A formerly well-connected GOP donor convicted of giving teenage girls gifts, alcohol and money in exchange for sex was sentenced Wednesday to 21 years in prison on sex trafficking charges.

  • kescusay@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I don’t see it as actually working. The attempts to smear LGBTQ+ people as groomers only resonate with revolting bigots who want to believe that shit anyway. Everyone else seems to be recoiling from it in horror, especially the younger generations.

    • Hazdaz@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Hate to break it to you, but smear attempts do indeed work.

      It isn’t just Fox News watchers. You repeat a lie enough times and it becomes reality - that was literally the mentality of Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels.

      That’s just the honest reality of our world.

      The GOP knows that. Why doesn’t the Left? So many missed opportunities to crucify the Right and taint their image to the general public.

      • kescusay@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        What I was trying to get at is that the younger generations don’t seem to be as susceptible to it, but I see your point. We need to work our asses off to make the next election an overwhelming rejection of the hateful shitheads pushing this crap.

        • Hazdaz@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          the younger generation don’t seem to be as susceptible

          Hard disagree. I’d go so far as to say they are more susceptible, quite frankly. You might be surrounded by people who follow the news and track politics. Those type of people are NOT typical. At all. Like, at all at all.

          Plus there have been the stories in recent days of how a large number of young (teenagers) white males are joining right wing causes. That meam theyve been bamboozled.

      • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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        1 year ago

        The difference is that the Left would have to stoop to their level to be effective at this game. It’s the same reason I think we’re ineffective at pushing back on rightwing violence. Only a handful of us are willing to commit violence.

        While I support nazi-punchers, I myself do not punch nazis. I’d like to think I would, but I honestly wouldn’t unless I feared for my safety. And for those who do it to protect the safety of marginalized groups, I applaud.

    • stereofony@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Speak for yourself. As a trans person, I stopped using Instagram entirely because it got to a point where every top level comment, regardless of the subject matter, was a transphobic one (even ones not even REMOTELY related to LGBTQ+ issues).

      It was never like this before the recent GOP push in anti-queer rhetoric. It’s the worst it’s been in my life, tbh. Worse than when my peers used to casually call things “gay” as an insult. Because this time, the rhetoric is genocidal.

      • kescusay@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I didn’t mean to downplay the harm caused by the hateful garbage they’re spewing. My son is trans, and sees the same stuff you do on his Instagram.

        All I was trying to express is that as aggressive and awful as it is, I see a lot of hope in the fact that the younger generations seem to be disgusted by it, rather than susceptible to it.

        But I’ll defer to your personal experience on this, though I desperately hope the next election will be a resounding rebuke against the “groomer” shit.