He’s a father of a 28-year-old son and he’s hurting. A retired police officer, he proudly voted for Donald Trump every time he ran and never hid his political beliefs from his family. “My son and his wife say that since I’m a fan of Trump they’re no fan of mine and cut me off,” he said. “Now I can’t see my only grandchild who I was so close to. It’s crazy and it’s tragic.”

It’s also increasingly common. The 2024 election spatchcocked the nation, widening a rift that was exposed in 2016 and put in an even sharper gulf four years later. Now, the hyper-partisan politics in the shadow of the 2024 election is breaking the bonds of families to a greater extent than ever before.

  • SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social
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    1 day ago

    Assuming this is a good faith argument, I’ll throw in: Some thoughtful, leftist commentary claims that the Democrats and the Republicans are fundamentally the same behind the scenes, with identity politics as the window dressing to distinguish them, and keep the lower classes divided.

    Well, look at what we have here: Identity politics successfully dividing the lower classes. The two parties do differ quite a bit in some ways, and the window dressing is causing the estrangement.

      • btaf45@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

        How do they differ in any way besides rhetoric?

        In the most important way of all by far. Republicans always do gigantic tax cuts for the rich and corporations. Dems always raise taxes on the rich and/or corporations. All 3 of the most recent Dem presidents accomplished the latter.

        Why are taxation rates the most important thing to pay attention to? Because wealth inequality is related to and driving almost all of our other problems. If someone payed attention only to tax rates on the wealthy being cut/increased then they would understand 95% of politics.

        • surph_ninja@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          Yeah, but I don’t care about their rhetoric. I care about how they govern, and in that respect there’s no difference between the GOP and the Dems.

          • btaf45@lemmy.world
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            9 hours ago

            nd in that respect there’s no difference between the GOP and the Dems.

            You mean besides the $4.5 trillion in taxes on the wealthy and/or corporations? Musk fucked up twitter by burning just a mere $0.044 trillion.

          • SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social
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            1 day ago

            Okay, but your first comment referenced supporters, who are different people than the electeds or party leaders. I might suggest re-phrasing to say, “I believe that Dem supporters have the same facts, thoughts, and perspective on the parties as I do, and as such, I find them morally culpable for every action of the party leaders.” That’s a different thing than not understanding how they can behave the way they do.

          • rhadamanth_nemes@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            Trump is directly responsible for the poor and delayed response to COVID and furthering the validity of fringe anti mask claims, making him also directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.

            • surph_ninja@lemmy.world
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              1 day ago

              Yup. And Biden is responsible for hundreds of thousands more, ending Covid assistance, forcing people back to the office, and implementing Trump’s shitty “stop counting sick people” idea to pretend it was over. There’s still people dying today of severe covid, with it as one of the top killers of young people now.

              Prosecute them both for these deaths.

              • btaf45@lemmy.world
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                9 hours ago

                Biden is responsible for hundreds of thousands more, ending Covid assistance,

                Nope. You totally made that up. He was criticized for providing TOO MUCH Covid assistance.

                forcing people back to the office,

                Biden never did that at all. It would only even be possible for him to do that with government workers. Which is what Donald Trainwreck is doing. They already drafted a mandate to force all government workers into office 100% of the time.

                Prosecute them both for these deaths.

                There is nothing whatsoever to “prosecute”. Biden saved lots of lives merely by running the government in a competent manner. Donald Trainwreck costs many lives in Covid, but incompetence is not prosecutable. However Trump certainly could and should be prosecuted for Treason and Sexual Assault and Fraud and stealing government secrets.

                • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  6 hours ago

                  Biden still owes me $2000

                  and he definitely ended the covid assistance. why would you lie about it?