That’s the trouble with cults. Even the members who are having their doubts don’t push back against what they know to be the lies from their boss, because they’ve already got skin in the game.

I understand and applaud your efforts at peace-keeping. I’m all for civil discourse. but that’s not what we get from this POTUS. Watch his rallies. Watch the people at them. Is that civil discourse? I’ve got better things to do than drag out the pictures of people at these events, red-faced with rage, tee-shirts with hate spelled out across their chests and backs, giving the finger to the press, attacking minorities – PHYSICALLY, LITERALLY, attacking minorities. The left didn’t start this hatred and division. Yeah, it existed before DJT. But he is using it like a hammer.

This revelation that Russia was paying Afgans to KILL our soldiers, and the POTUS has done nothing about is, in my opinion is treason. If just one of our people was killed when he knew about this, that is treason. At the same time he is praising Putin. It makes me sick to my stomach. I never served but I am a military brat. I grew up on military bases, shopped at the base-exchange, am used to the sound of fighter jets going over our quarters a few hundred feet above deck. My father was an officer on the front lines of the cold war. We had long talks about Russian propaganda tactics. That POTUS is Putin’s lap dog makes me sick. And scared. And angry.

Everything is fine if the trains run on time, right? Or I get a tax-cut. That’s the very definition of the Good German, sweeping the ashes of human beings off the sidewalk in front of their shop, never really asking what that stench is when the wind comes a certain way.

Hate?
I think the above qualifies- destroying families simply because they are desperate and powerless… Psychopaths like that should be treated accordingly. While they have the ‘right’ to support evil, we have the right to hold them accountable for the harm they have caused.

I “hate” people like that in the same way I “hate” cancer… They harm and kill innocent people and the world would be a better place without them. You have to take aggressive action to prevent its spread.

RobVG is bringing no Olive branches to this discussion- He wants to express support for the indefensible, not have to explain his reasons, and be pat on the back an told ‘its ok, buddy’.
It is NOT OK.

125,000 Americans are dead because people like RobVG thought it would be a good idea to elect a racist, misogynist,COMPLETELY unqualified, Reality show buffoon to the highest position in our government.

Other presidents have had their issues, but we are not talking about simply ‘issues’ with Trump… we are facing an existential threat to our constitution, our democracy, our economy and our very lives.

We went to decades long war in 2 countries over the deaths of a couple thousand Americans on 9/11- Yet you feel we should give Trump and his accomplices a pass?
NO.

“Remember the Human”
I do… and I see his victims… they were humans as well.
Jeffrey Dahmer was a ‘human’ , but I wouldn’t chat nicely with him and exchange recipes on the ‘Comestible Zone’ with him.

Its ok to have different points of view, but that does not somehow make you immune from being held accountable for your actions…

There are barbarians trying to destroy our nation, I REFUSE to normalize that. There need to be consequences, not to simply punish them, but to show future generations that fascists and their enablers are NOT socially acceptable.

‘Good people’ don’t willingly stand on the same side as these ‘people’… There IS an objectively wrong side in this. There is one side that is fine with our president stoking racial division, falling in love with murderous dictators, selling out our nation, looting it for his own personal gain, asking foreign despots to assist him in his re-election, and dismantling the rule of law.

Those that support this are the enemies of our nation, of all its ideals- It is our duty to not tolerate them, to never once act like they simply have a different but equally valid point of view- They DON’T.

A point of view implies that they are willing to open their eyes- but they are impervious to reason, to demonstrable facts, and hostile to science… Health officials are having to resign because of death threats because their science based advice conflicts with the president’s statements.

This is a goddamn war for the survival of the nation, and RobVG is loyal to the enemy.

Would I say it to their face? If they were espousing their vile views in my face, then yes… I don’t run into many folks like that where I live, those that used to wear MAGA hats, I have noticed, have become more quiet over the past 4 years- they may hold the same sick views, but they are starting to sense they are in a shrinking minority. I avoid them in same way I avoid stepping in dog shit.

I am still in online contact with a few childhood friends that never escaped Oklahoma, and jumped on the Trump Treason Train – I have been as harsh on them or more so, because I know that they were once decent human beings, yet they chose to become the filth they are now.

One is lamenting about how his restaurant business is failing due to the economic hardships from the virus, at the same time posting pro-Trump memes generated in Russia- I feel zero sympathy for him… he supported this atrocity, and is now reaping his reward. I save my sympathy for those he helped victimize.

I’ve always taken the position that maybe Donald Trump can be forgiven for the way he is, maybe he was born that way, or maybe he was brought up to be like that. Maybe he has a vitamin deficiency or hormone imbalance, or a growth in his brain that makes him that way. Maybe its not really his “fault”, whatever that means.

But over the last few years I’ve come to see that about one third of the American population really believes he SHOULD be that way, that they LIKE him that way, and even when they don’t fully agree with him, they don’t want anyone to know that because they NEED him to be that way because he tells them what they want to hear. Trump will eventually go away, one way or another, but his followers will remain, those that die will be replaced. They don’t have a genetic defect, a bad childhood, or a disease, they are all just that way naturally. Whatever it is, its deeply ingrained in American culture and history.

I never believed there were so many people like that in my country. And that makes me sadder than anything Donald Trump says or does or is. It fills me with disappointment and despair.

Look, I get that virtually noone here likes Trump. I also get that he keeps coming up, since it’s an election year. And I do get how Zoners find it difficult to accept someone who they feel turns a blind eye to their “idol’s” actions. But for the love of Christ Almighty, that doesn’t mean hounding your compatriots, and kicking them to the curb – especially when they’re bringing out an olive branch!

Lemme itemize the issues here:
1. Rob’s reasons for supporting Trump then, and possibly now, are his own. I’m not going to claim to fully understand them, and neither should you lot. If I had to venture a guess personally, I’d say it’s because Rob’s a Republican, and Trump was the Republican pick. He toed the party line, same as most Democrats, and now he’s stuck toeing the line to a president he described earlier in this thread as “a daily embarrasment”, and holding his position both in the hopes of making something salvageable of this whole mess, and because the blue corner is calling for blood. If the GOP picked another candidate, I honestly think Rob would embrace that in a heartbeat. While the “cradle-ripping” comment is poor in taste, this should be less of a cause for hatred, and more of a cause for reason. Hear him out (and I do mean hear, as in “listen”, NOT as in “place under kangaroo court inquisition”), and find out why he feels that way. You don’t fight hatred with hatred, after all.

2. Trump is not the only President with issues. Obama ramped up drone strikes, government surveillance, and broke and/or severely compromised on more than half of his campaign promises, Bush’s sole redeeming quality of his presidency is that Trump makes him look good by comparison, Clinton was a adulterous sexual predator… the list goes on and on. Honestly, barring Carter, I can’t think of a single decent president in the last 50-70 years. Both sides of the aisle are rotten to the core, in my opinion; having pots and kettles calling each other black doesn’t make the other side any cleaner. Ironically, the Trump-hate train has the blue side of the zone more fixated on Trump than any conservative I’ve personally met.

3. This is supposed to be the Habitable Zone; i.e. being “capable of being inhabited or dwelt in“. The Zone is supposed to be a sociable meeting place where people from all walks of life can gather and chat, hopefully about space. When half of the population begins a crusade against the other half, calling them in Hank’s words “knuckle-dragging trailer trash”, “traitors… not worthy of respect”, and in RL’s words “the enemy of decent human beings”, “the barbarian at the gates”, “having the blood of over 100,000 Americans on his hands”, “deserves no sympathy”, and a classy choice, “deserves to burn”. All of that is just from this one thread, directed towards one person. ONE.

Who the fuck talks like that!?!?

Would you lot willingly march up to anyone in person, and spout the same things to their face? Would you do it to a friend, a family member, or a stranger? I’m willing to bet good money your answer’s a hard “NO”.

There’s a extremely simple Golden Rule to the internet: Remember the Human. The person on the other side of the pipes isn’t some monolithic, campily-evil force. They’re another human being like you, with their own thoughts, joys and concerns that you do not know. Thanks to this never ending cycle of vilification, we likely never will. You’ve all made your blanket opinions on the red corner quite clear over, and over and over, to the point where people like RobVG won’t want to open up, because people aren’t looking for explanations or enlightenment on points of view, because as he said, “This place has drifted away from that”. Noone wants to open up to people who want only fire and blood.

It’s okay to disagree. It’s okay to have differing points of view. Work together to understand each other, and to work with each other, not to find cause to call the other man “enemy”, and tear them down. Podrock was right about this belonging on flame – as a matter of fact, it feels like most posts on the zone belong there nowadays. Like Pod said, “what the actual fuck!?”*

*_{If you want me to censor “fuck”, then fuckin’ forget it.}

This deserves it’s own thread. Isn’t this aiding and abetting? Is turning your head to the mercenary killing of our soldiers a high crime or misdemeanor? He’s the commander-in-goddamn-chief. He is responsible for the life of every soldier that serves.

Donald Bone Spurs doesn’t take responsibility. He said so himself.

Think I better move this whole thread to Flame; because, what the actual f*ck?!