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The basest crime here is how some fucking assholes in like 1953 realized they needed some way to protect their voting base from being logically annihilated any time issues are debated, and laid out the correct strategy to create a separate perception of reality via media control.
You can't even try to discuss how "real Christians" should act because up is down and forward is backwards. It's "tough love" to make kids go hungry, "protecting the family" to hate trans/queer folk. Given the common thread of short attention span, by the time you establish any sort of shared reality, attention span timer is up and you have to start over or give up.
Or were they "smart" to have done so? I think not, but the degree of truthiness in that statement is that it is at least "strategic". But I don't blame them fully, b/c Rome also fell for similar reasons - it is inherent to any democratic society that it can fall victim to internal rather than purely external factors, and likewise that is also the reason that many/most of us will die, b/c of some type of cancer whether the autopsy bothered to go hunting for it or not. They are evil yes, but like a lion is going to eat you evil, it's just the nature of the "game" they choose to play.
Also, and I cannot emphasize this enough: many Republicans (like several Democrats too) are really dumb - like the lion, they do not even realize themselves why they are doing what they are doing. Some stuff (quite frankly, pretty much all of it) just works whether you think about it working or not.
At which point I start to wonder why the other side - liberals - aren't smart enough to have noticed that and tried to counter it? Could it be that they(-ir handlers) also wanted that outcome too? For example, even now there are several states that could pass laws protecting women's rights to medical care... so why don't they? If the only thing going on is that big bad "other side", then wherever that big bad is not, there should be nothing stopping the doing of good works, yes?
Tbf, when the Dems were in charge for a few short months, at the beginning of Obama's presidency, they passed what had the potential to be the biggest reform of our era - the ACA, which affects not only economic matters but those that directly impact literally life & death. Except even there, why include the stuff about mandatory payment for abortions, when a large swath of the American populace was so die-hard against that? They handed the Repubs the ammunition to have elected Trump!!! Did they not know how the other side would respond? Did they not care?! It confirmed every worst fear of the middle-of-the-road people about the heavy-handed nature of the Big Government, which forced even small businesses to provide payments for actual, outright abortions. Ignoring the rightness or wrongness of that fact, it spent a lot of political capital, and left a deficit in place.
And next, following up that decision is this question: at what point in (modern) history has the USA ever had anything other than a cycle between Repubs and Dems in the White House? Therefore what hope did the Dems have immediately after Obama, especially when putting up Hillary Clinton of all people!? And this just after the massively unpopular (in many states) ACA - were they HOPING to lose!?!? Or were they just living in a fantasy dreamland where rainbows and puppies exist, but somehow not school shootings?
Anyway, I understand (somewhat, though I do not agree) why your mom feels the way she does: she was manipulated & tricked, not by her evil nature but by her good one, plus inherent weaknesses. Though that is not to say that the other relevant side in this discussion (liberals/Democrats) are blameless. There are issues with discussing things with people on both sides - though ofc they are nowhere near equal, yet they do exist.
At the end of the day, we are all merely human.