To make a long story short, I commented on a post from an acquaintance mansplaining that the US is a Republic, not a Democracy, and that’s a good thing. Electoral College forever!
The ensuing discussion went back and forth. Pointing out that the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution to protect their own privilege as much as it was about freedom, mentioning inconvenient facts like slavery and denying women the vote, well let’s just say they didn’t appreciate that.
When they came back with the argument that the Founders had worked to overthrow tyrannical rule by a minority, they did not like it when I said “Kind of like today, right?” after pointing out how the electoral college and the Senate do not reflect the will of the majority. (A state with only 800,000 people gets as many Senators as a state with 40 million — but they’re okay with that.) Suggesting that geography might have been written in to reflect the interests of slave states with the electoral college didn’t go over too well either.
They do not like having to acknowledge that a lot of stuff has happened in the last two centuries, or that we had a serious national discussion about that little matter of how much power the states should have in the 1860s...
These are people who are all very quick to say they do not support Donald Trump, that they vote for the man not the party — and besides the Democrats are just as corrupt. (And if Donald Trump wasn’t such an obvious dumpster fire, they’d be happily voting straight Republican while complaining there just weren’t any Democrats who met their standards.)
But the real tell was this comment:
I’m trying to prevent another Civil War.
Think about this...
Your “majority” could, in effect, enslave the minority through excessive taxation to pay for social programs and other big government expenses. People receiving that money will outnumber those paying the bills.
I suggest you move to China, Cuba, or North Korea where you will be much happier. (Except when you get shot or imprisoned for speaking your mind as you seem to enjoy doing here.) If you speak of “Dear Leader” as you do our POTUS, you’ll end up in gulag.
Yeah, they don’t support Trump, but openly criticizing him is divisive and counter-productive. Their answer to keep from being imprisoned for criticizing the Leader… is to say nothing. I’m the problem in their eyes, not him. And then this happened a few hours ago. Looks like I don’t have to travel to China, Cuba or North Korea now.
They’re terrified of ‘mob rule’ and people coming for their stuff. They can live with things the way they are. (Don’t even ask them about Climate Change or the Green New Deal or record inequality.)
Pointing out that while they’re worried about tax and spend Democrats, Republicans pushed though massive tax cuts for the rich, blew a giant hole in the budget, and want to go after Social Security and Medicare to pay for it, well they didn’t even bother to respond to that.
Their response to arguments they can’t counter eventually defaulted to knee-jerk insults:
...still laughing. Do you have any original thoughts or do you just cut and paste this stuff?
And let’s not forget the condescension:
...don’t worry. I will work to replace Trump peacefully at the end of his first term. Thankfully, my primary vote won’t get overturned by a superdelegate like yours will.
You forget (and I keep reminding you) that I am not a Trump supporter.
He may deny being a Trump supporter, but he’s a Trump enabler — silence is assent. Did I mention that the name of a preferred alternative to Trump came up at one point — Bobby Jindal? Need I say more?
You can’t fix stupid, but you can make a religion out of it, and a fortune with it on social media. If Trump ever gets his damn wall built, I hope they’re not too surprised when they find themselves the first ones up against it when the revolution comes, bless their hearts.
Excuse me for the rant.