MAGA - describe when America was “Great”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:America was much better when most children were raised in functional nuclear families.

Please define “functional “.

Defining “better” would be great, too, but let’s start with “functional”.
Quite a lot of what used to look functional on the surface involved alcohol, cigarettes, what now would be viewed as abusive behavior, and laws and social conventions that made it extremely difficult for women to leave highly problematic marriages.
So many biographies from children who survived supposedly “functional nuclear families” — and those are just the stories that got published.

You’ve made important points. Those families weren’t perfect, yet their children became adults who could read and write.

+1. And spend a lot of time in therapy

— Gen X

[Anonymous]

“Kearney also contended that a stable two-parent household, particularly one where both parents are actively involved, offers unique advantages to children that extend beyond a pooled income. Having two parents in the household, Kearney explained, offers benefits such as increased parental time for activities like reading and homework assistance, as well as reduced stress and greater emotional bandwidth for parenting”


https://www.brookings.edu/articles/key-takeaways-from-the-discussion-on-the-two-parent-privilege/#:~:text=Having%20two%20parents%20in%20the,greater%20emotional%20bandwidth%20for%20parenting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:America was much better when most children were raised in functional nuclear families.

Please define “functional “.

Defining “better” would be great, too, but let’s start with “functional”.
Quite a lot of what used to look functional on the surface involved alcohol, cigarettes, what now would be viewed as abusive behavior, and laws and social conventions that made it extremely difficult for women to leave highly problematic marriages.
So many biographies from children who survived supposedly “functional nuclear families” — and those are just the stories that got published.

You’ve made important points. Those families weren’t perfect, yet their children became adults who could read and write.

+1. And spend a lot of time in therapy

— Gen X

Please cite a source for your contention.


Otherwise I can just as easily counter that Gen X kids from single parent families are in therapy just as much, if not more.

Why do you think there has been rampant proliferation of online therapy?

[Anonymous]

It would be great if I could afford my bills and groceries again. That would be great again.

Was everything "great" years ago? Hell no. But I need to afford groceries, heat, electricity, mortgage, etc. right now. Due to inflation, I've been knocked down lower on Maslows hierarchy of needs. My needs now are simply shelter, food, water, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm always suprized some liberals think insulting another person's rose-colored dream is a winning tact. effectively you are pointing out that life is horrible now and always was horrible. why do you think this vision will move anybody in a useful direction? why not acknowledge that there were some good things for some people in the past? wouldn't that be more balanced, more honest,
m

"Liberals" insult other people's rose-colored dream? The MAGA creed that they want to go back to the past is pooping all over many "liberals" rose-colored dream of equal treatment and respect for all people. How about that shite?

This whole post goes to show that there is good and bad in every time. For every thing you find from the past that was positive, we can find a dark underbelly or point out a group for which that time was horrible. That is NOT saying everything is horrible all the time. It is pointing out an unfortunate fact of human existence, that there is always a mix of good and bad. That there are always upsides and downsides to every thing. And whenever humans try to make things better, there are always some bad actors who try to take advantage and ruin it for everyone else for their own benefit.

The MAGA dream of "make America great again" is truly just an imaginary cherry-picking of things to benefit mainly white Americans or address white male grievances that they cannot say and do whatever they want without consequence. It's not really about making America ideal. So stop trying to pretend it's anything else.

Or it's a time when the middle class was strong.

You all are so obsessed about social equality that you ignore the real economic problems that are the result of giving away our economy and self sufficiency.

Hunger Trump's social issues.

You reveal yourself with your nonsense post. You believe that achieving social equality causes economic problems and undermines the middle class? You believe you must keep women and POC down, so that white men can maintain their power and whites can maintain their wealth. You don't see a future where the middle class could be populated with people of all different colors and ethnicities.

The real economic problems we have are due to GOP policies that placed the emphasize on corporations and enriching C-suite donors. They dismantled the things that helped the middle class. And they have you rubes snowed to believe that POC and immigrants are stealing everything from you, when, in fact, THEY are the ones hoarding the wealth. Wake up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:America was much better when most children were raised in functional nuclear families.

Please define “functional “.

Defining “better” would be great, too, but let’s start with “functional”.
Quite a lot of what used to look functional on the surface involved alcohol, cigarettes, what now would be viewed as abusive behavior, and laws and social conventions that made it extremely difficult for women to leave highly problematic marriages.
So many biographies from children who survived supposedly “functional nuclear families” — and those are just the stories that got published.

You’ve made important points. Those families weren’t perfect, yet their children became adults who could read and write.

+1. And spend a lot of time in therapy

— Gen X

Please cite a source for your contention.


Otherwise I can just as easily counter that Gen X kids from single parent families are in therapy just as much, if not more.

Why do you think there has been rampant proliferation of online therapy?

Because we have finally come to the place where people are starting to talk about difficulties and mental challenges instead of hiding it and sublimating everything with alcohol and cigarettes and other self-destructive behavior.

And because we just went through a world-wide pandemic with many ramifications.

And because Trump has normalized horrible behavior and caused a lot of societal upheaval and political destabilization.

So let's help everyone and defeat Trump and get him off the political stage, for everyone's mental health.

[Anonymous]

“Kearney also contended that a stable two-parent household, particularly one where both parents are actively involved, offers unique advantages to children that extend beyond a pooled income. Having two parents in the household, Kearney explained, offers benefits such as increased parental time for activities like reading and homework assistance, as well as reduced stress and greater emotional bandwidth for parenting”


https://www.brookings.edu/articles/key-takeaw...h%20for%20parenting.

I don't think anyone would argue with this. But many two-parent households were not stable. Many marriages were failing back then as well. Many parents avoided home and spent time on the barstool or elsewhere. Not everyone was caring for their kids. They stayed married, but it wasn't "stable".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm always suprized some liberals think insulting another person's rose-colored dream is a winning tact. effectively you are pointing out that life is horrible now and always was horrible. why do you think this vision will move anybody in a useful direction? why not acknowledge that there were some good things for some people in the past? wouldn't that be more balanced, more honest,
m

"Liberals" insult other people's rose-colored dream? The MAGA creed that they want to go back to the past is pooping all over many "liberals" rose-colored dream of equal treatment and respect for all people. How about that shite?

This whole post goes to show that there is good and bad in every time. For every thing you find from the past that was positive, we can find a dark underbelly or point out a group for which that time was horrible. That is NOT saying everything is horrible all the time. It is pointing out an unfortunate fact of human existence, that there is always a mix of good and bad. That there are always upsides and downsides to every thing. And whenever humans try to make things better, there are always some bad actors who try to take advantage and ruin it for everyone else for their own benefit.

The MAGA dream of "make America great again" is truly just an imaginary cherry-picking of things to benefit mainly white Americans or address white male grievances that they cannot say and do whatever they want without consequence. It's not really about making America ideal. So stop trying to pretend it's anything else.

Or it's a time when the middle class was strong.

You all are so obsessed about social equality that you ignore the real economic problems that are the result of giving away our economy and self sufficiency.

Hunger Trump's social issues.

You reveal yourself with your nonsense post. You believe that achieving social equality causes economic problems and undermines the middle class? You believe you must keep women and POC down, so that white men can maintain their power and whites can maintain their wealth. You don't see a future where the middle class could be populated with people of all different colors and ethnicities.

The real economic problems we have are due to GOP policies that placed the emphasize on corporations and enriching C-suite donors. They dismantled the things that helped the middle class. And they have you rubes snowed to believe that POC and immigrants are stealing everything from you, when, in fact, THEY are the ones hoarding the wealth. Wake up.

No, I see social issues are less important than economic ones. Social issues are a luxury.

Perot was right.

"We have got to stop sending jobs overseas. It's pretty simple: If you're paying $12, $13, $14 an hour for factory workers and you can move your factory South of the border, pay a dollar an hour for labor, ... have no health care—that's the most expensive single element in making a car— have no environmental controls, no pollution controls and no retirement, and you don't care about anything but making money, there will be a giant sucking sound going south."

If you think environmental issues are important, then you should be putting tarrifs on goods from countries where they don't have equivlent laws. Same for worker protections, same for healthcare. You don't hollow out your industrial base. You don't import workers instead of training your own workers. You don't require people to go into debt to try and get a middle class lifestyle, when you had manufacturing jobs provide a middle class lifestyle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm always suprized some liberals think insulting another person's rose-colored dream is a winning tact. effectively you are pointing out that life is horrible now and always was horrible. why do you think this vision will move anybody in a useful direction? why not acknowledge that there were some good things for some people in the past? wouldn't that be more balanced, more honest,
m

The good things were mostly for white males. The goal is to try to make it for all people. And that is where the GOP white male grievance comes in. They cannot fathom sharing the pie.

Especially when they didn’t deserve the pie to begin with. If you genuinely believed in the best person for the job or the smartest getting into the Ivies, Dubya and Trump and countless other white males, would be the ones working in slaughterhouses and landscaping

What about Bill Clinton? What about Harry Truman? What about Barrack Obama? What about Jimmy Carter? Your post is ignorant.

Jesus, you guys really are embarrassingly dumb. No wonder Trump appeals to you.

Explain please - what's so dumb about citing 4 presidents (against your two) that had nothing handed to them?

Seriously? I have to further explain the point? The whole point of being a MAGA/right-winger is telling yourself "Affirmative Action" and "DEI" (and all of the other racist buzzwords used to diminish the accomplishments of predominantly non-whites), is how anyone non-white gets ahead. Meanwhile, you have complete idiots handed everything to them or you simply ignore how dumb they are (like Palin and her 6 years/5 mediocre colleges to get a BA in communications) and pretend they deserve to be president or VP or heading up Fortune 500 companies.

The four presidents mentioned all earned what they have. This isn't about saying NO white males/females deserve to be in positions in power, it's the audacity on the right to shriek "DEI" when you vote for clowns handed everything and who had no business being accepted to the schools they got into. I don't understand how you people can't see your glaring hypocrisy when it comes to meritocracy.

ok, we agree. But you only mentioned the two didn't to make your earlier point, which was why I asked.

My apologies. I should've been clearer. It's just galling to me listening to right-wing hypocrites pretend they care about "the best (wo)man for the job" and then try to tell me people who never had to earn what they have (all of whom are white), deserve what they have. No, Bush never deserved to be at Yale or HBS, so why are they so obsessed with some black kid with a 3.8 getting in, but ignoring the white legacy with the 2.0 (if that)? The instinct of the right-wing to believe anyone non-white got handed their place at a university or on the SC, is why I'm disgusted by them.

DP. First, I completely support the points that you’re making. I do want to generally point out though, that it really doesn’t make sense to compare the standards of Yale today— and some people’s fantasies about what admission to HYP might mean — to Yale in the 1960s, prior to the broader impacts of Civil Rights movements in the US, and prior to the long term impacts of Kingman Brewster’s Yale presidency.

When Bush attended Yale, it was not viewed as the supposed meritocracy that it is today. There were definitely some stellar students and faculty, but there were also a lot of reasonably well-rounded students , often from legacy families, and often from feeder prep schools. HBS probably also had a range of students that you wouldn’t see today. I’m not disagreeing with your points — as much as I’m suggesting that the virtually all-white, all male Yale of the early 1960’s was a very different academic community with very different admissions goals vs the whole “smartest getting into the Ivies” view that some people hold today. Bush did have quite a lot handed to him — and as a white, male, legacy, it worked as it was designed to function.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

“Kearney also contended that a stable two-parent household, particularly one where both parents are actively involved, offers unique advantages to children that extend beyond a pooled income. Having two parents in the household, Kearney explained, offers benefits such as increased parental time for activities like reading and homework assistance, as well as reduced stress and greater emotional bandwidth for parenting”


https://www.brookings.edu/articles/key-takeaw...h%20for%20parenting.

I don't think anyone would argue with this. But many two-parent households were not stable. Many marriages were failing back then as well. Many parents avoided home and spent time on the barstool or elsewhere. Not everyone was caring for their kids. They stayed married, but it wasn't "stable".

The difference now is community members are expected to pay the price for others’ poor decisions.

Would it really be so bad if people were held responsible for their life choices again?

A rising tide lifts all boats, but drilling holes in each hull does the opposite.

Kindness and empathy both have the capacity to turn toxic. Hence the state of our disordered society.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:America was much better when most children were raised in functional nuclear families.

Please define “functional “.

Defining “better” would be great, too, but let’s start with “functional”.
Quite a lot of what used to look functional on the surface involved alcohol, cigarettes, what now would be viewed as abusive behavior, and laws and social conventions that made it extremely difficult for women to leave highly problematic marriages.
So many biographies from children who survived supposedly “functional nuclear families” — and those are just the stories that got published.

You’ve made important points. Those families weren’t perfect, yet their children became adults who could read and write.

Some of them did. Others got shunted off to institutions of one kind or another, and probably didn’t get counted in whatever literacy statistics you’re imagining.

[Anonymous]

There was a time where going to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, or Wharton meant something.

Now not so much.

Many employers now prefer to hire folks from state schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1950s through the 1980s.

For white men. For sure.

white men not drafted to Vietnam.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There was a time where going to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, or Wharton meant something.

Now not so much.

Many employers now prefer to hire folks from state schools.

Many people prefer unsupported sweeping generalizations to actual data.
You might be right — but there’s no way to tell by your comment, or even to accurately assess it.
“Many employees “ includes everything from McDonalds to top tier law firms.
It’s a mistake to assume that all of the “many” are hiring for the same reasons or even the same skill sets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Trump probably has more black, Japanese, Arab, Latino, and Jewish friends than you ever had and people of all these races rented rooms at Trump Tower . He’s a New Yorker but keep on, bro.

Trump is right that the wars and political correctness destroyed the US

"political correctness" is people asking to be treated with equity and referred to how they want to be referred to rather than how white male culture wants to refer to them. Why is that a bad thing?

What is a male?