Purple North Carolina

My online persona (which is the same persona I am IRL) is a man who loves three things: technology, his wife and social justice. I mention all three of those things with some frequency, although tech is the only thing I do much consistent long form writing about. Aside from an occasional blog post, my political discourse is usually in the form of memes or micro-posts of 300 words or fewer. I'm often speaking to an audience of fellow travelers, rather than trying to convert Hitler's children. I don't expect many conservative people to even read what I write unless we established a relationship around something else that is strong enough to survive my low opinion of the MAGA crowd.

Mastodon is where I spend most of my social media time, having made nearly 6,500 posts since I joined in January. I cross post most of what I write to Facebook, Bluesky and Threads since I want to promote my writing to as big an audience as I can. I've been on Facebook for 16 years. I stay there mostly to keep in touch with family, although I have numerous friends because of a viral post I had in 2017. It's a horrible place run by a horrible man. I acknowledge that. I hope that Bluesky continues to grow. It's a good place to interact with people outside the advanced tech and blogging crowd that I've met on Mastodon. I joined Threads on the first day, like 18 million other people. I spend very little time there because I don't like the algorithm. The posts I see are not interesting to me, and I don't have the time and energy to do much more than cross post there.

Today, I made an observation about Elon Musk's growing influence over the Republican Party. He threatened a group of Republican House members if they supported a bi-partisan bill that the Speaker had agreed to that would have ended the budget stand-off. The bill contained disaster relief funds that are much needed in my home state, NC, which received $16 Billion is damage from a hurricane in October. What I wrote touched a nerve on both Meta platforms, and I had hundreds of people react and comment on it. 

Here's what I said — Elon Musk took actions yesterday that cancelled Hurricane Helene relief for Western North Carolina.

I got lots of support because as I said, most MAGAts long ago should have ignored me because of the vitriol I throw in their direction. Surprisingly, though, there were still plenty of offended people who Meta thought needed to read Lou Plummer's take on the Washington cesspool today.

Their posts were just about all the same:

  • Nothing in Washington is Trump's fault because he hasn't taken office yet.

  • I made the whole thing up, and Musk did no such thing.

  • I am an idiot who believes what is reported by the media.

What was much worse were the nasty comments from Democrats who live in safe blue states. These people seem to think that 100% of the citizens of red states have Trump flags in their yards. They said things like:

  • It serves NC right because they voted for him

  • I hope NC likes what they caused. I have no sympathy for any of them.

What the hell? NC voted for Obama in 2008. We have a had a Democratic governor for the last eight years and just elected another one. The same goes for the attorney general's office and other statewide races. A lot of what has happened here is due to gerrymandering and voter suppression. Our GOP controlled legislature has passed numerous laws that have been overturned in the courts and backtracked on others, like the nation's first bathroom bill that cost the state billions of dollars in lost revenue because of boycotts.

There are people who somehow think they have progressive values, yet have no sympathy or feelings of solidarity with those of us fighting the good fight in southern and rural states. I was mocked and ridiculed by them today, and it stung a bit. I don't give a shit what any Republican thinks of me, but I expected more from the stereotypical coastal elites than I got today. Not to belittle a point, but there is truly a difference between a progressive and a liberal. Today was not a good day for one of those groups.

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