There's an elderly woman I know

[nightwing1240]

That works an area deli I go to often for fresh meats and she seemed nice enough. She would wait on me and we would make small talk as she got my order ready. The woman is 80 years old, a diabetic and uses a wheelchair going in and out of the store so naturally, I was concerned about her. So I asked her the other day why she was still working at her age and the medical conditions she suffers from and I was taken aback by her reply.

She smiled and said in a low voice, "It's those god damned liberals and the shit they do to hurt people like me!" I put my head down while shaking it and she says, "Oh, you're one of THEM!" I raised my head back up, smiled and said "You're god damn right I am! But hey, if you are fine with a party that does not support equal pay for women, could care less what you have to pay for your insulin and have a general disdain for the elderly and disabled, good luck to you."

Her face turned pale as she handed me my order and wished me a good day. I told her not to worry, I will find someone else to wait on me the next time or shop another store.

It's stuff like this that concerns me for 2024

[cyclonefence]

1. RWers exist in an alternate universe

where facts don't matter and everything is black and white.

God strike me dead, but maybe she'll croak soon.

[markodochartaigh]

4. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

Even the Wikipedia entry is enlightening.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda:_The_Formation_of_Men's_Attitudes

[Lonestarblue]

8. Thank you--very interesting read.

[hwmnbn]

48. Just got it on my kindle...

Thanks for the heads up!

[Freddie]

9. My hairdresser is a Trumper

But she’s good with my hair and usually tries to keep the conversation neutral (grandkids, etc.) I made the mistake of mentioning Lisa Marie Presley and she launched into how all these young people are dying because they were poisoned by Covid vaccines. I changed the subject.

[KS Toronado]

22. Sounds like a anti-vaxer

I'd find a different hairdresser before she gives you one of the worst strains of covid.

[pandr32]

62. I agree.

We do not put up with anti-vaxers being close to us. No darned way!

[SunSeeker]

68. Exactly. Run, don't walk.

My in-laws are anti-vaxx. We stopped seeing them at Thanksgiving. Now one of them has long covid and it has completely disabled her. Pitiful. But that is what she would have exposed us to, so fuck her.

[Rebl2]

28. Wonder how

she knows she got the vaccine? How about maybe Presley had heart disease like her father and drug use in her past. None of us know for sure why she died. Doubtful it was the vaccine.

[Freddie]

30. Highly doubtful

But every time a young celebrity dies (usually an OD) she comments about the vaccine killing people. Can’t fix stupid.

[GopherGal]

70. They said the same nonsense about Damar Hamlin (the football player)

who just happened to nearly succumb to his "vaccine-induced heart issue" immediately after being struck in the chest while making a tackle.

And now the 54-year-old daughter of a man who famously died of a heart attack at age 42, and whose grandmother died of a heart attack at age 46, both long before the COVID vax was invented, dies of a heart attack... These a-scientific morons jump on the bandwagon, using the unfortunate incidents to spread their BS.

[Coventina]

54. Young people? Lisa Marie Presley was 54!

I mean, that's awesome that she's considered young. I guess I can still claim I'm young too!

[marybourg]

2. A diabetec, wheelchair using 80 year old

non-owner still working retail has probably made some serious mistakes, like possibly having worked a job that paid her
under the table, so that she's getting little or no S.S.., She needs to justify her mistakes by rejecting the system that has spared others from her plight.

[Johnny2X2X]

5. Agree

And what's more, the reason she is working, the reason social security is barely enough to get by on, the reason she needs to work is probably for health insurance supplementation, that is all on Republicans. She's 80 and disabled and working retail because Republicans have fought for generations to take away the retirement social safety net that us Liberals fought so hard for and she blames the Libs who are the reason she even has social security and Medicare at all.

Trump Republican's plan for her is for her to either die in the gutter or kill her self when she is no longer of use to the rich. That's who she thinks has her back.

[LakeArenal]

16. Please don't assume stuff to ascribe the worst possible motives of someone.

You have no idea what lead the person there.


Disagree with them but don’t assume about how they got to where they are.

You can’t walk a mile in another’s shoes if you know nothing about them.

[marybourg]

35. Just my opinion, after rubbing shoulders with

other humans, in three states, for 80 years. If you don’t like it, ignore it.

[LakeArenal]

43. And that was my opinion. Since you don't like it you could choose to ignore it.

[flying_wahini]

40. So let the uninformed Stay that way? You can be nice and still disagree.

IMO the reason the Repugs stay misinformed is that they ONLY EVER hear from others like them.
Nothing wrong about speaking up and correcting when they say dumb stuff. Dems are way too nice when people say ignorant things. Seems to me that only Reps feel like they get to espouse their views but nobody else.

[LakeArenal]

44. My problem is assuming that a person got paid under the table and never paid taxes.

Not the fact that someone responded to what they say to you.

[Oppaloopa]

83. Thank you I agree

I am a 73 year old single woman. Am on plenty of fish I am very careful. Mentioned I am a democrat on my profile. I occasionally get greetings from repubs telling me off and then blocking me so I cant respond back . The cowards.

[CBHagman]

47. Thank you!

I have been thinking back on my own political development, and I realize a lot depended on education, travel, life experiences, and various relationships, including mentoring.

We're facing a lot of urgent issues as a nation and as a world, and the best path forward is to find ways to take the necessary actions, and that's going to involve making connections, perhaps changing minds, and definitely creating allies.

[Demovictory9]

58. I had a coworker who struggled financially because she married

A man who relied on her financially..she paid most of the bills for family of four. She was venting one day about having to work and blamed her situation on "womens libbers".. I questioned her abit about her opinion..she faltered a bit and doubled down

[Richard58]

81. So eye rolling.

Did that woman ever consider how much worse off she would be if it weren't for the "women's libbers"? She would probably be unable to get a job and have to depend on her deadbeat husband to survive. Why do conservatives always blame the wrong people for what is wrong in their lives?

[Demovictory9]

57. Good point

[Joinfortmill]

66. I knew a lot of folks back when who worked U.T.T.

[gab13by13]

3. I live among the Magats in central Pa.

and go to a local meat market. I have noticed over the years the number of Magats, young ones, who are on welfare. Not saying they don't deserve it, I am just saying that there is this myth out there that it is lazy liberals who are on welfare, certainly not what I am seeing.

The right controls the media, that's why that old lady has been conned.

[markodochartaigh]

6. And when the young Magats lose their government payments

they will be told by our reich-wing media that it was Democratic spending which bankrupted the government. And they will believe it. And they will know whom to attack.

[Emile]

7. I would have said now republicans control congress all these

things you are whining about will be fixed.

[LakeArenal]

18. Good one

[nightwing1240]

23. good one lol

I will mention that to her next time I am there, thank you

[NJCher]

74. and thereafter

ask every single time--have the republicans solved those problems yet?

[Rebl2]

29. They will

Only make things.

[RobinA]

37. I Would have Asked

her what liberals have done that hurts people like here. I always ask that type of question when I hear some broadbased statement about the harm done by liberals. Usually it's crickets after that.

[AverageOldGuy]

10. Instead of . . .

. . . finding someone else to wait on you, why not try:
-- stay with her and give her a tip -- put the tip in her hands
-- ask if there is anything you can do to help her -- how does she shop for groceries? Need transport to medical appointments? Need any help with daily activities?

[masmdu]

12. This

[LakeArenal]

19. Beautiful.

[femmedem]

20. Yes!

1. She could use the help.
2. This is how she learns that liberals care about her and people like her.
3. It always feels better to give than to withhold.
4. This is how people rediscover each other's humanity.

Thank you, AverageOldGuy, for a beautiful post.

[nightwing1240]

25. Well I have tipped her

and helped her to her car a few times as I was coming and she was going. I did not think to offer other ways to help

[femmedem]

64. But to help her after realizing you have profound political differences takes on a deeper meaning.

It would be difficult--but all the more appreciated--if you can do so again after your last interaction.

[Squaredeal]

11. My daughter's father-in-law is a nice guy.

He would help out any neighbor in need, yet he belongs to one of those anti-social, ultra right wing groups. My daughter can’t understand his contrary nature. Perhaps it’s because he has always worked part time under the table and never contributed anything to support the country financially or contribute to Social Security or Medicare. He’s got a lot of free time on his hands to have fun fishing and hunting, knowing that his well-off physician wife will continue to support him throughout his life. He must hate that she has to pay taxes, money that he believes he should have a share in.

[Rebl2]

33. So can he get social security

because his wife paid into it as well as Medicare? I know my mother in-law was able to get SS and Medicare through my father in-law. She never worked, so didn’t pay in to either.

[treestar]

13. I'd be interested in why she thinks it was the liberals

Is she white? Maybe she thinks the liberals gave everything to the nonwhite/immigrants?

Strange to be that ignorant on economic issues.

[nightwing1240]

26. She is white

and educated. She is a retired grade school teacher so you would think she would know better.

[maxsolomon]

36. Which means she's got a fucking PENSION.

well, if she taught at public schools and was in a Union.

I'd have asked what Libs did to her.

[machoneman]

56. Nawh, my brother, a 38 yr. engineer in Chicago schools, said grade school teachers are the dumbest..

creatures on the planet! And he proved himself right with real life stories. Why? A very narrow focus on solely what they taught and total ignorance to virtually anything else in life.

[ucralum]

67. Wow...

I sincerely hope that was sarcasm, but having interacted with lots of full-of-themselves engineers, I'm guessing not. Oh well, I'll soothe my hurt feelings by doing whatever the fuck I want, since I retired at 57 with a lovely pension after 34 years as a California public school teacher.

[plimsoll]

14. You know, according to the GOP she wants to continue working.

So they're going to give her that opportunity. And yes they will pwn the "libtards," because she'll have to work longer, rich people will get tax relief and she'll go on blaming the liberals. It is effective.

[Tanuki]

15. Wow...I guess she doesn't know that her insulin co-pay is now capped at $35

thanks to "God damn liberals," despite the best efforts of her beloved GOP to allow drug companies to screw her over for hundreds of dollars a month. And it's not the "God damn liberals" who are conniving to cut her Medicare and Social Security. But of course I'm preaching to the choir here.

[Unwind Your Mind]

72. I'm thinking it will be interesting to see

What she, and others like her, will think next month. After they’ve filled that insulin prescription a time or two.

[Proud to be Woke]

17. Many Americans are undereducated

And sadly, that goes for all ages in our country today. I personally have known some adults who find economics and politics "boring" and did not see how any of it related to them. Trump's presidency changed some of that for a few. His administration woke some of them up out of their self induced miasma. Many people do not know which agency does what. An acquaintance of mine thinks PETA (a private organization) passes laws to protect the environment! I tried to educate him but he did not seem interested.

[markie]

34. Well...

PETA along with many private organizations and businesses lobby aggressively to change laws... usually the best thing to do is follow the money

[electric_blue68]

42. I'm a quite smart person in a lot of ways. My dad got me to follow politics at 12 - 13 yrs...

But economics to me when I was young was like watching paint dry!😄

I'm not sure when it became somewhat interesting -either- Junior year in HS, or post college.


Tangential - I remember that while I'd watch the Allistar Sim's A Christmas Carol from when I was ? 9 yes old onward; it wasn't until my mid or so '20's that I got the part about Scrooge & Marly buying up the company after one of the head guys had seriously embezzled it!
It was like a light bulb went on in my head! 😄

[WhiskeyGrinder]

24. Well, I guess you told her.

[FakeNoose]

27. Good answer my friend!

When I was in my twenties and even my thirties, I thought "elderly" meant anyone over 65.

But now I'm 71, and I don't feel elderly at all. Why is that?

[colorado_ufo]

31. It is the difference between looking at an aquarium

and swimming in one.

[keithbvadu2]

32. You never catch up with your own definition of old age.

You never catch up with your own definition of old age.

It just advances as you do.

Hawkeye, on Mash, never ages.

[summer_in_TX]

38. So many people avoid the news.

They think it means loud voices arguing endlessly, information that depresses them, and situations that are heartbreaking that no one seems to be solving. So they are poorly informed. She's of an age that she probably gets some news, but from the same place her friends and neighbors get theirs (almost certainly FOX News), which explains the stupid stuff she believes.

I really like the suggestion of helping her, befriending her. The social fabric of our country is unraveling. It takes reaching out across political barriers to

[sarisataka]

39. Unbelievable

The things people say.

[lambchopp59]

41. The quick, sly FOX jumps over the lazy dog. Again.

The irony of this current connotation of the famous keyboarding exercise astounds, disgusts, frustrates.
It directed my late father's Alzheimer's into seething hatred of his own offspring. It's done so damn much damage largely unchecked, weakly countered, a prime example of the absolute power adage: holding absolute rule of it's following even to their own demise.
Fox has exceeded the "shout fire in the theater" exception to free speech moderation beyond all reason.
It would be low odds to bet this person gets her news from them.

[Catherine Vincent]

45. What?

How in the heck she would blame liberals? That makes no damn sense.

[OverBurn]

46. The right blames EVERYTHING on the liberals and the idiots keep on believing them.

[SCantiGOP]

49. I might have met her younger sister the other day

A woman looking over the eggs section in the grocery store said to someone nearby that the price of eggs was a clear sign that we needed to change who was running the government or "we just might as well name our country the United States of Russia."
I was going to say something but I couldn't figure out how her comment made any sense at all. I assume Russia = Soviet Union = communism= Democrats, but fortunately I let it slide so I didn't have to confront her logic.

[Aussie105]

50. It all makes perfect sense.

When you are old and Republican, you have to blame somebody.

Now Republicans are tough, every man for himself, so it can't be them.

Liberals are soft and squishy, and care about people, so your current condition must be their fault, because, well . . . your life sucks!
Besides, Fox tells you that every day.

In a roundabout way, I'm saying logical thinking skills go out the window in the elderly.
And I should know, I'm one of them.

I'm old and decrepit, but I live in a 'socialist' liberal country where the decrepit and grumpy old ones like me get looked after better.
Insulin, should I ever need it, will cost me AU $7 tops for as 1 month supply. Free, once we hit the 'safety net'.

Yes, the government has set a top limit on your medical prescription spend for the year, once you hit the top, and it isn't very high, it's free medicines.
Government says . . . you spent enough this year, from now on to the end of the year, your medicines are free.

Imagine America doing that? No, I can't either.

[OMGWTF]

51. Reminds me of this older fidiot Rethuglican woman who was my counterpart Election Observer.

She told me one day she'd have to leave early because she had a job interview. She said that her Social Security and the Pension from her Union job she retired from weren't quite enough to cover her bills. This irony-deficient moron deserves to be miserable.

As an aside, there was a fidiot Rethuglican man who was my counterpart that was briefly in the military, and he was bragging about how he never paid for healthcare because the VA took care of everything for free.

I had to quit that volunteer position because I fking loathed being with these Mole People.

[CaptainTruth]

52. Behold the power of effective messaging.

Folks here may get tired of seeing me talk so much about messaging, but in a society as permeated with misinformation & propaganda (specifically right-wing propaganda) as ours, messaging has become a life-or-death issue for our democracy.

That elderly woman, just like millions of other Americans, didn't come to her conclusions or form her beliefs about liberals & Democrats on her own, based on her own real-world first-hand experience & established facts. Far from it. She believes what she believes because she has been brainwashed by relentless right-wing messaging (propaganda).

We are slowly losing our country for reasons that have nothing to do with Merrick Garland, or whether or not Donald Trump goes to jail, & have everything to do with right-wing messaging that is brainwashing a large portion of our population. Not taking it as the serious "life or death for democracy" threat that it is, & mounting a vigorous response to counteract it, is, in my humble opinion, negligence.

[Collimator]

55. It helps if you watched The Lord of the Rings

[LetMyPeopleVote]

59. K&R

[Jakes Progress]

60. Even adorable grandmas can be stupid.

Stupid is as stupid does.

[Proud to be Woke]

61. There is a big difference between setting policy (U.S. FWS) and being a lobbyist (PETA)

And PETA is a lobbyist and a private organization. it does not set policy or work to enforce any laws or regulations. i work with Federal, state and local agencies in my job and I know the difference. Private organizations have the right to appear at public hearings for projects and voice their concerns, like any other member of our democracy. The government does not have to comply. If their concerns are in the public interest they will consider their comments substantive. I mentioned PETA because the person I was talking about in my post did not know who or what PETA was. He did not know the difference between PETA and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. I know because I asked him who the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was and what they do. He did not even attempt to describe what they did. But he wanted to tell others that PETA protected wildlife and their habitats and you have to go through them to develop a piece of land....???

[kimbutgar]

63. She's 80 years old and still working.

Poor thing she made poor decisions in her life and listened to the right wing lies that liberals are to blame when her own party of Reagan is the reason she’s working retail.

[Joinfortmill]

65. They're brainwashed. Need to reign in so called news

[SunSeeker]

69. I retired at 55 because I had a union that got me a good pension.

Live better, work union. And vote Democratic.

[Meadowoak]

71. +1

[masmdu]

73. What type of work, if you don't mind me asking?

[SunSeeker]

78. I worked for the State of California.

CA state employees have pensions through PERS (Public Emplyee Retirement System), negotiated by our various employee unions.

[Lisa0825]

75. Cool story, bro. nt

[Warpy]

76. My guess is that she;s a widow

who night keep Pox on because her husband had been addicted to it.

I wouldn't be hard on her again, I'd just go Emily Post on her.

This is a case in point about why i generally do that in real life, anyway. There are things I really don't want to know about the people around me.

[ecstatic]

77. Dementia, perhaps?

I know a lot of folks are confused... dems and repubs are conflated together by the media, but really? Nobody is that confused.

[True Dough]

79. You're doing the right thing by finding another deli

because next time she would likely spit in your prosciutto.

[raccoon]

80. I'm glad you said that to her.

Obviously, she is either totally different brainwashed, or at her age possibly has dementia

[Richard58]

82. I wish you had asked her--

--what the "Goddamn liberals" did ti make life so miserable. We are the ones that want people not to have to work till they die! We want Medicare for all! It's the GOP that doesn't give crap about her situation. But I am sure she just watches Fox News.