he was elected in a landslide. That means Florida is Republican. I fully support organizations cancelling conventions where POC, LGBTQ+, and pregnant people aren't guaranteed safety. That is, I know no one is guaranteed safety anywhere, but why put your life on the line in a place that's well-known for violence against these communities? I'm sorry for the liberals who live there, and also, said liberals are not drumming up the votes state-wide to keep the state from sliding into fascism. That's not the fault of transplants and snowbirds.

The state has a history of liberalism and also a history of misogyny, racism, and violence. In 1920, Blacks were massacred for attempting to vote, in the same area where Trayvon Martin was killed almost 100 years later. Anita Bryant was a plague on LGBTQ communities in the 1970s and '80s. Florida didn't ratify the 19th Amendment until 1969. And so on. This is indeed who Florida is, and has been all along.

What people are really talking about is the Danger of a Single Story. Stereotypes exist because there is a grain of truth in them; the problem is that there is always more to the story than the binary tales we tell ourselves in American political circles.

Boomers here with the "Gen Z are all brats" do know your parents said the exact same things about your youth activism in the '60s and '70s, right? You all need to get over yourselves, respect this survivor of gun violence, and support his fight for sane gun laws. WTAF, People?!

WTF are you talking about, he's a closet Repuke? All of his efforts go to banning guns. Hogg has never attacked teachers (his mother was a teacher), he votes religiously, and Gen Z is not what you think it is. Mostly you sound like an unpleasant old person with your "Kids these days!" faux indignation.

Hogg isn't a brat, he's a fucking survivor of a massacre when he was still a schoolboy. Just because it took centuries for Black and women's liberation - neither of which are even complete, FFS - is no reason to slam young activists for demanding justice from gun violence today. I mean, part of why it took so long for both women's and Black liberation movements is because they weren't allowed to speak out in in their own favor. Women were hysterical and Blacks were uppity. And here we are now, with good liberals of DU basically calling Hogg an uppity youngster. It's not the strong talking point you think it is.

We can improve it. We can do better. I mean, c'mon, are you really arguing that Democrats are above constructive criticism from their own party members? That there's no worth in examining our past actions to see how they might have contributed to the current political clusterfuck? Trump did not win in a vacuum, and it's absolutely worth our while to see where we've excluded would-be supporters by our past actions. To say it doesn't have value or it's equivalent to bashing the party is to demand we all walk lockstep in smug arrogance of our own supposed infalability.

Assuming I'm blaming the party for its past behavior tells me more about your lockstep attitude than it says about the party. I didn't blame the party for *gesters broadly*, but like Hogg, it's constructive criticism that much of the older Dems would rather argue against instead of taking an opportunity to say, "Maybe we can learn something going forward." Doubling down on actual bullshit and assuming the worst of anyone who says anything that doesn't supplicate to the human party leaders is exactly what drives otherwise sympathetic citizens away from our party and voting in general.

waaaaay more liberal/progressive that the party’s leaders. As an old progressive, I have felt the Democratic Party treated me this way all my life: takes my vote for granted, rarely listens to my concerns - like gun violence, rape culture, racism, etc. Just did enough to keep my vote but never fought back against corporate interests as enthusiastically as I wished. It’s getting better now that so many Dems can see the fascism after tfg, but for those of us who’ve been watching and warning about rising authoritarianism since the Reagan era are still frustrated at the incrementalism of the party overall.

I’ve noticed white people bend over backwards to “other” everyone. It’s the same mentality of the people who still post “Is this America?” after every shooting, lynching, insurrection. White culture loves othering others because as “decent white folks” this (whatever) behavior doesn’t happen in my backyard. It’s not a conscious thing, but that’s the insidious nature of white supremacy culture.

On a human level, the economy sucks. Food prices up 40%. Housing unaffordable in most of the country, rents are out of control and small houses cost a quarter of a million with high interest rates. And job creation is the most bs indicator because what are the jobs and what do they pay? Part time minimum wage jobs? The economy does suck right now for a lot of people.

It's a manifestation of people becoming what they most abhor. I'm an atheist with a Masters of Divinity. Went to a super-liberal Methodist seminary where 70% of the grads were women and at least 25% of the whole student body was LGBTQ++. Broad-brush Christian smearing is just as ignorant as conservative Christians broad-brushing atheists as pedophiles. It's disturbing to see, but also somewhat predicable in human relations.