Yesterday, I saw a few of donnie’s loyalists standing out on a corner at a place with steady traffic, trying to get cars and pedestrians to honk/give them a thumb’s up. In the hot sun. No idea if they were paid or not. They were way up in years and probably could be doing almost anything else but that. But these people love dimbulb donnie, no matter how much of a disaster he’ll be. The worse off it is for the country, they’ll cheer it on, as long as they believe donnie is going to hurt the right people.

Just made me look forward to filling out my ballot all the more. But definitely, everyone: go vote. Don’t believe the polls.

I spent my formative years in a very rural area, and that tracks with my experience.

Donnie has concepts of a plan.

He’s totally losing it. He was never competent for the job and he becomes even less so with each day.

And yet - this very weekend, I saw his loyalists standing out on the corner waving their stupid donnie merchandise and trying to get passing cars to honk in approval…

I don’t know of anyone considering getting rid of guns that would be used for pest control in a rural area. Beyond slogans and bumper stickers, is anyone seriously proposing that?

I think that the people in the places where nearly all the people live (urban centers and their suburban surroundings) surely can arrive at sane guns laws, taking into account the (valid) concerns of the few remote rural people.

So that covers gun laws. Is there anything that the majority of voters cannot grasp about how to govern rural areas?

Yeah, a lot of it comes from California. And Mexico. Why do you ask?

I very much plan on voting (this being Colorado, I don’t have to go anywhere, thankfully - and I can sit down and thoroughly read the ballot measures and so on and read about them, etc., and fill out at my leisure, then mail in. This is as it should be in every state.), just like most here on Lemmy (minus the bots and trolls). However, since I’m from Colorado, it turns out that voting for POTUS in Colorado is more or less a foregone conclusion.

In states like mine, that are not “battleground states”, our vote counts very much less when it comes to POTUS. Same goes for things like representation in both the House and the Senate for states with larger populations. The House is EXTREMELY tilted for the reactionaries, and is way out of step with the voters, even though they did indeed vote.

So, yeah, voting is important. I plan on voting like my life depends on it, even though I’m not in a battleground state, because those other things on the ballot matter as well. You have to play to win, as the lottos are fond of saying. However, there is no good reason to pretend that the system is not seriously flawed in some very important aspects.

The DHS reported on the extreme right being the biggest domestic terrorist threat ages ago. The right freaked out, as expected, and it was quickly played down.

But the DHS was right.

I love being an American; I don’t like what these so-called Americans - who seemingly have no idea what freedom truly means - are trying to do to my America. These people would be better off in some theocratic state, even if it means they stop talking about Jesus and swap to another Abrahamic religion. Their values are not American values.

Imagine being so much in a bubble of the Republican cult that you think it somehow normal to be scornful of fact-checking?

Why do you think they set out in the 80s (Ronnie Raygun’s admin doing away with Fairness Doctrine) and 90s (Faux, Limbaugh and his many imitators and hatriot radio) to work so hard to build their propaganda outlets that act as their sources of “news”? They were forever butthurt that the “liberal media” worked to bring down their Nixon. They were equally prickly about Iran/Contra being found out, too.

I’ve heard the magabrained who actually do go shopping for things like eggs claim ridiculously absurd numbers, or nod along to some other magabrain who is claiming absurdly high prices. They definitely know better, but they’ll go along with it anyway.

And then there was that “JD” Vance standing right in front of a sign for egg prices, lying about the price of eggs.

They are brazen liars.

No, we are infected with lots and lots of xtian nationalist bullshit and an antiquated system that overly represents them. We need a system that allows us to ignore them since they are a minority - and let them bray as much as they like, but utterly powerless to tell anyone else how to live their lives.

Nothing weird about this bunch of so-called “Americans”.

Republicans: “States rights!” States: Decriminalize cannabis, affirm women’s rights, sign on with the NPVIC, etc… Republicans: “No, not like THAT!”

It’s almost like many people are getting taxed w/o proper representation…

Also, what is wrong with only winning California, anyway? California represents the broad spectrum of a modern America and it has its rural areas as well. It is easy to argue that it is our most important state, too.

What people in California want should matter even if it overrides smaller red states - since they will likely only hold us back anyway.

Okay, that’s just fine with me. California is arguably our most important state and has a huge population. So of course winning there should matter. This is not hard.

And just what are these “rural concerns”, anyway?

In all honesty, that should change as well. I don’t think that’s doing any good, either. It gives people with completely backward and insane ideas the impression that their positions should be on equal footing with normal people’s ideas.