Blackrose321

I was just joking, I didn't mean to upset you. I was obviously replying to "the math not mathing" comment that I actually also quoted in said response. I didn't even mention whatever you made up elsewhere. TIL what Wojak is. This is honestly a bit ridiculous for you to go off on me about as if I've victimized you or done something awful. I think I've had enough for a while. The speech wasn't necessary but I hope you feel better.

I haven't been sleeping properly which usually results in me having random thoughts, probably because my brain is so bored with laying in bed staring at the inside of my own eyelids. Last night I suddenly remembered this guy I went out on a few dates with, who my friends nicknamed "Hal" because of his bad breath... Don't know what that was about, his teeth looked fine, but anyways... Hal was a bit obsessive, which I didn't want to judge him for too quickly because I can understand how, if you like someone a lot (although I didn't understand why he'd like me a lot), it can make you a little weird. He wanted to hang out constantly and was pushing for a physical relationship pretty early. I don't think that's all he wanted, he seemed to just want to move us along at a breakneck speed. I asked him for some space one week so that I could focus on work and stuff. He seemed fine with it. Then after work on Friday, I text him about having an article published in my university's tech paper. He snarkily replied, "Wrong boyfriend sweetheart lol". So without asking to be in a relationship, he unilaterally decided we were already in one and then made up this whole paranoid scenario in his head of me cheating on him. All within 2 weeks. This guy is likely still out there thinking he suffered some great infidelity, potentially still scarred from something that never happened. Outside of work, the only men I saw that week were Herbert and Frodo. My roommates' cats. Absolutely wild to reflect on after all this time.

It's not his fault, Republicans defunded math.

His professional door-opener was stuck in traffic.

I'm really enjoying our conversation, thanks for taking the time to talk. ❤️ Would you say that these conditions, the truth of which is distorted by Trump, then leads to the troubling acceptance of extremist ideologies so that these men can feel safe? It's so hard for me to understand on a personal level because no matter how frustrated I've felt by people and my circumstances, I've never been able to take that in, even if it would mean having more of a support system for myself. Makes my insides curdle. Do you have any reading you'd suggest on the topic? You've got a different view from mine and I'd like to expand if you have suggestions.

This really upsets me. She should have been safe but she spent 40 hours in pain and fear before dying. This shouldn't be happening in a first world country. I just think about all of those hours and how her loved ones are going to spend the rest of their lives replaying them in their heads. What a tragedy for her to have lost her life, and for her child to have lost her mother so that a narcissistic conman with no redeeming qualities can try to dodge prison.

I generally see her posts as a waste of space on the forum because she doesn't engage with anyone and occasionally behaves a little erratically. I don't like erratic people. Gives me flashbacks to my library days when people would poop in the urinal, set fire to hand sanitizer, and threaten to slit each other's throats...all true stories btw, and not even half of them...

Do you also feel conflicted about what to do when your lease is up for renewal? It's great to be able to build up your savings but when I look at what is available and at what cost, it hardly seems worth it to buy a house again. And god only knows what'll happen to the market after the election...

Supreme Court reinstates Youngkin’s voter purge order in Virginia But of course, they are purging voter records in blue areas and are catching actual citizens in the process. This is why they shriek about the 2020 election being stolen - they would totally have done it themselves if they were smart enough to pull it off the first time. I've always wanted to live outside the US for the life experience anyways, maybe now is the time to research options in case I need to learn another language. We made a profit selling our house this summer, we won't be buying again soon if the market is still shit, we have no kids, two of our dogs died, we've been purging personal items for simplicity's sake, and my husband is in tech so...it's not a bad starting point I guess.

Absolutely, a lot of people are struggling these days, including these men. I hope I didn't sound unconcerned or unfeeling, because I do care, I just also worry about the motive behind voting for Trump. I suppose you could boil some amount of it down to disinformation - they have no reason to think Trump will help them but if they only tune into Fox News, they wouldn't know that. Although you would think that a rich nepo baby who owes his workers millions of dollars, ran a fake university and still benefitted from free PPP money would give them pause... Since it doesn't, since they forgive him for these actions, I worry that while they are feeling overwhelmed and often don't know any better, their decision to vote for Trump isn't purely economic - that it is also an attack on equality because they aren't voting for one bigoted candidate, they are voting for two. And Vance is, imo, worse because he truly believes his own bullshit. Trump is just trying to stay out of jail and off of Putin's list. Dr. Ibram X. Kendi said you cannot be neutral on racism and I think that makes sense for any -ism. So even for those men who would claim they are voting only for economic reasons, what does that say about them? Can you really be neutral on the suffering and subjugation of other humans? They are kind of going out of their way to let it happen too because, as I said, they easily forgive Trump's many cons and schemes which isn't in their favor. They do so because they seem to like the messaging - you are special, you are important, everyone else is the problem. Ultimately, I agree with you that "Trump is an unfortunate byproduct of the end stages of toxic masculinity." I saw a documentary about the 19th Amendment a while back, can't recall what it was titled, but I remember it being said that fighting for progress is always met with an equal, or bigger, push against it - the MAGA culture war is that pushback, and it was kicked off by outrage over a black man becoming President. There's really only so much you can probably do with those people.

True, it does apply to men in general. I just think straight white men are being pressed the most because some of them have a sense of lazy entitlement due to their assumed superiority as both male and white. As the left pushes for more respect and better treatment of vulnerable populations, straight white men are in a position to have to move over more than anyone else because they previously occupied the top spot. And boy did they manspread. This is just my two cents, but imo they like to think of themselves as protectors and don't like that this role has basically no place in modern US society. Most men go their entire lives without ever needing to defend their homes from an attack, a privilege afforded to them by technological/societal progress they don't appreciate. But you won't see them moving anywhere actually dangerous, they rant about being protectors from the safety of their couches. Where they are really needed - at home, taking care of their kids, helping with housework, etc. - simply does not interest these particular men. Trump had 5 kids with 3 women and he neglected all of them; this is not normal, or "loving". Trump's dad was terrible to him, too. And Vance is at least verbally abusive towards his own kids. If he's willing to publicly admit to telling his 7 year old to "shut the hell up", what do you think he does to his kids in private? These guys are playing out a role and skipping the parts of said role that don't appeal to them. So where do they belong, what is their role, what value do they provide? Some men don't want to reflect on those questions and adapt so they just shut down and get angry. Imo, this is all a pushback against progress, and that always happens. Except now, social media has made it easier for terrible people to link up. They are making a push for a time when men could pretend to be leaders while doing very little and treating everyone else like shit. If we're being honest, the bar for Boomer men was so fucking low you could trip on it. My dad, for example, thought his role was providing for his family which is super cute because my mom also worked 40+ hours...on top of doing homework with us, grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, taking care of us when we were sick, etc. He even told my mom "You don't work", repeatedly, just to devalue her and hold his place as top dog. He had it made and, imo, the guys going right want that back. They want to be patted on the back for having a job, as if they wouldn't have had a job if they were single anyways...and as if over 72% of married mothers aren't also working now. They don't want to change diapers, do the dishes, or do nighttime feedings because that's "women's work". As for other races, I genuinely think this just comes down to the culture war that Fox manufactured to distract everyone from real problems. People aren't voting to save democracy, protect the working class, or improve anything. They are voting to shut other people out. Many voters - and this definitely applies to the MAGA movement - are single issue voters which is why you can't go a single day without Fox making some bullshit up to get people angry. You see the same nonsense from women on the right. It's pointedly not in their best interest to vote MAGA but they - like all fascists - falsely believe they'll never be hoisted by their own petard one day (until they are). It's why when you bring up things that don't fit their worldview they shut down. MD is still pretending to be "too busy" to address my proof that Trump is not strong against corporations after she claimed that he is. Because, ultimately, she isn't voting for or against that issue anyways, she's voting for a personality that she finds entertaining. And to loop all of that back around to my original point about men and their societal roles, many of these MAGA women make excuses for men which is absolutely a throwback to when women were property to be used and abused. Ugh, it reminds me of this uncomfortable conversation I got yanked into as a librarian when that fuckhead runner sexually assaulted a journalist on tv. This old woman with pure white hair and a walker was passionately defending what he did as no big deal saying that women need to learn to accept it because that's what she did in her day. So obviously internalized sexism is also a problem that MAGA women suffer from. Notably, while black men are leaving the Democratic party, black women are not. There are a few theories as to why black men are leaving and one of them is what I said further up in my novel (sorry lol) - MAGA votes to shut people out, not fix problems. And the black community is not super welcoming to certain groups within LGBTQ+.

These people can't even handle chartering a few buses. They've fucked it up twice already. And this is who they want to run the entire country? They'll rage about waiting in line at McDonalds, cuss out minimum wage workers, deny them a fair wage, and then vote for a guy who could be dead before 2028.

They need to lighten up, it was just a joke, they took it out of context, they should watch Biden's full set first.

I am less hopeful that "the right language" will change anything. Imo straight white men are being called on to change how they define themselves - they need to make room for other people, put more thought into how they behave, and ditch outdated assumptions that no longer serve a purpose. I don't think the ones going right intend to make room for anyone. Progress has never been easy and there have always been people - especially the demographic with the most control - who have tried to stop it. If the fight for the 19th Amendment was happening today, these males would be just as toxic, if not moreso. Social media has made it easier for the worst people in society to link up and coordinate attacks to regain control. I'm not sure what you do about that.

Pennsylvania officials rebut false voter fraud claims from home and abroad The nuns replied: But Maloney Baloney is still not convinced that the nuns are real people.