I do actually care marginally about the guy in that reddit screenshot who voted for Trump and is now worried that he might lose his medicaid funding because I did not fucking stutter when I said healthcare is a human right but the people losing their internships and job offers to the hiring freeze are straight up hilarious.
My mom was telling me about this YouTube video she watched (I can’t remember the name, sorry) where the person shared a screenshot of some MAGA voter from Florida asking for help, because his wife had been hired for a nursing job with the VA in Texas, so they sold their house and were preparing to move. But they rescinded her job offer after Trump’s executive order. The post from the guy was basically like “I already contacted Senator Ted Cruz’s office, and they said they couldn’t do anything about this. Please help me get this story to President Trump, we love him! We voted for him 3 times! And we know this was just a mistake and he’d help us!”
Just……………..a part of me laughs, and another part of me thinks about how cult followers genuinely believe that the cult leader cares about them
This is the part about believing in universal human rights that can be a bit difficult: they’re universal, and should never be denied anyone, no matter who they are or what they have done.
You can be – you should be – furious with people who voted for Trump, for wilfully trying to sabotage those rights and make them conditional, a privilege for the “deserving”, a privilege they can deny the “wrong” kind of people.
And when the MAGA crowd are hit by the consequences of their actions, and denied basic human rights because it turns out their Great Leader doesn’t actually include his followers among the privileged, it’s tempting to say that they deserve to be denied those rights, because that’s what they wanted to do to others.
But if you do that, you don’t truly believe that those rights should be universal; you just have a different idea than the MAGA crowd about who should be included among the privileged.
You can still tell the MAGA who’s crying that the leopards ate their face that you’re angry with them for letting the face-eating leopards loose. But you shouldn’t be fine with their face being eaten.
The key here, IMO, is the distinction between your emotional reaction to hearing about it and how you consciously believe people should be treated.
Having a positive emotional reaction, enjoying the schadenfreude or whatever, doesn’t mean you’re bad and isn’t something you need to suppress. You just need to also be able to say, “but that shouldn’t happen, not to them, not to anyone.”
This is a good articulation! I’m going to reblog this addition because I think it might be helpful for some people who are sorting out their feelings to see this stated so plainly!
Yep. Perfectly normal to go “hahaha fuck you” AND “I hope you’re able to find safe shelter and a new job that supports you because I know how much being homeless and jobless sucks”.
amhrancas 