A small business owner who voted for Donald Trump recently posted a video on TikTok, pleading for help as crushing tariffs on China threatened to bankrupt his operation, which imports alloy wheels. His call for support, however, drew little sympathy from some fellow Americans.
“Votes have consequences,” he was told, with many comments from Twitter/X users relishing the notion that another MAGA voter was suffering because of their political choice. The backlash prompted a second video from the man, in which he dropped several F-bombs while criticizing the apparent heartlessness of those celebrating his hardship.
With the allies you’re seeking, I distrust the revolution you want. Seems like that revolution already happened and the guy whose allyship you want is griping about the results while still supporting it.
do you wanna stop fascism? want to see trump and elon musk lose power?
working class solidarity is the first step
our entire lives, we’ve been tricked and manipulated into fighting among ourselves, because they know if we worked together, we would be able to take them down.
why do you think, every time that something bad happens, there’s all the media spin about who we should blame?
they love to do this for age, think about all the boomers vs. gen X vs. gen Z articles and social media posts you’ve seen
but they do the same shit all the time with different things. their aim is to split the working class into as many splinter groups as possible.
we need to stop letting the assholes in power divide us like this.
unfortunately, that means extending solidarity to people who haven’t earned it, including people who chose to vote for Trump.
most of these people were tricked and manipulated. many of them have been fed a steady diet of misinformation. many of them are proud, insufferable bigots.
but being smugly superior, insulting, rude or intolerant isn’t how we change people’s minds. the best way to do that is by having a two-way conversation.
we are all so busy yelling at eachother. it doesn’t work. we need solidarity.
Your solidarity with him breaks solidarity with me.
explain how?
he wants me and my friends dead. You want his approval which means you will never have mine.
can you explain how showing compassion for someone, is the same as wanting their approval?
You want solidarity with a fascist.
That is fundamentally incompatible with solidarity with anyone else.
i don’t want solidarity with fascists, I want solidarity across the working class, which means we need to deradicalize fascists in the working class, which means we need to take steps to deradicalize them, which means we need to be compassionate. this isn’t hard.
When “compassion” with the right has always been accompanied by moving to the right, and when I have no reason to trust that it won’t happen again, I do not trust those whose “compassion” is only for people who want me and my friends dead.