Man of Steel Woman of Kleenex by Larry Niven is a weird take on this

Your guy isn’t in the inner circle of the highest ranking members of a party. Atwater was, and refer to the quote above. Rather than being overt, they couch the racism in other terms, but it’s the same terms.

Since the 1960s and the ERA and Nixon, racism and fear-of-the-Other has been intrinsic to the Republican party.

Like… Per their own words. In the quote I referenced. From someone in the inner circle of the Republican party, and who helped them get elected. How? By preying on the fear-of-the-Other ie racism

The current GOP is still entrenched in their Southern Strategy. To quote Lee Atwater:

Y’all don’t quote me on this. You start out in 1954 by saying, “removed, removed, removed.” By 1968 you can’t say “removed”—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “removed, removed.”

This plus fundamentalist Christianity is the basis of the modern GOP playbook, only now it’s Latinos that are the target, at least moreso than blacks

Sure we can’t distill it down to just racism since the GOP has become so entrenched with the religious right, so let’s just call it Christofascist Racism, but let’s not ignore 60 years of Republican racism and bullshit

Edit: Lemmy blocks the n-word even when it’s a direct quote, but Atwater was using that derogatory term for blacks in the above quote

Because arbitrary lines in a desert ought not invalidate peoples freedom?

Because there is no valid metric other than skin color to initially round all these people up and put them in camps where we can concentrate on if they are actually supposed to be here or not?

Because some of those people put in camps where we can concentrate on whether they are supposed to be here or not will be American citizens deprived of their rights based on their skin color?

Because trains will run 24-7 for 5+ years to deport 15+ million people?

Because a subset of the population is convinced central America = Mexico and we can just dump them in Mexico?

Because just that transportation alone will cost over half our GDP even before we get in to detention and feeding, investigation and appeals processes?

Because if we don’t do the above then we are denying people the right of due process, and what does that say about us as a society?

Because most people are here illegally because of expired visas, so they can just reapply anyway?

Because in 2022 undocumented immigrants paid 96.7 billion dollars in taxes, and the right wants to just do away with that and God forbid someone making millions has to pay a little extra?

Because it’s a buzz word used by the right so people can be openly racist when there is zero plan in place because then they lose their wedge issue?

Because this zero-plan maneuver will decimate our economy, just so a certain subset of the population can feel that their skin color wins because Jesus said so or something?

Don’t forget the 10th Rule of Acquisition: Greed is eternal

I get great entertainment from reading/trolling right wing conspiracy boards. I would point out frequently that Wilbur Ross worked for the Rothschilds, their one world government enemies for years, the ones responsible for 9-11, the ultimate Illuminati Powers That Be, according to Alex Jones and his ilk. By their own rationale, Trump must be a Rothschild pawn.

They are fine with that now, I guess.

Grand Old Cognitive Dissonance Party

I think it’s hilarious because there is a good segment of the population that grew up in the 90s whose parents would be like… “George Michael is ‘weird’… Melissa Etheridge is ‘weird’”

So now, their euphemism for a non-heterosexual person has been turned around on them and that’s great. Their hate and non-acceptance is now what is “weird”

I do outside sales in Ohio and I’m on the road a lot

The amount of people who have Trump / Pence signs and have put white tape over the P and E to make a V and A is … Surreal. Like why do you still have signs from an election 8 years ago? Their house is probably full of cats and hoard and bugs. Can’t wait to get updated signs?

We did do the right thing in most of the special elections these last twelve months, though

1st, 8th, 9th, 10th, 14th, probably, but the people that are on the wrong side of trans rights only give a fuck about the 2nd or something

This is gonna stretch the definition but

Dorthia Cottrell from Windhand did a country album and it’s so good

Calcium means the stones are calcium oxalate which comes from having too much oxalates in your diet

I get recurring kidney stones which are from oxalates and sodium

I keep my oxalate intake per day under 40mg

Spinach has 755 mg per HALF CUP!

Fuck spinach

Thanks! They’re the best

She is the daintiest little thing and the noises that she makes like elephant grunts 🥰🥰

We have two others a 17 year old lab mix I’ve had since he was 4 months old and a 10 year old beagle shepherd that my wife got while we were dating/roommates

She’s part staffie part beagle part pug part American Eskimo dog part pit all 35 lbs of love 😄

Someone who got her litter mate did one of those genetic tests and that was the top 5 lol just a mutt

It’s Eevee!

With most of Twix behind her lol

I’d agree with your first point re: D&D ®️ esp re 5th Edition. My wife took a long time to get in to ttrpgs, something that I’ve enjoyed for over 30 years bc I kept trying to do the D&D®️ thing. I’d recommend you try other games that actually “play” at the table. Dungeon World is great and almost anything in the PbtA family does such a great job of driving the action forward (5e doesn’t), having actual stakes and danger (5e doesn’t), actually meaningful character choices (5e doesn’t), not a beat-the-designer/video-gamist philosophy (5e DOES have this), and not ran by a shitty corporation that hires mercenary thugs to intimidate people, since literally anyone can make a PbtA game about anything.

Agree 💯 on the d20. I think it works in some games, notable Mörk Borg and like b/x D&D - games where if you are rolling dice, you already have fucked up

I can’t speak to the groups you played with , but have you tried getting people that aren’t in to the hobby in to it? I run games for new players often and they never have the baggage I think you’re speaking about

Re the preparation you do, be sure to always prep situations not plots. There should be a law that states “the more prep the DM puts into a game is directly proportional to how quickly the players will force their prep off the rails”. The game is a conversation, and I think D&D®️ 5e has fucked this up bc of how they format their adventures WITHOUT EVER TELLING YOU HOW TO ACTUALLY RUN A GAME! Plus, Christ they are fucking textbooks written by committee! I would say a couple things, first: look at Dungeon World as a guideline for how to format your adventures, and second: don’t plan huge arcs, just plan individual moments that you want to happen. The characters will get there, even if it is a roundabout way. The Lazy DM by Sly Flourish has a lot of help here that can work for any game, and there’s this blog post that talks about the literal easiest foolproof prep method.

Your last point doesn’t make sense… Check out itch.io and their physical games category. There are RPGs for literally any genre or setting you can think of. TinyD6 and FAE are two really good generic games that if you can’t find your setting, you just slap these bad boys in there and you have an RPG

It really is a fun and exciting hobby and I’m sorry you’ve had a bad time previously.

Natural 20s don’t matter except on attack rolls RAW

No, he just dehumanizes trans people and reduces them to their genitals and is generally tone-deaf to all of that.

Quotes from The Closer:

“…The transgenders…”

“Every time I come out onstage, I be scared. I be lookin’ around the crowd, searching. For knuckles and Adam’s apples to see where the threats might be coming from.”

“And then she hikes her skirt up and she pulls a real live, meaty dick out!”

“If I was honest, I wouldn’t have fallen for it. I’d have just looked at the picture like, “Look at that big chiseled jawline, that big thick Joe Rogan neck. Is that a dude? Is your daughter a man?” Can’t say that shit. It’s really annoying.”

“…trans-bitch from the picture.”

“A couple of more drinks and these fellows are gonna start asking her for some pussy, she might not have.”

“I was careful to call her a bitch, ’cause I didn’t want to blow her cover.”

" “Well.” I am a girl now, n*gger. You must treat me as such."

“Gender is a fact.”

“Now… I am not saying that to say, that trans women aren’t women. I’m just sayin, that those pussies that they got… You know what I mean?”

“I’m not saying it is not pussy, but that’s like Beyond Pussy or Impossible Pussy. You know what I mean? It tastes like pussy but that’s not quite what it is, is it? It’s not blood, that is beet juice.”

I’m not going to quote his story about the one trans person who passed whatever litmus test he decided to implement to determine if someone deserves his respect or not, but it summed up to the equivalent of someone saying something racist and finishing with, “well, I have black friends, though!”

Literal hot trash

What other game is the second group playing?

I found that the idea of “D&D” doesn’t match with the reality of D&D® (or adjacent like Pathfinder and Shadow of the Demon Lord). Like most people think of grand stories with climactic moments and character growth and the modern D&D offers more of a “square - counting, binary pass/fail roll slog, abstract resource management with little character choice after 3rd level, and almost zero risk” experience. Which is great in a video game, but boring at the table.

I’ve ran D&D® (or adjacent) for numerous groups for over 30 years now across multiple editions and the most success in the D&D® framework I had was B/X, but I think the game that comes closest to realizing “D&D” as a concept is Dungeon World. No overwhelming player facing textbooks, and it constantly pushes the narrative forward no matter what the outcome of a roll is. It’s also free.

There’s thousands of different games out there from more complex than D&D to single word RPGs. Find the right one for you and your group 😄