I think they are just nice and ignorant, honestly.

So many I interact with are just simply unaware and vote based on their discomfort with urban liberal culture. That's it. The blue hair and the pronouns made them feel weird, so they voted the other way.

Some, sure.

My aunt is a conservative lobbyist and a drunk. She drinks a bunch of vodka and then texts me and my family about all of the violence that is going to be done to people she hates (including some groups that people in my family belong to). This isn't "blue hair makes me feel weird." This is "I want college professors to be shot." Those are the texts I receive.

On top of that, they lack the streets smarts that people living in high population density areas (that is, cities) develop for seeing through scammers and conmen. City people can tell that other city people are untrustworthy when they are hypocrites or caught in a lie. Rural folk seem to just distrust city folk vibes, and get tricked by lying, hypocritical politicians who use classic door-to-door salesman tactics like wearing a suit, appearing rich, and speaking confidently.

That's been my experience as well. There is a large population of uneducated people (At least in terms of critical thinking) in the US that are not able to understand the impact of what is happening regarding what this administration is doing. And I think this is by design as the attacks on educational systems are increasing.

I’ve had many conversations that amount to “I’d agree that illegal citizens should not have entered the country and maybe deportation is the correct recourse” (even from immigrants) but if they saw how the inhumanity of how deportations happened they’d be appalled. The government could be nicer to humans, but it’s a government

I don't buy that. They have allowed their ignorance to be weaponised against the entire country, and if they refuse to acknowledge that, they are complicit in its destruction.

If you work two jobs to make ends meet, and get home at 11pm to fall asleep watching a low budget film on Netflix with ads, when are you going to have time to read non-partisan news and form an educated anger? Ignorance is a bigger driver than informed complicitness

Huxley was right

Not enough time to read non-partisan news, but plenty of time to read facebook, watch tik tok, and soak / embrace up all the ridiculous "the trans immigrants are coming to eat your pets and fuck your kids" ads targeted at them.

You're completing brushing over the rampant racism and xenophobia in white conservative America.

That's the "urban" part.

Discomfort? Omg :) Yet it’s not taking anything to anyone, it’s not costing them anything and if they don’t feel the need to state pronouns nobody is going to force them to do so… so why refuse a little acceptance to the Other. A while back, some got crucified for having different ideas… Happy Easter to those who celebrate and a happy weekend to all others :)

The uncomfortable reality I've had to face is that a lot of these people really, genuinely, enjoy other people suffering.

I think it comes from a place of the American vision of work. This idea that things that are good don't come easy, and that it requires sacrifice. That if some people aren't getting hurt, then it's not working.

So they view these people getting hurt as a good thing. They use terms like "bleed" to describe the executive agencies getting gutted. They have a medieval view of it, like blood letting is a legitimate solution to problems. That, because there are tears and suffering, something of substance must be getting accomplished.

But sometimes bad things are just bad. And sometimes good things don't require suffering. They don't understand that.

If they have that kind of attitude, then they are not "Christian" as Jesus very explicitly welcomed strangers and notably made a point of healing people without asking for payment.

A system is what it does, not what the spec says it should do, and "Christianity" is what Christians do.

American Evangelicals and Trump supporters are no less Christian than Catholics during the Crusades and Inquisition. That is the system.

I would say that the "system" of organised religion is very broken and goes against the teachings of Jesus. As far as I can tell, Trump is probably the closest figure to the anti-christ in terms of his greed and lack of charity.

Personally, I don't think that the organised Catholic church was about following Jesus' teachings, but more about consolidating wealth and power. It's disingenuous to call it "Christianity" if it just chooses convenient parts to follow. I mean, Jesus was very specific about not amassing wealth.

Jesus was a Jew preaching within a framework of Judaism which he clearly believed in and claimed authority from.

That framework rejected him, and I can sympathize with arguments that the system of "Christianity" that developed was not the system he intended, but I don't think it would be accurate to describe Jesus as anti-system per se.

Either way, any definition of Christianity that excludes Catholicism or any other organized sect doesn't seem useful.

It's like people defining Capitalism to require pure free markets, just so they can say the US or British Empires never really engaged in Capitalism. It just seems like an exercise in semantics.

> It's like people defining Capitalism to require pure free markets, just so they can say the US or British Empires never really engaged in Capitalism. It just seems like an exercise in semantics.

Not quite as real-world Capitalism has an approximation of free markets. I would say that's quite different from "Christians" going against welcoming strangers and feeding/healing the poor. In my view Jesus was against being judgemental, so sects that prioritise being judgemental cause me some cognitive dissonance when they are described as Christian.

As a Christian, I totally get your cognitive dissonance and agree with you, that Jesus was very much not racist or xenophobic, and instead preached love and compassion.