This is an interesting thing. Looks like testimonies of people who left the MAGA movement- how they got into it and why.
Leaving a cult is really hard, so I really respect the people who are speaking from this place.
Yes, actually.
Look, I know people want to react to the ‘leopards eating faces party’ with a big fat ‘told you so,’ but these are ex-cultists who are reaching out to people who may need an exit with a soft landing.
People who are deeply in a cult are afraid to leave it and MAGA is no exception! There’s a fear that once you leave, you won’t be accepted by anyone, so they stay even if they no longer believe in their rhetoric.
A very intelligent person can fall for a cult if they feel that it can offer them something they’re missing. The outside world is perilous and you can be safe here. Your friends will reject you now that you’ve joined us, but we will accept you. Decisions are hard, we can make them for you. The secular world has broken you, we can give you new life through christ.
If you read some of the testimonies (and so many of them are young people) you’ll see how much of it is ‘I didn’t see it, it took someone I love to show it to me, I can’t unsee it now.’ We’ve all done things we regret. Some regrets are bigger than others. I would rather forgive them and allow them to do good work than berate them for a decision they made when compromised by anxiety.
i’m glad there are episodes in the next generation where data gets reprogrammed/possessed/we meet his evil twin/etc, because as much as brent spiner is amazing as data, his real talent is playing weird little freaks
my sleep paralysis demon at 3am
this line is literally canon and he delivers it with such gusto
“We need to strive to be more accepting of POC” you guys can’t even handle religion.
White people, when it comes to religion you have to come to the realization that a lot of non-white cultures have a strong connection to religion. Religion isn’t just the thing that your parents used to be homophobic towards you. There’s millions of religions in the world and religion plays a big part in other cultures.
Also, Christianity and Catholicism aren’t the only religions in the world. Just grouping all of religions around the world and just watering it down to these two is not constructive.
Also, if you were raised Christian or Muslim, or raised not particularly religious in a culturally Christian or culturally Muslim society (aka most societies in the world), your perception of religion and what it means to be “religious” is vastly different from the framework that most peoples and civilizations have used for most of history. Christianity and Islam are both universal religions which view religion as a purely faith-based spiritual belief and practice which you either do or don’t follow, and if you do, that’s good, and if you don’t, that’s bad. In both traditions, religion is something that can and should be spread and can be easily mapped onto other cultural and national identities. That’s the whole reason why Christianity and Islam are the two largest religions in the world and global forces of imperialism and geopolitical power, because they divorce faith from other aspects of culture in order to gain as many followers as possible.
But for ethnic groups who have held onto their spiritual and theological practices despite Christian and Muslim colonization, religion isn’t something you “have” or “don’t have.” It’s a part of your culture which can’t be separated from other, “non-religious” aspects. Whether you believe in all of your culture’s spiritual and theological beliefs is up to you, but they are there and they are part of the culture and part of your daily and ritual practices and interactions with others in your community.
For groups like Jews, Hindus, Parsis, Yazidis, Sikhs, Druze, Samaritans, and practitioners of folk religions indigenous to Africa, the Americas, and Oceania, our religion, however we feel about it, whether we believe in it or not, regardless of any complicated relationship we may have to it, is part of our ethnic and cultural identity. When you reject our religion, you reject us and our people.
“born in the wrong era” but there’s no particular time period i’d rather be living in, I’m just pissed af at having to live through the global resurgence of fascism
BlueSky thread with a list of JoAnn’s fabric alternatives- yes they’re all online but better than nothing.
I’d add Quilted Twins to the list. Yes, they’re local to me, but they have the best prices for quilting fabric that I’ve found, an absolutely huge selection, AND their service is great, both in person and online!
The Democrats on the House Science Committee have set up a website to collect stories from fired federal employees, anonymously if desired. Please amplify. (This helps the lawyers establish standing for bringing legal cases against the administration!)
“This thing is legally dubious and therefore technically unenforceable.” Is not a “useless liberal gotcha” it’s how legalism works in this country. Tying up stupidly worded EOs in court is the quickest way to keep them from being implemented. It is the definition of “doing something.” But it doesn’t usually involve much tweeting so of course a certain type of leftist feels obligated to mock it.
I get that it’s not exciting or theatrical but lawyers holding up pieces of paper and saying “umm you can’t do that?” Is genuinely how several major civil rights victories were achieved.
Brown v Board of Education
Loving v Virginia
Griswold v Connecticut
Obergefell v Hodges
Roe v Wade protected abortion rights for 50 years and was only just overturned as a result of Lawyers Holding Papers
Lawyers Holding Papers and Saying “Um You Can’t Do That” is, in essence, the intended design of our system of checks and balances and our largest check on Executive Power as civilians.
amhrancas 