What else do you expect people to do?
It's been a decade of progressives trying over and over again to tell people "MAGA is going to hurt you more than it hurts us. This man will rob you blind." Then he had a first term, where he robbed his voters blind. And in 2020, we did all this again. And they voted for him a second time and almost won. Then in 2024 we did all of this again, and they voted for him a third time and got him a second term.
In both his terms they got burned horribly and turned around going 'BWAH?!'
What else is there for us to do other than say "Well... you voted for this. We all told you this would happen. He told you he would do it. It's been this way for ten years. What the fuck did you expect? We tried with you many times. And every time you vote Republican, it hurts you. The burner is hot, take your hand off of it!"
After a certain point it just becomes "Wow you really are this stupid, are you?" They don't just hurt themselves, they hurt everyone else. Why should anyone show any amount of empathy for someone who votes to destroy their lives because they're too stupid to realize their lives will be destroyed as well? It's been this way every Republican administration since Reagan.
You can argue it 'deepens division' but can division really get any deeper? Whether we show empathy, indifference, or glee, they'll be at the voting booth voting red in four years. It doesn't matter what we do. The idea that our actions can change their behaviour is a fallacious one. We have the same fallacy: We can't do "unending empathy" three elections in a row when it's proven it doesn't work.
I call this the Addict's Paradox. People want a solution to their problem that doesn't require exerting the mental discipline to stop doing the thing that hurts you. Republican voters keep voting Republican over and over again expecting shit to change, and then their lives get worse, and they do it again expecting anything different.
The solution to their problems is "Stop voting Republican." It isn't more complicated than that. Stop voting for people who keep hurting you. Stop falling for populist rhetoric. Stop dismissing attempts to warn you about their shit as 'alarmist.'
We can't help people who refuse to help themselves. We can't drag them kicking and screaming into a brighter future.
Small children touching the stove can figure this out: You voted Republican, it hurt you, so don't do it again. If you do it again, you deserve to get burned.
