The guy behind me that watches fox news all day because "he needs something to help him focus" immediately started spouting fox talking points as soon as the verdict was read. My younger coworkers were like, "no way, that's crazy" to all his bs. I just had to say, "no that's not true. I read the jury instructions and they don't say that." He moved onto insisting there was no evidence and Cohen perjured himself and at that point I was already on my way out the door.
He's Gen x, a landlord, new York exile, classic gabagool. Ugh.
I think most of GenX were just crushed by the boomers, you just have to listen to GenX music to see how fatalistic and powerless they were. When Millenials came around, they started to have enough distance to the boomers to do their own thing.
And i really have the highest of hopes for GenZ and beyond.
You’re right, 30 year old boomers were ruining your life at the time, not the 70 year old politicians etc.
I’ll tell you about my life, every Gen X I’ve ever met is closer to a Boomer than a Millenial in their mindset. Even the lefter ones who went and volunteered in some developing country and did all pretend make the world better shit.
I'd complain to HR that that guy is making the workplace hostile, if not outright tell him to shut the fuck up, but I get that that's not a safe option at a lot of workplaces
He's a job hopper and I don't expect him to be there more than a year or so longer. He mostly keeps his dumb shit to himself but I guess if you're gonna spout off then the day your orange turd gets convicted of felonies is a logical one.
Wrong. Talk to him every day. Hang out on some weekends, and become friends. Plant subtle notions of egalitarianism through your friendship and generosity. Ask him thought questions about his beliefs, but not in an accusatory manner. Teach him to actually think for himself, to keep an open mind, to seek evidence rather than faith to form convictions. Slowly show him by example what it means to be a good person who cares for their fellow human beings.
Then you plant some drugs on him while at work, and call HR with your suspicions.
I asked my right wing mother if she had heard the news. She asked me if I thought the gop was finally going to pick another candidate. I like my mother.
That's because his supporters worship him as a new messiah and cannot conceive of him having actually committed a crime. Or they don't care if he did or not.
They don't care if he did. I'd argue most of his supporters in the party (Mike Johnson for example) know that he is a horrible person but will support him because he has energized a dormant portion of the voting population that can help them to gain and hold power. Trump himself isn't even that bad, he's a useful idiot who gives immense power to far right organizations like the heritage foundation.
Don't forget their party of "family values" and "religious morals" candidate who slept with a porn star while his wife was recovering from giving birth to their child
You know, on balance though, I think I'm glad that being a convicted felon doesn't preclude one from being elected president. I've gone back and forth on it a lot, but I think it is for the best.
Can you elaborate? My knee-jerk reaction is to be against it, but I haven’t thought about it a whole lot and I’d be interested to know why you have decided on the opposite.
It means if there was an actual politically motivated prosecution, that wouldn't stop someone from winning. ie. If Trump had managed to make some fake charge against Biden stick in 2020, if the people still wanted Biden to be president, he could be.
I think it's a powerful statement that - despite all the structural checks & balances and systems of appeal - we consider political charges and kangaroo courts a realistic possibility. It's not just Alito's flags - this is a long simmering loss of faith.
Having been a plaintiff in a civil case, with thankfully only money on the line, it was a real eye opener for me of how little the jurors actually get to see, and how much power a single judge has (read: a LOT). It really made me reflect on how absolutely awful and terrifying it must be to have your freedom on the line, and to witness something like I did that felt horrifyingly unfair, and know you could go to jail for it. And I know it happens, a lot, and disproportionately to black and brown folk no less.
I wonder if that is part of it. As the country has gotten less white, we hear (or maybe care) more about bias-induced injustice, and it's harder for the declining majority to be complacent when "blame the Black guy" gets a court to give you what you want. Local, elected judges have always been a partisan nightmare, but I feel like it's really the last 10 years, since they eliminated the filibuster for federal judges, and especially since 2017 for SCOTUS, that national courts have lost credibility.
Let us know how you get from “politically motivated prosecution” to 12 jurors (some of which are Trump supporters) finding guilt. Convicted felons by jury trial should not be public servants and most state Constitutions clearly state that (Florida for example).
In this case it seems easy to be against it because a widely unpopular candidate is the one being prosecuted.
However, allowing felons to run for office precludes the ability for the government to silence political dissidents by making up laws/falsifying evidence that they can be imprisoned for.
The risk of a Trump presidency is still on the table, but the US can avoid situations like what happened to Navalny in Russia as well.
In the 1920 election, Eugene Debs campaigned as the socialist nominee for president from prison, having been imprisoned for advocating draft dodging. That is the sort of candidate I would still support, even from behind bars.
Just because you're a felon doesn't mean you're not a citizen and part of the country. As such, you should be able to partake in democracy in all possible ways as well.
I really dislike this punitive mindset of completely ruining someone's life for being convicted of a crime. People make mistakes, but we don't want to exclude them from society, we want to reform them and bring them back in. So yeah, I think, even excluding all this political bs, that no person should have their right to vote or run taken from them.
Oh yeah, I agree with you. I certainly think felons should have a vote. Hadn’t really occurred to me to include running for office in the same category.