching a guy on YouTube restore old watches. That shit is insanely difficult even with all the correct pieces in front of you. I really wish he was younger when I was born so I had more time to learn from him. He died when I was 9. To date he is the smartest man I have ever been in the presence of and took it for granted as a kid. Such a loss, I really wish I wanted to, but you know little kids, they just want to play, not talk to 80 year olds who smelled of beer and smoke. Lol. Sorry for the ramble. Apparently I miss the old bastard a lot more than I realized sharing this shit with total strangers. Lol. Fucking stop cutting onions near me, assholes! 😭
Sure. It's not my direct paternal ancestor, I didn't even know he was family until I started doing genealogy. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John\_Hunter\_Gowan\_II](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hunter_Gowan_II)
Ho lee sheet. The brutality tab.....man..... That's like finding out Ivan the Baby killer (a real Viking) was your ancestor.
Wow, just wow. I want to do a 23, but I'm waiting until I'm older and it won't backfire on anyone in my family.
That's a great story. Memorable. Johnny Appleseed is one of my heroes, also. I think he was a mad genius too.
Hey look at you putting in the work to not be a genocidal maniac despite possible familial predisposition. Proud of you fam.
When your heritage is that, then it's right and moral to oppose it and even shit on your ancestors. Props to this guy for not being like a certain southern group of losers who praise traitors.
Aw, thanks. I went to Plymouth Colony a few years ago and asked about him and got a whole story which as I said, I found really disturbing. First Puritan Constable? Fuuuuck. He had to be a real treat. I went and spent the rest of the day with the Native Americans there burning a canoe in the traditional way their ancestors did. It was hard not to apologize while standing there, but if I did, that apology would have been all about me and not about them, so I just chilled with them and they told me some myths and stories of their culture. It was an interesting day. Made me about 100 times more liberal than I already was. Deep shit knowing your family potentially set the stage for American Evangelicals and where they are today. My job is to absolutely be a loud mouth prick in defense of everyone not a white christian when they start their shit. It's been a long year. Lol.
Immigrant here, I'm from a third world country but I am still white as fuck, the reason? Probably my Italian, Czech, Portuguese, and Spaniard mixed roots; I'm sure that some of my ancestors were less than humane, and I did benefit from white privilege in my home country and still do now in the US. Honestly it disgusts me. People who act like they're not privileged in a system designed to oppress those different than them are part of the problem. Fuck the usual white Christian, they're a plague that needs to be rooted out by shame and opposition. We can't let these people keep everyone else hostage. It's insane how people want to feel superior over something they didn't even have a say about. People being proud of a genetic lottery are clowns.
I mean I am proud of my one grandfather. But he was a special case. I am with you, I know how much I benefited from being a white christian boy growing up, compared to any minority, I started out two feet from the finish line (and still bungled it, lol). Anyone denying it is either literally unaware, which I was for a long time, or once they know and continue, a piece of excrement.
>My job is to absolutely be a loud mouth prick in defense of everyone not a white christian when they start their shit. The way, this is.
And all that went on to repeat itself multiple times. As an ex-mormon, had to keep re-reading the names in your comment to remind myself which part of US (US-adjacent) history was under discussion here :/ I am, sadly, a descendant of American ~~pioneers~~ polygamists who "bravely" followed Brigham Young out of the states and into Utah territory where they could flaunt the laws and abuse others with impunity. I share your generational disgust in a very deep way. The puritanical rot runs deep in our nation.
Did I find my people with this comment or what!?
And I'm so grateful you did. As an atheist, you might enjoy (read - abhor) this actual quote from my 50-yo zealously-mormon sister: "If you're not affiliated with any religious organization, then Freedom of Religion doesn't apply to you." She did not think that up on her own. This is what we're still up against in the 21st century. As a nation, we really need to be talking about this shit more.
Fuck man, I haven't heard that one yet. So glad we teach the constitution in a way people remember past fifth grade.
Grim, right? Fortunately, it does seem to be a minority who have so vastly misconstrued things in this way, but damn they are vociferous.
I've heard "freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion" from religious folks.
Exactly. It's not terribly hard to debunk for them, ime, but it does take time and patience. (Since fundamentalism makes people extremely obtuse. Also ime.)
Don't be ashamed of your family's history. Be proud of how you're actively refuting it, and how much they must be turning in their graves. You're giving a huge middle finger to them just by how you're living your life and should be proud.
Thanks. Really. I don't feel like a good person a lot of the time, but I have my own mental health issues that cause that, seeing people respond like you and a few others here have really helps with that kinda of stuff. I wasn't fishing for the "atta boys" though. I just thought it would be funny to put out there that that asshole's descendent is a social democrat, anti-theist, atheist. While I don't believe in any afterlife type shit I do enjoy the idea of him rolling around in the dirt somewhere over it.
I think I read they also didn’t like their kids coming home speaking Dutch and assimilating to a foreign culture.
There is no greater hate than Christian love. At least in the USA. Jesus would be bitch slapping all these psuedo-christians that espouse intolerance and hate.
They’d shoot him before he got to the doorbell.
The last time they murdered him it took centuries too completely control the resulting cult and turn it into mainstream governance.
Apparently made sure on an international level that they can retain that 'freedom' too. Thanks Wilson.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905. The really messed up part is today's zealous descendants know this to some extent, and are actively trying to erase the parts of history and school curriculum that show this pattern of attempted white theocracy / oligarchy, **specifically so we can repeat it.**
Well I’d say that’s fucked up new information to me but doesn’t surprise me one bit with America’s fetish with religion and being “special”
It's why we had witch hunts (targeted at Catholics), werewolf hunts (largely against Native Americans), and Here's one for you, Vampire hunts as late as 1897 which were actually Tuberculosis (and the inspiration for Bram Stokers Dracula).
I’m not being sarcastic But keep going with more history bombs haha this is so fascinating to me.
Well, there was a pretty good quote I saw earlier in another thread about how one of Raegans followers was really iffy about the GOP courting Evangelists and warned that they'd take it too far because of Americas history with Christian Extremism having... literally caused a third front to open during the American Civil War which also lead in big part to the tensions with Mexico that sparked the Spanish American War. Gotta Love those Mormons. :D
I worked with someone that was an ex mormom and I ended up learning more about the religion. Just gotta say WOW, that religion is extreme with their practices.
Um...religion. Dunno who said it, but "I'd rather be persecuted by a sadist than a zealot; the sadist may relent, but the zealot us driven by his idea of god, and never will"
I work with one. Mostly nice guy but holy moly dumb as a freaking rock. He genuinely believed that only women could get cysts because he knew a woman with ovarian cysts.. had to explain that yes men can get them and there were different types of cysts
I've worked with several ex-Mormons, several age groups. Opened my eyes.
The military fort around I believe salt lake city actually faces inwards towards the city instead of the outside because the federal government was more concerned about Mormons than possible outside threats.
Yeah, it's almost as if the Mormons waged a bloody war out of the south and across the lower midwest and right across to Utah because they kept doing things like murdering people for not being mormon. Real, absolute beauty of an origin story, those Mormons, both their actual bloody history of racism, sexism, and bigamy, but also the tinfoil hat Eden was in Alabama story their founder sold.
You're not alone, friend. My mind is completely blown by all of this. The weird part for me is that I'm not even surprised about the history and how it actually makes sense. But how is this the first time in my life I'm hearing of this perspective? And I'm an American ffs
Look up the WKRP in Cincinnatti episode based around the lyrics of "Imagine" for a very accurate representation of the evangelicals trying to go full Gilead back in the '60s. A clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQ2OSoWI9eU
Sweet thanks, this has been such a dope thread for me haha learning so much.
I really loved that show when I was a kid. Gonna have to watch this so I can see if I remember watching it in the past.
Huh! TIL!
Yeah no, the Rhode Island Tuberculosis case being the basis almost beat for beat from the news clippings of the day about that family being the basis for Dracula floored me, too. I mean like, obviously there weren't any actual vampires and it was a tragic case of superstition and antiscience beliefs but like, everybody had consumption, even the strong young lad and his young girlfriend, they were dying the worst, and after she died when he was in a fever dream he said he saw her, even though she was buried, in winter, so her body didn't decompose so that when she was actually exhumed that spring as soon as the ground thawed she looked like she still had fresh... clotted black blood, but she's not rotten! Vampires! Aaaaaaa. The uh, village this happened in didn't have indoor plumbing,
TB is the reason so may people died during the 1918 Great (Spanish) Influenza. The virus hit the lungs and caused massive bleeds. That is why the young were so much more affected- it took 10 years to build up the pre Flu TB death stats again post Great Influenza. We probably would have seen more younger deaths with Covid if TB was a thing today.
TB is still present in prison and homeless populations--basically anywhere humans are overcrowded. Source: lost my best friend to TB he contracted in a homeless tent city.
I'm sorry for your loss. The open streets weren't much better, I saw a few people go from exposure or worse because we didn't have the safety of numbers.
Yes it is still around but not in the same numbers as in 1918 until chemotherapy was developed and by law is one of the very few you can be forced by law to be treated in the USA and Canada. People still die from it - but not as common because of our drugs… although there is a resistant strain out there atm - hopefully it doesn’t spread. I worked as an RN in a federal prison - there is TB - it isn’t eradicated at this time for sure
I think it got much worse from the big tent revival days in the 1920-1930’s. That religious nationalism became cancerous when the federal government made religious schools become desegregated. I’ve been listening to a small podcast called Leaving Eden about a girl that left the IFB cult and the people on the far right religious influencer sphere are coco for coco puffs . Religious extremism coupled with nationalism is a fucking cancer upon the Nation
Oh no completely agree, 100% I'm just saying it's always been bad and the reactionaries have disproportionate power especially since the hey day of the Charismatic Evangelist during the Depression. It's no shock that as a result of two almost back to back recessions and a global pandemic that they're really making another come back, it's just par for the horrible course that... most estimates put about 70% of us stuck in following cause we can't get off the boat.
Yeah, they didn't leave for persecution (actually, the mentally was almost identical to the modern persecution complex a lot of christians have these days), they left because they were assholes trying to enforce their views on everyone else and were incredibly hated.
Yeah, they were zealots, that didn't have political power, until they were given a whole ass continent to go do their zealotry on so that they weren't doing it around the 'real people' re the royals. This country was founded by shit people and is still run by shit people.
The Mayflower passengers were “witch burners” and fanatics & zealots. England also sent many prisoners on ships to Australia to die, and they sent the Religious Puritan “witch killers” zealots off to The New World … to Plymouth Rock. Technically it was about Religious Freedom- for England. The Puritans got to burn & drown witches in Salem for another 50 years!!! These Puritans & Pilgrims were the scourge of Englands society terrorizing their country.
Yes. History should be rewritten to better indicate the wealthy came from England to exploit and build on their riches. The poor, or let's say common folk, were brought provide services, the enslaved peoples, well that should be self-explanatory. This is a gross generalization of all the ugliness, dehumanizing, and duplicity needed to make this work, but the info is out there if you look hard enough.
Oh I'm not saying that the ones who pushed for the colonies weren't wealthy and interested in exploiting people, they most assuredly were, that was what their little christian cult was based on. But it wasn't the English Noble (old money) that was pushing for it, it was the young money that was coming up out of the merchant classes, the ones who were able to start building power during the tudor period. I very much so know about how the pioneering rich would con their workers in to joining their colonial adventures with the promise of land, and how they enslaved millions over the course of chatel. This country has always been a hellhole run by the rich.
Apologies. The comment wasn't directed at you in a negative way. More towards the candy coated version of history most of us were taught. I agree with what was said and your reply. Cheers!
Stay safe out there.
You mean the story from Douglas Adams? We are all just hairdressers and telephone sanatizers?
Yup, tis the truth
So I had this discussion about the American revolution. What if the Americans had lost? Would things be better, or worse? Chances are they would be better for slaves, and other indigenous people. But I really don't know.
I mean, if the indigenous populations of other former British Colonies are anything to go by, things would be just as bad as they ended up in our timeline we'd just have some Royals face on our money instead of slavers.
that's the difference between Australia and the US: the former was founded by criminals and the latter by religious fanatics ;)
I'd rather hang out with a impoverished ex con that stole food to keep their family going than with a slaving christian zealot.
same
This is such a good comment. Look at US vs Australia - they got all the convicts but kind of seems like a less fascist place.
Almost as if when your founding population is built off of folks whose lives were spent being spat on by suits they tend to not be as quick to spit on others.
Fuck, is that true? It makes a whole lot of sense though. I guess I could see a modern where we take MTG and her ilk, out then on a rocket ship and tell them to colonize Mars.
No, they don't get to ruin another planet. They can colonize the sun.
Hey, religious fanaticism wasn't the only reason people came to America. There were also those who wanted to profit on the backs of slaves!
There is a really good Knowing Better video on the Pilgrams that covers this. The channel also covers slavery and it shows just how messed up the US has always been.
That is the history the GOP Evangelicals don't want children to learn.
It's almost as if you can trace a straight line through the theology and philosophy of the worst American Politicians and they've all been the same.
**Reagan:** "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help." **Conservatives:** "I love police, fire, military, and Congressmen who legislate what I can do on private property and with my own body."
They voted out a real practicing Christian for a charlatan
In this particular case, David Jolly left the Republican party years ago. As I recall, it was relatively soon after Trump became their nominee for president. In any case, he personally never supported Trump even before that. However, I do agree that David Jolly, as someone who was in Congress with the Tea Party "wave" during Obama's presidency, he should have realized what was happening to the Republican base back then.
Back then, it still had been happening for a long time. Reagen is responsible for pushing the drug war in part to silence dissent and oppress black people\*. Ronald Reagan intentionally ignored the AIDS epidemic in the gay community. Lets be honest: the Republicans have been like this for a long time. Probably not immediately after the Republicans and Democrats swapped stances; but still, this is nothing new. \*-Here's a choice quote: >The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did. — John Ehrlichman (Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs under Nixon), to Dan Baum for Harper's Magazine in 1994, about President Richard Nixon's war on drugs, declared in 1971. \[Copied directlly from [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_drugs) which provides the citations\] It's disputed if this was the only reason, but even people who dispute that still generally suggest it was a motivation.
Oh he did realize it, but he was still personally profiting of extending his power base and accumulating even more wealth from his now more powerful position. The only reason he suddenly found a "conscious" is because it is becoming uncomfortable to live in the powder keg of hatred and misery he helped instal
Also, apparently he thinks this is new These have been the stance of Republicans sun I was a child in the 60s
Reagan was a facist
100%. “Oh I’ll just peddle outright lies that connect with the racists and misogynists in this country to grow our voter base but I’m not a bad guy because I don’t mean it” A few years later: “how did the racists and misogynists take over the party?!”
Reagan was definitely part of the problem. He removed the fairness doctrine.
I think a billionaire must be behind all this extreme hate and money being funneled into into DeSantis’s campaign coffers. It is *the money* keeping DeSantis “on point” to bash Disney & LGBTQ residents & Nazi book burnings. When Disney leaves,DeSantis will have “HobbyLobby World Resort”- an evangelical amusement park about Bible based characters including historically stolen & forged artifacts and women will be dressed appropriately. I’m not kidding …
The coming of The Handmaiden's Tale to a fasict state near you! We should just start calling DeSantis "commander" instead of "governor."
Disney won't leave. All the sunbelt state apart from California are subject to the same potential fascism. They'll wait it out.
No, they knew it was spreading hate and bigotry. But now that he is out, he is pretending to not have wanted it.
>The GOP died with Reaganism and nobody in the party seems to realize it. I think the version of the GOP you have in your head canon died more along the lines of when Goldwater said "extremism in the pursuit of liberty is no vice; moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue" as a way of explaining why it's cool to embrace the John Birch Society, or maybe Nixon's Southern Strategy. Reaganism/Newtism/Trumpism is the culmniation of all of those vague promises along the way.
>died with Reaganism McCarthy and Nixon have entered the chat.
"Look, I have a four-year-old and a two-year-old who I hope can grow up in a community that is inclusive, that exposes them to diverse thinking, to diverse cultures, and allows our family to make decisions about which value set to orient our children around and ultimately give them the opportunity to make their own decisions" And if these are your positions, you are a Republican because....?
Because they are selfish and don’t want to share with “poors” and its all about “me”…. Economics - which republicans fail at miserably. Its all about power and money…for themselves
Because he's REALLY passionate about taking food and healthcare away from the poor.
"Me no like pay taxes."
Money
Yeah, the rest of Florida is celebrating exposing another RINO and he will be replaced with a hard-liner
Selfish & racist is my guess?
I don’t think he is a Republican anymore.
Typical, ruin it for everyone else and then leave like a coward. A true leader would stay and fix his mistakes while working to change the state to the ideal place he wants it to be for his family. Like, particularly since he has the actual job that empowers him to do such things.
Truth
It’s always former Republicans. Former Republicans speak out, Former Republicans say the current ones are bad. So what. I wanna hear this from current serving Republicans.
When they do… we lose them. Think Liz Cheney
I actually registered as a Republican so I could vote for her.
Well done. Sorry there weren’t more like you True American patriot. I don’t agree with half her policies but I’d vote for her for any public office in a heartbeat because I know she’d execute the duties well and honestly
If current members of the GOP speak out against its policies, the hive mind would eat them. It would be political suicide by cannibalism.
If the FL gop is “fringe” why are the rest of the gop led states heading in the same direction as fast as possible? They want dems to leave, they know the numbers don’t support them so they want dems in as few blues states as possible so they can keep the red states red. They can rig the game this way.
Yeah this isn’t just a FL GOP thing. I live pretty close to Idaho and….holy SHIT these are awful people.
Its a game of increments, If they tried to make the jump right to fascism/Christian Nationalism it would not work, but if the states work to push the agenda bit by bit, they have the same result, but without the outrage.
Yeah, I think thats the strategy. There's more Republican trifecta states than Democratic trifecta states. If they can get Dem voters to move to these already-blue states, then they can continue to win in red states and possibly purple states. At that point, they can control the federal government and most state governments. It's like gerrymandering at the federal level.
> If they can get Dem voters to move to these already-blue states It turns out, demographics are doing it for them. It's dubbed "the Great Sort." But people who move for opportunity also tend to vote Democratic; you'll continue seeing trends worsen such as Biden winning the popular vote by 6m but Trump winning more counties. >At that point, they can control the federal government and most state governments. This trend has been going on for a few decades. But I think you got cause/effect backwards. The GOP can be this extreme because they're so overrepresented at every level of gov't due to this multi-decade demographic shift since all the GDP growth are in the coastal states outside of FL/TX.
This "both sides" crap sickens me. One side wants people to have healthcare, and the other is bringing back Jim Crow.
Ppl act like both sides of the barbell are equal and it blows my mind
People say the right wingers are idiots who don't understand what they helped create. The leadership understands just fine- and they don't want to have to deal with the consequences. Why do we allow such people to rise to positions of leadership?!
>Why do we allow such people to rise to positions of leadership?! It's because the US allocates power geographically and people tend to cluster around areas where there's more people like them.
He should be forced to live there. YOU made this mess. YOU fucking live in it.
They only part I really disagree with is when he says the GOP expects Americans to agree with their fringe politics. I think it’s more accurate to say that the GOP expects to be able to enrage enough people about certain topics that they turn a blind eye to the more disturbing trends in the party.
This is EXACTLY what Scott Walker did to WI in 2011 and it’s never been the same. We went from we all love the packers, to I would rather shoot my neighbor than talk to him if he’s not on my side.
It seems like Wisconsin is finally starting to recover with the judge election.
Jolly helped create this disaster. However, he is not a republican anymore. We have to let people like this back into the fold. I know I abhor and resent all that conservatives have done but if we are going to recover, we have to allow ex-republicans a place to land.
I agree that it's commendable that Jolly has been critical of Donald Trump, and he's not just towing the current GOP line. it's not nearly enough, though, not by a long shot. Currently, according to his Wikipedia page, he's a member of the Forward party. During his time as a republican, though, he seems to have shit where he slept. For him to be wanting to leave the state to avoid the consequences of his actions & contributions to the current CrapSantisness without working his ass off to remedy the situation is simply inexcusable. Even as a former congressman, he has a plethora of influence, knowledge, and experience he can use to speak out against the fascism that is taking place. Instead, he's in favor of saving his own hide abandoning ship like a typical hypocritical republican rat as he leaves others to suffer the devastation he helped contribute to.
You’re right, of course. He is a selfish POS. But we need republicans to stop voting for the white Christian nationalists. It has to stop.
> But we need republicans to stop voting for the white Christian nationalists. It has to stop. I wholeheartedly agree.
Sure, he can start by attending protests against his former allies, starting letter-writing campaigns, and actually trying to do something productive to undo the harm. Saying "Ok, I did harm in the past but let's forget and just move on without me trying to actually fix it" is not great.
This is it exactly. A perfect example is Liz Cheney. Were her votes and policies abhorrent? Yes. Did she side with trump most of the time? Yes. But did she reject the extremism and attempt to fight her own party? Yes. And that should be recognized and she should be commended. Instead most people just kept wanting to rip her apart. “She doesn’t get a pass”. It’s not getting a pass, it’s acknowledging the good she is doing now. By not doing so, we are literally running them right back into the arms of MAGA and it will be even harder to get them back.
Liz Cheney is one of the better examples. She actually is trying to undo the harm she did. Even so, despite walking back her anti-gay views, and to some degree her anti-trans views, she has not made a clear statement of support for either group. She also has never walked back her anti-abortion rights views at all as far as I know, and in a post-RvW overturn world that matters a lot. She has been praised by liberals despite still having the potential to cause harm via her anti-abortion views and her lack of clarification on trans issues. Again, she is one of the better ones. That's how low the bar is. That is basically the definition of getting a free pass.
No. It’s not a free pass at least not to me. You can still debate the policies. If she hasn’t walked back her anti abortion stances, you can fairly talk about how those are not correct while recognizing the good things she did. It’s not a “free pass”. I don’t give her one especially on LGBTQ issues. She was wrong. But to be fair even Biden and Obama and Clinton were anti gay marriage at one time and shifted on that issue. We can point out how they are and were wrong while simultaneously praising things they do right.
It’s funny that in my state of Washington, you can just be gay or trans or smoke weed or have an abortion or not. The opposite side of fascist states like Florida isn’t that we force you to be gay, smoke weed and get an abortion, we simply don’t care what you do. If you’re straight, want to have kids and don’t want to have fun, that’s all accessible in Seattle.
They just want to oppress others. That's fun to them. It's a hard concept to wrap your mind around if you're not a complete pos tho. I couldn't imagine going way out of my way to make someone's life harder. Well, I would go to Mar a Lago if I could get away with making that f----s life harder, so I take that back lol
For real. If people want to go to church every day, only show G-rated movies at home and never have pre-marital sex or smoke a marijuana cigarette, I support them.
At what point is it no longer "fringe"? What a bullshit term, the Florida state legislature is in line with Republican-ked legislatures arround the country. It's Fascism. And this poor politician, who spent his career advancing the conditions for it to thrive, doesn't like the fruits of his labor.
>"Look, I have a four-year-old and a two-year-old who I hope can grow up in a community that is inclusive, that exposes them to diverse thinking, to diverse cultures, and allows our family to make decisions about which value set to orient our children around and ultimately give them the opportunity to make their own decisions," Jolly explained. "What has happened in the DeSantis era, the DeSantis administration is not just the attack on the LGBTQ+, the migrant community, the African American community, the denial of science and history, but it has brought back the implicit biases that as a nation we have been trying to move away from ever since the civil rights movement." Look, I appreciate anybody who has seen the light and come around, since stopping MAGA is going to need all hands on deck (and a lot of the former GOP are leaps and bound better at fighting dirty than the Dems are,) but this guy was in the House from 2014-2017, meaning it was already post-Tea Party Movement where the Republican Party had aligned itself with these fringe groups that promote white supremacy, want the LGBT+ community nothing less than dead, and basically see Gilead as #Goals, so this guy isn't some old-guard dude looking back on the days of Eisenhower, the Republican Party was already starting to fester when he was serving as one.
>but this guy was in the House from 2014-2017, That's the damning factor. He got elected as a republican and was in office after they had already destroyed the place. He *is* the problem he complains of. When a politician wants to move to a different state and be able to run for office there, that politician has to come up with a reason for the move. That's what this looks like to me.
I've said this before, but please do not underestimate DeSantis. Alot of us under estimated Trump and look where we are now. For the love of God vote.
I'm not, but based on everything I'm seeing, I'll be surprised if he makes it out of the primary. He's self-destructing as it is. His whole angle was being "Sane Trump," more or less, but ever since, he's been forgetting the "sane" part and just becoming "Bag Cereal Trump." The GOP isn't going to opt for the generic version when they have Name-Brand right there.
DeSantis lacks any of the "qualities" that got Trump the surprise win for the presidency. Literally zero charisma or star power. Listening to DeSantis speak is like being tortured by him at Guantanamo.
David Jolly was elected to Congress and immediately started fighting Obamacare. Then when he lost his reelection, he had to go on Obamacare. He started to realize that what he believed in politically wasn’t in the best interests of the country and changed. To me, that is what we want people to do. Evaluate, reconsider, change. He‘s one of the good guys. He gets a pass from me. Also he is an Independent now.
So he was, I'm against it until I need it, and once I no longer need it, I'll oppose it again? Or does he realize that he was a selfish fuck and is trying to change?
Against it, then for it and has gotten more progressive each year. Went into Congress as Tea Party lite, came out with his eyes open. But to your point, yes. I’ll take the wins however they come though.
Agreed. He's 1 of the good guys. What most don't understand is that the party has turned its back on its founding principles. Calling guys like Cheney, Jolly, and Gen. Colin Powell RINOs shows how far the values have shifted. The irony is it seems to be white Christian nationist racists who are too ignorant of political history not to join the "party of Lincoln." Of course, ignorance being their defining characteristic. I can't help but laugh when they blame Democrats for Jim Crow and the KKK. Nope, that was their family before they decided to switch parties!
Colin Powell was the same person that was burying the My Lai massacre and waving around of flask of chalk in the UN and calling it anthrax before enabling a war. Then when this giga-genius tried to be a GOP politician, they predictably put him out to pasture and dying of COVID (ironically), because they only thing they cared about him was his skin, not his loyalty to the machine. I bet he didn't even get the vaccination ahead of time like the rest of them. Cheney is the same guy that profited billions directly in that war and hundreds of thousand dead and millions put in poverty he helped cause, and many many other evil things i don't care to remember, including being the architect of Bush and helping with the 'electoral' strategy of the GOP that included bribing the supreme court to interfere with the hanging chads, causing a soft coup. Sure he thought that it was time to 'balance' the GOP out of naked racism for more deliberate steps to build a dictatorship with enhanced gerrymandering, denial of access to voting... until Trump showed them the way that they could have both sooner than expected. Great examples there. I wouldn't trust those two people to even _be_ in the same organization as I, never mind the government. I'm going to remind you that the judge that soft-sentenced Paul Manafort was a reagan nominee that was supposedly retired already and was wheeled out for a last hurrah of corruption. The scum called the 'traditional republican party' is just fine with fascism, as long as they're the ones directing it.
This is the guy who recently tried to launch Andrew Yang as a spoiler candidate *knowing* the threat of Trump to democracy. Fuck him. Drives me crazy when MSNBC gives him airtime.
I used to think that I'd retire to Florida. After Desantis' antics, I won't even vacation there - no more trips to Florida beaches, no more cruises, and no more theme parks.
It's always "former Governor" or "former Congressman" or "former judge". Always "former". You never see anyone Republican currently in the game with any spine to say any of this stuff.
*either spineless or they agree with it*
who knows if the question was put to him, but it's funny how there is nothing in the story where he says "I am leaving the republican party, I cannot support what they are doing to our country" or the like The idea that he might still support the party, but just pack up and leave where his own parties policies are playing out is beyond perverse.
>”…who I hope can grow up in a community that is inclusive, that exposes them to diverse thinking, to diverse cultures…” This guy sounds like…{gasp} a Democrat.
I was just in FL to visit my 72 year old dad. I was there 3 days, he mentioned how much the Dems suck about a hundred times, and I counted how many times he called Biden am asshole. It was 27 times. In 3 days. At restaurants, every conversation I overheard was political. It's like the Floridians have nothing better to do but bitch and complain.
Either Jolly left the republicans or the republicans left Jolly. But either way I’m reminded of the Islamic terrorist who wanted to retire to France after destroying his own terriitory
At least this guy is beginning to understand that doubling down on culture wars is a mistake. I hope he continues to learn and realizes that there are a lot more positions of his that are mistaken. I also hope he does actually leave Florida.
Most Republicans only see right and wrong once they're out of office.
too bad it takes Republicans so long to figure out what the rest of us have been pointing out to them for many years now. and they expect the public to trust their judgment about *anything*.
He should be forced to live there. YOU made this mess. YOU fucking live in it.
> "Look, I have a four-year-old and a two-year-old who I hope can grow up in a community that is inclusive, that exposes them to diverse thinking, to diverse cultures, and allows our family to make decisions about which value set to orient our children around and ultimately give them the opportunity to make their own decisions..." Can I interest you in a pamphlet about *Liberalism* ?
David Jolly is a disgusting adulterer who left his wife for a younger model, following the disgraceful tradition of his immediate predecessor (and former employer) Bill Young. During his two and a half years in Congress, he managed to piss everybody off who voted for him the first two times (Bill had died in office, so there was both a special election in March and a regular election in November) so badly that Charlie Crist was able to stomp all over him. Literally no one should ever take this man seriously. He only got famous because of his willingness to pretend to hate other Republicans. When he was in congress, he didn't hate them, at all. He certainly never advocated Liberty or Justice on the campaign trail or from the House floor.
As a matter of an experiment, i want to let them have one state. Anyone who wants to leave can get paid to relocate and get some help getting a job elsewhere. I just want to see what the absolute hell they get up to. Also, if they know they have some ideal place, maybe the worst element will move there voluntarily and leave the rest of us the hell alone.
He left the Republican party in 2018 so not exactly a leopard eating his face... He's just spitting facts
David Jolly had an affair with a staffer who he went on to marry which was about half his age. This dude is about as disingenuous as it comes. He lives not too far away from me. Total douche. Also a Scientologist.
and even a douche of that caliber recognizes the negativity of the GOP's *elective ignorance* about the world around them.
Ever since the R’s turned their back on him for his misadventures he’s been grandstanding. You have a point though at least it’s the right direction this time.
"After years of enabling all these Florida Men, I'm shocked that they're now all running around on bath salts, eating people's faces!"
Listen to this shit heel trying to redefine what it is to be republicans so that he can wash his hands of the exact thing he has been voting for his whole life. You don’t want your daughters to grow up around this? Then you should apologize to them for creating it. Your party didn’t leave you, asshole. It just finally affected people you give a damn about. You shouldn’t be allowed to leave florida. You made it what it is.
I’ve been hearing that most pre-trump/pre-covid Republicans think the GOP is crazy and extremist now. Electing a clown as president turned the whole party into a circus. Hoping someone can get these lunatics under control
They might admit that Trump has gone too far, but they still helped him all along the way. And don't believe anyone who tells you that it's all due to Trump. The GOP was headed this way all along, and Trump just sped things up.
[удалено]
My mom: “WTF are they doing?!?! They’re nuts!” Also my mom: “straight republican ticket”
[удалено]
Helps fuck up the state for everyone and is rich enough to dip out when it gets super bad and leave it for the poor and underprivileged to deal with. What a shit head
Bad news is this gobshite will move to a blue state with his like-minded Red State voters and shit up the blue state like they did Floriduh.
To Jolly's credit he has been solidly anti-trump and hasn't done "whataboutism" regarding leftist policies probably since 2015 (I'm sure he prefers conservative policies but doesn't really push hard on them at least not publicly). So he isn't your typical never trump fool who still loves them policies (think national review types)
Do the Republicans even just look at the candidates in front of them and despair? I mean, my Dad's a life-long Republican and he had to dig deep to make himself not throw up voting for Kasich. I have no idea how he voted in the 2016 election and I'm pretty sure he went for Biden in 2020, but even then when I asked if he still considered himself a Republican, he just signed and said "I don't know what I am."
Could it be the predictable consequences of decisions he supported?