It probably started as satire, but sadly was likely latched onto and passed around with great enthusiasm and outrage by people thinking it was God’s honest truth.
I find this is the case with so many memes Conservatives pass around these days. They don’t even realize that it’s both satire, and makes them look ridiculously stupid for passing it on. America gets dumber by the hour.
America has had stupid uncles and aunts for centuries. Sadly, some of them have acquired Level 1 mouse dexterity.
We can do away with Arabic numerals but then we have to have the awkward conversation about how the additive notation IIII is equally valid to the subtractive notation IV in Roman Numerals. Twitter especially gets angry about that.
Wait till they find out about al jabr.
“Wait a dang minute! Black Panther ain’t even American!?”
Liberal schools teaching Sharia Math?
No, this is not satire. My father has been going off about this (more recently) and some school in NorCal that forces students to do Muslim prayers on mats etc. He and my step-mother post shit like this on Facebook (and before that, in group emails), and it’s a big reason why I don’t use Facebook, and told them to delete me out of their email contact list.
Every time a Muslim so much as runs for city council somewhere in the U.S., they join a crusade to ‘save our country.’
They’re older, they’re resentful, they’re scared, and they think sharing shit like this helps keep people informed.
What exactly are they scared of? I am not unsympathetic to the anxieties of a lot of people (hell, myself included!) about the economy, our society, health care, whatever, but I’m curious as to just what it is that makes people post stuff like this.
They are literally afraid of Muslims taking over, destroying Western Civilization, and murdering white people.
That is literally what they are afraid of. Even though Muslims make up less than 1% of the people in America.
They are told by far right nuts that this has already happened in Europe. They, literally, think that Muslims have taken over Europe, and are running around taking all the white women.
From a bigger perspective, being white, even working class or lower middle class white used to convey a certain level of perceived status, compared to ethnic or religious or gender/preference minorities. The Trump crowd would express it as “being American (by which they mean white Christian American) used to mean something.”
One big picture thought is that even though it sometimes feels to liberals like social progress is glacial or non-existent, for social conservatives, the last 50 years has been a series of epic disasters, monstrous defeats and ignominious retreats. First America made it legal to marry across racial lines and made it legally harder to overtly discriminate on race. That was a major disruption of the social order that favored the group who now make up the Trump supporters. Then abortion was legalized, which is a huge crime against humanity from the perspective of some of those on the right. From that perspective it went on: OH NOES THE MUSLIMS!! Then OH NOES THE GAYS!! Then OH FUCK NO A BLACK PRESIDENT!!!
As you can see from my mockery I don’t respect this POV but it is very strongly held. And then when you add the political lubricant of the effects of economic inequality and the reduced opportunity for many folks in that group, along with the economic desolation of parts of the country, that sense of fear of profound social loss gives us Trump.
I understand the Trump folks, to some degree. But understanding and explanation are not the same as excusing or sympathizing. I’m willing to address the economic issues that underlie a portion of the Trump support, but I don’t really see much ground for meaningful compromise on the social issues. I’m simply not willing to accept back tracking on the social progress we have fought so damn hard for the last 50 years.
My org’s comsec officer said pretty much this to me a month or so ago when I mentioned possibly getting a AF/Army IT job over in Germany and living there for 5-7 years (personally I think it would be great for my kids).
I think that they issue is that a lot of these folks get literally zero information about Europe, except for crazy stories from right wing nut job sites that only talk about how Muslims killed people… So they think that is literally all that happens in Europe, 24/7.
Yes? Oh, Sharia Math, sorry, I thought you said Slainte Mhath.
Liberal schools should absolutely teach Slainte Mhath, either through proper pub drinking etiquette or through the collected works of Marillion, either way I’m good.
Fishless, or Fishy? Or are you one of those whom the answer is both.
Fish Marillion is the only true Marillion.
Although I have softened my stance on this somewhat over the years, recognizing that they are still quite talented in their Fish-less incarnation, it’s just not a sound I like nearly as much.
To be fair, they’re quite correct. Sharing shit like that does keep people informed…informed that the people sharing said shit are racist morons. It’s always good to know up front who to block/avoid.
EDIT : Also, my apologies @kerzain as I realize the above statement is indirectly insulting your dad and step-mom.
I can attest to this. Thanksgiving dinner usually includes the telling of horror stories of how Sweden is a smoking crater filled with roving gangs of depraved Muslim rapists. And that’s not hyperbole on my part, that’s literally what they think.
Good summary I think. I’m pretty much aware of all of this, having argued pretty much the same thing in other places, so I think my question was poorly framed. I guess I’m really interested in the fear aspect. I recognize the disruptions and the real-life changes that people have endured, but it’s the translation of uncertainty about and dislike of these changes into active fear with a specific focus that intrigues me.
I do think perhaps the constant agitprop of the right has worked, in that it has focused all of that discontent on a strawman, the “liberal.” And I also think that those of us who have championed many of the social changes over the years, and who are most appalled by what is going on now, share some of the blame. As I’ve noted before, in my opinion, the collapse of dialog and discourse is the fault of both sides, though not at all equally (I hold the right much, much more responsible, for their active undermining of democracy). The left’s fault lies in its superciliousness, it’s condescension, and its arrogance. We used to have lefties, true liberals, who could and liked to talk to everyday people. Now, it’s more of a gated community just as exclusive and exclusionary as the Koch borthers’ sort of domain.
The Right kind of removed themselves from the dialog, though. How can you have dialog when the religious fanatics hold up a bible verse as to why bigotry towards homosexuals should be legal, deny climate change (and science in general), and are racists and xenophobes?
You can’t have a rational debate or dialog about gay marriage when the other side is just “No, they’re an abomination!”. You can’t really have a dialog about immigration when the other side is just “No, they’re subhuman shitholes! Keep America pure!”.
A Republican friend and I used to have really interesting debates in the 90’s and early 2000’s. We both respected each other’s positions, we just came to different conclusions. But we talked data, we talked facts. It’s not that the Left can no longer have discussions with people like that on the Right, it’s that those people no longer represent the Right. That friend is no longer representative of a Republican.
I do think you are right in that while the left thinks things have moved very slowly the far right believes things have gone over the cliff completely. I would disagree though in your examples in that I would bet most average white republicans never new interracial marriage was illegal (it just shouldn’t be done) or truly believed overt discrimination was acceptable (you did it quietly).
The conservatives world of religion, the nuclear family and the neighborhood of like people has broken down around them and they can’t handle it.