Quick question: Are you a cis, white, heterosexual male with Christian/agnostic beliefs? Or at the very least, could you be mistaken for somebody like that? And do you live in an urban area, or a suburban or rural area?
Because as a bi trans woman who grew up in a relatively red part of one of the deepest blue states in the country and spent a LONG time being able to hide as a cis white male, it is two very different experiences of life in the US before and after transitioning and what kind of area that I’ve lived in. Cities are natural melting pots of diversity and run very liberal/leftist as a result, suburbs can be a mixed bag depending on where they are (though like often follows like and you tend to get concentrations of similar beliefs close together due to socio-economic factors), and rural areas are often very group-think oriented and form cliques like it’s highschool. I also spent a lot of time listening to what conservatives say when they think they’re in like company. And it’s very political.
You know how people say that the two things you should never bring up at work are politics and religion? Every place that I’ve worked, the people who cannot stop talking about politics have always been conservatives. From hating on immigrants or trans people to the guy yesterday who went on and on about how people only hate Teslas because they’re liberals who hate Elon and how great Teslas are while we all side-eyed each other (somebody said that the cyber truck is dangerous and looks ugly), they are constantly either trying to convince you that they’re right or just assume that you agree with them in the first place. I had a “both sides” so-called “centrist” trap me and another coworker in a conversation about another one of our coworkers after he found out that they were a trans man and just kept going on and on about how they had trans friends but our coworker would never be a “real man,” just like his trans friend would never be a “real woman.” Didn’t stop talking about it for over an hour, just talking in circles with barely a moment to take a breathe before he started talking again. I would’ve thought he was gonna pass out if I didn’t already know that he’s one of those people who would probably die if they ever stopped talking. He would also go on and on about the “violent left” but would get oddly quiet whenever a right-winger or MAGA voter would shoot up a place or something. Despite the fact that the US accounts for something like 95% of all school shootings in the world, and all but a couple of those have been committed by white men who either traditionally voted for Republicans or grew up in a conservative household, and that in the past 10 years something like 80% of mass shooting victims were shot by people (most often men, and usually white men) who also either traditionally voted for Republicans or grew up in conservative households
It’s only been in about the past 6 months that I’ve mostly stopped seeing MAGA flags outside people’s houses or on people’s trucks. Though there is one pickup at work that the owner stuck a “MAGA Edition” label onto just above the branding, and there is one guy who up until recently would wear a Trump 2024 shirt occasionally. He might still, but I haven’t seen it in awhile.
There are now about 20 states where it is either unsafe for me to travel due to state laws or where my existence is outright illegal in some way. Trans people were having their passports, driver’s licenses, birth certificates, and other forms of identification confiscated by the DMV after the election but before Trump even entered office. A law in Utah banning trans girls from school sports got overturned because it affected a total of 3 girls in the state and it was therefore considered a law targeting specific individuals, which is illegal. You can make it illegal to turn right on a red light at a particular street corner, but you can’t make it illegal for Tom, Larry, and Diane to turn right on a red light.
You can have reasonable discussions with conservatives, but because conservatism largely consists of the belief that there are groups that the law should protect but not bind, and groups that the law should bind but not protect, it can very quickly fall into arguing what kind of people do or don’t deserve to be treated like humans. Very often with them, respect means “respect my authority or else I won’t treat you like a person.” Back before 2001 and the rise of right-wing extremism these past 20 or so years, there were much more mild discussions between Democrats and Republicans, but that’s because the US largely has no true leftist institutions. The Democrats are largely a moderate conservative to left-leaning centrist party with a few moderate leftists thrown in (who are unpopular with the party leadership but usually popular with voters). So debates were largely about whether or not the tax break for corporations should be 5% or 7% higher than last year. Both parties largely agreed on policy.
In the US, there are two genders: Man and “political.” Two races: White and “political.” Two sexualities: Straight and “political.” Two religions: Christian and “political” (and which flavor of Christian you are can be considered “political” based on the region of the country that you’re in). If you can fake being in the former group in any way, you’ll have a very different experience living in the US than you would otherwise.
DougPiranha42
DarkFuture
PapaSkwat
Schmoo