[Stocks are] really not that important in the overall context of things, but I have some money invested, so that 's good for me, I guess." -NC Hispanic man
People voted for Trump because we thought we were going to get lower costs of living, to some degree at least, and everything has just increased in price. -GA Black man
So I have an EBT card, and it’s a lot harder to prove certain things in order to qualify for that. So just little things like that, they all add up, and I think they need to focus on us more than other countries. -MI white man
At first him speaking his mind was refreshing and I saw him getting a lot accomplished, but then it just got mean and nasty and very unbecoming. And it just made me cringe and I just didn’t like him anymore. -AZ white woman
Deportations were a thing he was talking about, just not to the extreme. I would say yes, I was surprised. -MI Black man
I thought the focus was going to be more on securing the border, focused on hardened criminals, not so much everyday folk. -MI white man
I think the ICE has a place in this country right now because of the influx of illegals, but I also think the ICE officers have not been adequately trained. -ME white woman
All the South Koreans, I believe, that were going to be the instructors and teach Americans how to do that job–we had this whole thing where they refused to come back, and now they’re going to let AI and robots do the majority of jobs. -AZ Hispanic man
And I also feel like I liken it to 1936 Germany with the brown coats [sic]. And so, there has to be a better way to do this - ME white woman
I think he should take care of the US first instead of acquiring other countries. -AZ white woman
I couldn’t believe that I was complicit in deportations and I felt horribly and cried a lot about it and everything. I guess I kind of knew, but refused to pay attention to it because it just seemed ridiculous in my head to think things could really go that way - MI Hispanic woman
What we fail to understand is that it took each and every one of us a significant amount of time and effort to gain our political knowledge.
It helps if one is curious about how the world works. Many people, in my experience, are incurious in general.
It’s not just curiosity, plenty of people are curious. It requires you to be confrontational with authority. “That’s just how it is” is obviously not something that set well with any one of us here, but given different life circumstances you could be plenty curious of lots of things and never been confronted with any major contradictions that required you to question authority.
I just listened to punk albums as a teenager and worked minimum wage retail. That’s all it took for me.
Yes but the basic empathy that led us here is not easy to learn. Is it even possible to get people like this to care about anyone else?
It took a certain set of material conditions which drove us to care for things outside of ourselves. It is a different set for everyone to some degree, but these people are purely self interested and that will not change with access or exposure to “political knowledge.” It won’t be until some tragedy or existential experience personally impacts them that they begin on a path that will allow them to grow politically. This is precisely why no revolution will happen in the imperial core
While that’s true, even before looking at political positions, there are just so many Americans that don’t have even a fragment of empathy or care for human life (let alone any other form of life). It’s a nation of misanthropes.