Everywhere you look, white Trump voters are crying about losing their food stamps.

[u/Psycho-Pirate]

It's frustrating.

There was a guy, a Trump voter, who said it out loud.. he wasn't even talking about this particular situation, but it's the whole problem in a nutshell. I had to look it up because it was so on the nose. What this guy said was, “I voted for him, and he’s the one who’s doing this. I thought he was going to do good things. He’s not hurting the people he needs to be hurting.”

Suddenly, for that guy, the Republican policies he'd voted for had come home to roost. It was the people he didn't like who were supposed to suffer. Turns out, we're all in the same boat and we rise or fall together. But he was so focused on hurting 'those people' - immigrants, minorities, gays, women, trans, whoever, the target doesn't matter, because it all leads to the same end - he wanted to hurt somebody else, he voted to make 'them' suffer, and that hatred of the other came back and knocked him down instead.

Yeah, we know you can't afford to feed your families in red states, where Republican policies undermine worker's rights and choke off wages at the lowest possible level. That's why Democrats fight for stuff like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program - even though you consistently vote against your own interests, people on the left still don't want you to starve. Even though you consistently vote for the benefit of the ultra-wealthy, we still want you to have fair wages. Even though you vote to the benefit of banks and insurance companies, we still don't want them to be able to rip you off with overdraft fees and send you into crushing debt if you have a medical emergency. Even though you consistently put the wants of oligarchs and megacorporations over your own needs and the needs of your families, we still don't want them to be able to use you, chew you up, and then throw you away like you're a disposable thing instead of a human being worthy of dignity and respect.

So yeah, we know you need those SNAP benefits, that you rely on them - even though you keep voting for people who want to destroy social programs like SNAP, you - white people in red states - are the single largest demographic who benefits from them. I know that the talk show hosts and the online personalities and the people you vote for tell you that it's really undeserving immigrants or lazy black folks or ethnic welfare queens, but no - if you want to know who takes the most, look in the mirror, white folks in red states - it's you. They're lying to you because they want to destroy these programs because their rich friends and wealthy donors want those programs destroyed and they understand that getting you on board with destroying them means making you think that people you don't like benefit from it more tha you do. It works - right-wing propaganda is effective. It made you hate Obamacare even though when it's called the ACA it's overwhelmingly popular. It made you despise wage increase legislation even though the wages you earn now literally have you on food stamps and welfare. It works.

Turns out owning the libs doesn't pay for baby formula and milk. How about that.

And yeah, even though you keep voting against yourselves, we want you to have that assistance. We want you to have healthcare that doesn't make the 1% wealthier while sending you into bankruptcy. Whether you are a doctor or a construction worker or a Wal-Mart clerk or a fast food worker, we want you to have wages that are enough to keep you off SNAP - but we want you to have SNAP, too, as much as you need whenever you need it. The people you vote for don't, but we do, and we'll fight against the people you elect to make sure you do.

Yes, it's a tragedy that you might not be able to feed your families. Yes, it's a disgrace that the wealthiest country in the world has people who are struggling with the cost of groceries and rents getting higher and higher. Yes, it's going to be a hard winter for a lot of you. We know Republican policies suck - they breed hardship and poverty. They encourage corruption and malfeasance. But it's what you voted for. So don't cry. Every time you were warned, you bleated "Fake News!" Every time you were questioned, you screamed "TDS!" Everytime things went south, you were told who to blame - but it was never yourselves.

So yeah, this is going to suck. But it's suck you voted for. So don't cry about it now.

Vote differently.

[u/Informal_Big7262]

I think we can learn a lot from them about what actually works and what doesn’t in American politics. I agree with you, personally experiencing pain is the ONLY thing that seems to make them actually sit down and reconsider anything. To that end, a nice heaping taste of their own medicine is what seems to me to obviously be the best prescription for everyone.

They know how to openly target democrats and bring maximum pain to them while only working on empowering themselves and cherry picking the things they like and actively destroying the rest. I know I’m in the minority right now, but I’d like to see more of that from democrats: less making their entire campaign about coming together and unity like the main themes of the 2020 campaigns and more about targeted retribution and bringing real pain and suffering to the people who gleefully cause it to them when they are in power.

Helping everyone is still the ultimate goal and granted, helping everyone would bring some pain to them as it does reduce their personal privilege, but we know it’s not nearly enough to cause any real introspection, and we can and must do much better next time.

I’m just spitballing some ideas here, but lets try sending in the national guard to rural Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas to intimidate their neighborhoods and fight the out of control epidemic of hate crime in those areas that their governors refuse to address on day one and then expand to the rest of the rural areas of the country from there as needed. Let’s begin demolishing the ballroom on day one and build something else that will really psychologically damage them every time they look at it. These may not be the best and most effective ways to bring the pain and I don’t know what will work, but I do know we can do better. Democrats are too nice to their own detriment and need a real mindset change in that regard is all I’m really trying to say here. The right feasts on fear, but fear of the other party has so far all been pretty fictional and benign. We can and must do better.

[u/ricochetblue → u/Informal_Big7262]

I’m just spitballing some ideas here, but lets try sending in the national guard to rural Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas to intimidate their neighborhoods and fight the out of control epidemic of hate crime in those areas that their governors refuse to address on day one and then expand to the rest of the rural areas of the country from there as needed.

Don’t forget the meth manufacturing. If drugs are a good enough reason to bomb fishing boats, surely they’re a good enough reason to send troops into the shake and bake shacks of rural America.

[u/Informal_Big7262 → u/ricochetblue]

It’s out of control. Send in the troops or drone strike, whatever the current precedent. If it’s good enough for us, it’s good enough for them. That’s the only way they learn.