I get along with most people. Long career in aerospace, university, financial company, startups, computers, other stuff I forgot.
Served in the Coast Guard, worked for a large aerospace company where some people were so sociopathic that they really believed that the old and inform should be euthanized. (shades of Ayn Rand), and when Bush Senior cut the defense budget (!) I had to change jobs. Landed one at U.C. Berkeley, the opposite side of the thought universe.
So there's a giant cross-section of society. I didn't discuss politics, I would make connections with people at a common level. With the deerhunter from PA, a couple of us were so crazy about photography that he went from rifles to telephoto lenses. Worked with a new guy from Florida, quite different from CA --- how to connect with this guy? Well, I talked about fishing, and turned him on to some different locations.
At times, politics gets enormously polarizing, and politics has hijacked much of religion and all of racism and homophobia. The 60's were terribly polarizing. And different issues get rounded up into the cult mentality.
The hard core "Q" craziness actually only "owns" about 15% or some small number, but it's the larger population that gets sucked into the mentality, mostly as a short-cut for thinking. Too deep to go into here, but it just says that people are seduced by power and group-think, especially when it aligns with their general dislike of some other group. It's all about the group identity.
And it can be moderated.
Now, elections are not about "hearts and minds" as some people think. That takes time to change. Think of the non-nazi's who got trapped in that cult takeover. Hard to get out alive. That's why cults need to be stopped from hijacking groups.
https://democraticunderground.com/100216524810
The best, the ONLY cure to WhiteChristianNationalism, race baiting, mysogyny, etc. is WINNING
Quite simply (in my words) the cowardice that leads them to follow the group-think that is blasted at them constantly by media and certain charlatan "preachers" would tend to make them follow fair laws rather than flaunt them.
The so-called "leaders" of this wretched movement are hiding in "think tanks" and corner corporate offices. All the others, even the "Prophets for Profit" are just front-running racism and homophobia.
There's a saying in business that what's tolerated or not starts at the top. Someone opened the gates of hell, so that hateful behavior was "allowed". I am reminded of the scene in Ghostbusters when the ghouls are let loose from the ion trap.
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