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just listened to abby mccloskey and, sorry, but i am tired of hearing conservatives talk about the attraction to the business communtiy of low taxes and regulation which translates to me as more shenanigans and more pollution that taxpayers foot the bill for. then she goes on to lament the turn of tx conservatism to the culture wars emphasis. sorry, i am into my seventh decade and the culture wars have been part of the republican playbook for my entire adult life...see jesse helms. she shouldn't use that as an excuse to all of a sudden be surprised how conservatism has taken a turn for the worst.

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Thank you Thomas. Agree totally.

I just met up with a friend who I have not seen for 6 years. She settled in SC and has changed her registration from Democrat to Republican. It was a shocking meet-up, to say

the least, but what hit me were the absolute absurdities she said. Kamala is a crook, bla, bla ,bla. When I countered she had no counterpoint: : “both parties are being controlled”

was her intellectually weak answer. It hit me: these people are seriously infected with a

cult or virus, not sure what, but the brain is programmed. This is coming from a woman who says she is a “Shaman” and encouraged me to see her website that’s centered on “love”.

Seriously, I am not making this up, and my husband and I are now in Italy for a month…

I am not sure I want to return. Nearly half the US population are bat-sh*t crazy.

Maybe it’s The Andromeda Strain! Michael Creighton warned us 50 years ago!!

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Says she’s a Shaman…lol. That had to set off your internal alarm system…who in their right mind calls themselves a shaman?

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Well there was the QAnon Shaman, for one.

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Trump’s vision of America has always been dark and dystopian. His 2017 inaugural ‘American carnage’ address revealed a seething darkness, a visceral hatred of Americans who hadn’t supported his candidacy.

Trump’s hatred lingered over the next seven years, festering into a full, raging boil, because now he wants to sic the military on people who don't support him.

Trump said last week on Fox "News" that the U.S. military should “handle” “the enemies within,” calling people who don’t support him “sick and radical.”

His supporters either don't believe him, or do believe him and are supporting him because of his hatred. It's a grievous reflection on the sustainability of our great experiment.

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I don’t think the culture wars are anything new. It is just the MAGA movement made it a priority to divide people and it is how they go about things. Anyone remember the Equal Rights Amendment of the 1970s? All it said was that people would have equal rights under law, regardless of sex. Talk about a culture war over those plain words.

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What amazes me, is that most of the cultural issues that are so important to Magats involve limiting the rights of others, though the prohibited actions have no effect on the Magats. They place such great importance on transgender women competing in female sports. Whatever association controls the sport in question could make that decision. Trump said he would ban all transgendered women from participating in female sports. I guess he doesn't realize the president of the U.S. does not have that authority. But then, he has alluded to being a dictator in many different ways.

The decision as to how a family deals with a transgender child, including gender altering surgery and treatment, is obviously their issue to decide, in consultation with health experts, and no concern of any Magats. Just as is the case with abortion.

Their attempt to make us a Christian nation stands in stark contrast to the religious guarantees in the first amendment. Our government should be secular and neutral regarding religious decisions, including atheism. Once again, what religion any individual American professes or the choice to be a freethinker has no relevance to them and they should mind their own damn business.

The same goes for book banning and most other culturally divisive issues which Maga leaders use to manipulate their flocks.

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Where is the immorality in the Democratic Party? The vitriol, lies and violence inspired by a corrupt leader to overturn our democracy emanates from the current Republican Party. I have lived 73 years, longer than the two people on this video. I have been politically tuned in since the Nixon era. The corruption I have seen in the office of the President was perpetrated by the Nixon, Reagan and W. Bush administrations. The values of the current Republican Party are laced in with white Christian nationalism, a form of Naziism. The least among us subscribe to the false, fear based ideology, that large groups of Americans are somehow less American and less entitled to the freedoms that our country is based upon. The chasm that exists between the two parties is simple: Democracy vs.Autocracy. ; Freedom vs. Fascism. We will shortly learn what Americans choose for the future.

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I love these interviews with people who have boots on the ground. Abby McCloskey's point that Trump's crusade to deport immigrants would be felt first in Texas (and other places with similar demographics,) would be extremely disruptive and frightening. A lot of industries would slow to a crawl without immigrant laborers, affecting everyone in the country. The price of meat and crops would go through the roof with few people left to process and harvest. I fear the disruption and panic stirred by a Trump presidency would leave us vulnerable to a stock market crash and easy pickings for another terrorist attack. That said, how do we promote stability in the countries where people leave by the hundreds of thousands to escape violence and poverty?

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Texas=worst governor in the USA.

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He was out defending the officers at Uvalde almost before the tragedy was over.

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Nah, first will be Springfield, Ohio and Aurora, CO. Maybe then Texass.

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A while back, I heard an interview with the awesome Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas who was asked why Black men seem to support TFG. This Black woman replied that the Black men liked those checks that were sent to them signed by TFG. In other words, those covid stimulus checks we all got. This morning, I heard another interview with Black men in PA who said, "I want that check" as the reason for their TFG vote. Maybe there needs to be more outreach to this group that those checks are not coming back from TFG, or anyone, because they were given in a time of crisis.

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He did want his name on them…I remember that discussion distinctly

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Yes he did. And specifically so some people would have the impression that the money was from him. Apparently, it worked for some voters.

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That astonishes me, that anyone thought the money came directly from him, or because of him. But damn, he's good, right? The guy knows his mark like no other​.

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Some people are so easily befuddled. We know the type.

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The permission structure from someone perceived to be a smart successful person to openly be the horribly stupid, bigoted, racist, antisemitic evil people that they are. And, unfortunately, they see a twisted (my word) honesty in that he has shown he will do all of the vile evil things that he says he will do. But only because of the disturbing weak, corrupt & power hungry people of the former Republican Party and the SCOTUS. He could not do any of the things he says if not for them.

This is my answer to your question. I have not yet seen or heard the piece.

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If you want to go into the mind of Chump supporters, you should look at Nikki Haley. She may join him on the campaign trail. This is someone who debases herself every day with her support for a man who mocked her and her husband. I’ll leave you with a quote from her regarding Chump made several years back:

“I will not stop fighting a man who chooses not to disavow the KKK.”

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Haley is a sociopath, interested only in her own power. She is a complete fraud and charlatan.

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Yes. Absolutely. Why more people do not recognize this is beyond me. She’s awful.

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If Trump wins, that would be telling people that organized crime is the vehicle for governing your life. The whole freedom things was just an illusion - which held for a long time.

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Steve, your guest is an uncover MAGA supporter.

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Simplest answer: he's a white male. Combine that with instilling fear at impossible levels for many to comprehend and make his supporters feel like they are victims that he will protect. The latter part is pure cult leader bullshit, but the first part addresses underlying and pervasive racism and misogyny.

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Some points on immigration for one there is not a piece of any food that you buy that has not been touched by an immigrant during the process of to your table. Only way is to grow it yourself.Two immigration is not just the Mexican border it’s all of our borders as Steve mentioned the wink and the nod about immigration over Bush administration the East coast is overwhelming Russian illegal immigration’s but we don’t look because they go unnoticed because they are white yet feel free to all any police chief to discuss the Russian crimes since 1986. Third our daughter nlaw is a therapist for a grant that has been on going since WorldWar ll where all countries search for the smartest people on this earth. Look how many scientists are from Mexico Afghanistan we just got six this year check out NASA top scientists these people since World War II families and themselves are given dual citizenship right away. Doesn’t any immigration plan cover all countries?

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Where I live the average age in the county is 65 and it is a MAGA mindset here. I will tell you that the only people doing real work here are immigrants. The entitled white folks living around me conveniently forget that if the legal immigrants here are deported they will not have their roofs repaired or lawns cut or appliances delivered. Truth.

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I think it's mostly a matter of ignorance vs awareness. Most of trumpf's supporters are oblivious to reality. They're supporting him out of misconceptions of what they think he's about and misconceptions of the state of things from climate change to economy to foreign affairs. It's their state of being unaware that makes them pro-trumpf. Like a wise man once said "forgive them for they know not what they do". People who have a grasp of what's happening here, what's really happening- not "democrats are evil"- support Harris.

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When Southern officials began dropping off bus loads of illegal immigrants into New York City, which quickly became overwhelmed, my friends and I had the same response, which was this:

Because there had been so much pathological lying from Trump and Crew in the GOP for the last nine years, whenever we heard "border crisis," the words just blurred into all the hateful speech about "other" that we heard every day. The orange boy cried wolf just too many times and we didn't know what to believe.

But when those buses came, we were awakened that there really was a border crisis. And personally, I thought the buses were a great move for these leaders to cut through the BS and just SHOW US what was happening.

I feel like I must sound terribly ignorant to have been so unaware of this surge, but I consider myself fairly well informed, and yet because of Trump's lies and because the MSM no longer knew how to report anymore, the border crisis story became an odd one for anyone living in these parts.

I appreciated the in-depth discussion about all of this, but I must admit, I was uncomfortable with how this woman opened, suggesting some kind of moral equivalency between the parties in how things have gone wrong. We know Democrats are far from perfect, but if someone is going to say something like that, you better be damn precise as to what you mean, and she wasn't.

After that comment, it took a lot for me to hang through this interview, and while I'm glad I did, I will NOT tolerate any kind of both-sidesisms because that feels like gaslighting... AGAIN. I learned a lot from this discussion, but once that red flag went up, my skin crawled throughout the whole talk as she had lost my trust right at the top

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After listening to the video I still don’t understand why people vote for Trump. What did I miss?

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I thought this interview with Abby McCloskey was really comprehensive and honest on the subject of immigration in particular. I remember when GWB was president and being from TX, he and others did talk about ways to address these issues. That broke down pretty quickly, tho as Abby said it was acknowledged that the economy of most border states (at least) would collapse without day-crossing illegal workers, and business practices propped it all up. I found it disgusting then as a much younger person, and totally hypocritical now, as this background is now completely covered up, with immigrants now demonized for political gain.

I thought Abby also nailed the moral or "culture war" issues that hold some non-MAGA conservatives to Trump. Unfortunately, I believe they have the cart way before the horse, as Jesus moved masses with His words and deeds, not by calling down threats of fire from heaven (as even His disciples then wanted Him to do when rejected, Luke 9:51-56). Christian liberty is a choice individuals make, while personal liberty is the rightful state which God created every soul to have and nurture in our communities. No one can be forced to believe anything they don't, they can only be persuaded- rule of law is supposed to be related to community standards, not an elite minority.

Sorry to ramble- I do think many will be shocked if these deportation activities start happening, especially to people that Trump voters have a connection to. I'm afraid that karma/reaping what these years have sown is really going to bite, however the election goes down.

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