The fact that its been so normalized to be this openly shitty and callous toward frigging children... i dont even know how to react to this any more.

Im not saying its hopeless, but I feel like a lot of people on the "lets not let children go hungry" side of the fence are almost left speechless by these idiots. But i feel like thats almost part of their strategy - stunning the opposition. There has to be a better response.

What's the best way to respond to this kind of brazen cruelty? (Besides voting and campaigning for candidates who arent sociopathic).

What's the best way to respond to this kind of brazen cruelty?

Voting is a must. Political apathy is how this stuff happens. Outside of voting, just being vocal about your distaste for these policies might help let people around you know that not everyone supports this. And if you come face to face with someone who is outspoken in their belief that some children deserve to starve, then you know who to avoid being around.

More people voted for trump after his disastrous 4 years in office than did when he first got elected. I don't think voting is the answer because we are stupid. Educating these idiots would go a long way, but they don't believe in education. Being controlled by their extended, daily, two minute hate is all they seem to know or want.

I taught at a couple school where the majority of the students got their only 2 meals a day when at school. And these fuck heads think that's too much. It makes me sick.

Voting is the answer (at least part of the answer) because it's what kept Trump out of office for another four years despite him getting all those votes. Now even more of Gen Z is voting age, as long as they vote like they did in the midterms conservatives don't have long in office. They'll have some gerrymandered strongholds like Texas and Florida but things should slowly be getting better now that more and more of the conservative voters are dying off either from old age or COVID.

That's not helping the many people being screwed over by anti-trans and anti-abortion bills, or with all of the anti-worker crap the republicans and the dems (albeit to a lesser extent) have been implementing. I'm worried it's going to be too late for a lot of people by the time things get good (not just better, actually good without 50 million horrible things going off constantly; not perfect, but not constantly under peril). Well, if they do. And of course there's the matter of climate change. I'm worried it's gonna be too late by then as well...

That’s not helping the many people being screwed over by anti-trans and anti-abortion bills

A cure all does not exist unfortunately and I don't know of any solutions for the affected minorities in those areas other than leave when possible. Which is easier said than done I know, I did it with my move out of Texas.

I’m worried it’s going to be too late for a lot of people by the time things get good.

It likely is going to be too late for many groups of people, I don't like that reality but it's true. This is the shit situation our generation was given and we just have to do our best to improve it as best we can for future generations. We can only do that by fighting and not letting apathy take over.

And of course there’s the matter of climate change. I’m worried it’s gonna be too late by then as well.

Too late for what? For the environment to change? That point passed decades ago, unfortunately. We've been at the pollution game for a while. Too late to mitigate as much damage as possible? Absolutely not. The best time to plant a tree is yesterday but the next best time is today. Our planet is changing due to the actions of the old and it's on us to adapt as a society. We adapt by changing policies and we change policies by getting involved in politics, the easiest form of which is simply voting.

The future is going to be rough and certainly not what I would've chosen, but it's not untenable or unconquerable.

I mean like too late to mitigate it enough for it to not destroy the environment completely. And most of the pollution is not from individuals but from corporations. I mean hell, most pollution from airplanes comes from private jets. Commercial passenger planes don't do nearly as much damage as those (though they do quite a bit of damage and should be limited where possible). ~Cherri

I mean like too late to mitigate it enough for it to not destroy the environment completely.

Except that's not a thing, it's impossible for the environment to be completely destroyed. Even when a forest turns to desert the desert is still an environment that can be adapted to and improved on. The world as we know it will change dramatically, that's just something that's unavoidable at this point. But we can help make the next version of this world the best we can.

As long as you're alive it's never too late to take action.

A lot of species are going extinct faster than new ones are popping up. ~Cherri

Yes, that's part of the changing world. Not something I'm happy about but something we can't change. There are projects sequencing their genome so that we can hopefully clone/revive the species at a later time however. So there are things that can be done to mitigate even those changes. Not a perfect solution but it's something.

If you truly believe there's no hope and we can't do anything to change it then I implore you to follow your own word and don't bother commenting doomerisms since it doesn't help anything.

If you want to give up, fine. Just do it by yourself. I'm going to keep fighting as long as there's life in this body.