Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said he isn’t buying all that Democratic “joy” on display at this past week’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago during a Sunday appearance with Jake Tapper on CNN’s State of the Union.

During their conversation, Tapper brought up the “disciplined” and “well-produced” DNC this week that, as the journalist put it, “conveyed patriotism and unity.” Graham didn’t see it that way.

“Well, I didn’t see what you saw,” Graham told Tapper with a laugh. “If you’re a Republican, you saw a hate fest. You saw a hate fest full of insults.”

“Americans are not joyful when they go to the gas station and fill up their car,” he continued. “They’re not joyful when they make their mortgage payment. They’re not joyful when they go to the grocery store. People are hurting, and this whole joy love fest doesn’t exist in the real world.”

To bolster his claim, Graham pointed to the gas prices, the state of the border, and inflation during Donald Trump’s presidency when “the world was not on fire.”

He’s either lying or what he said gives us a look into his shitty perspective of the world. Either way such a miserable and pathetic existence.

  • Ekybio
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    2034 months ago

    I think this is a great example of how a conservative mind views the world.

    They are never happy or joyfull, its always a struggle and you fight for an idea despite you hating all of it. The idea that your life is not filled by misery is alien to them.

    At this point being conservative is just akin to mental illness. Destructive, depressed, delusional to themselves and others. If ever there was a real social contaigion, it would be this state of being.

    • @benignintervention@lemmy.world
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      844 months ago

      I grew up in a pretty conservative household and we were literally raised that life is work and work is hell. By way of the transitive property, life = hell. It’s taken a long time through various degrees of depression and I’m still not fully grown out of it.

      But yes, the entire culture and identity is about being miserable and persevering through it, even if that means making yourself and everyone around you more miserable to justify the perseverance.

      Like the saying “nothing good comes free.” You could say the sunrise is free, but they’ll argue it’s not because you have to wake up early and waking up early is by necessity miserable so that the sunrise can be good. They’re brainwashed into thinking the only way a good thing happens is through suffering. Except the truly lost ones who only see life as suffering.

      • @TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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        344 months ago

        Wow… yeah I grew up this way too. But I’m not sure I ever really put it all together the way you did just now. I’m gonna have to think on this.

      • @postmateDumbass@lemmy.world
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        164 months ago

        As an extension, if the conservative sees something free that people need, they will try to monopolize that free thing and then sell it. They call this innovation.

      • @dethedrus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        104 months ago

        So utterly grim that it perfectly explains the entire conservative movement.

        “Life is bad. Anyone who isn’t miserable and angry like me is cheating and must be destroyed.”

    • kfchan
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      624 months ago

      Could also be that any time Lindsey Graham enters a room, all the people around him become miserable, so that’s why he thinks joy doesn’t exist

      • The Snark Urge
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        244 months ago

        It’s hard to see any joy in the world when you’re a closeted hate-mongerer who can’t get laid for free.

    • Xanthrax
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      4 months ago

      I feel the opposite as a Democrat. I support positivity, but I won’t smile while Palestinians are being murdered. That seems pretty tone deff. I’m happy Donald Trump is going down regardless. I’m voting Kamala. Please don’t forget to protest after we win.

      I’m also worried about Armenia, Hong Kong, Myanmar, Syria, Iran, Taiwan, Tibet, Uyghurs, immegrants entering the US, UKRAINE. I am NOT smiling while people are dying and our nation is complacent.

      • Rentlar
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        504 months ago

        I will tell you in advance: with that mindset, even if every issue you stated in the last paragraph is solved, you will still not be able to smile. People will still keep dying and suffering from injustice, just elsewhere or in different ways.

        Try to celebrate every incremental step towards justice and use that energy towards the next step and so on.

        • Xanthrax
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          -254 months ago

          Then I’ll continue to not smile. I refuse to pretend to be happy while people suffer. It’s natural to feel empathy. You guys can ignore it if you need to for your mental health, but as an American with the power to change things, I will continue to protest.

            • Xanthrax
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              4 months ago

              We all are! And it’s changing! Pro Palestinian support is finally a thing! We just have to keep protesting while keeping up with the election.

          • Em Adespoton
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            134 months ago

            Ever heard of “joy in suffering?”

            Generally, the more you have, the more miserable you can be. It’s important to take time to appreciate the positive things in life even while grieving for those who don’t currently get to experience them. Joy and grief aren’t mutually exclusive feelings, and you don’t need to ignore/suppress the grief to experience the joy.

            • Xanthrax
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              4 months ago

              I’m happy in my free time. I’m talking about politics and the way we show ourselves in public. I’m talking about the way we influence people.

              Johnny Cash is a good example. Of course he smiled, but he dressed in black and he died in black. I’m fine doing the same.

      • Aniki 🌱🌿
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        104 months ago

        You’re terminally online and need to step away from the internet. Its not real.

  • GreenPlasticSushiGrass
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    1024 months ago

    “This whole joy and love fest doesn’t exist in the real world,” said Lindsay Graham, from his mountaintop cave overlooking Whoville.

    • GratefullyGodless
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      74 months ago

      Yeah, but this presumes that his heart will grow and he’ll learn compassion, when we know he’s just going to remain the same joyless, miserable slug he’s always been. The grinch has more redeeming qualities than Graham ever did.

            • @NegativeInf@lemmy.world
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              164 months ago

              Be the thing that drives them to extinction. Way to make me explain the joke there buddy. Literal interpretation is not the only interpretation. Vote. Organize. Inform. Educate. Have compassion when those in your life change their minds.

                • @jj4211@lemmy.world
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                  14 months ago

                  A comment likened Republicans to dinosaurs, and being eager for them to be extinct, since dinosaurs are extinct. One possibility is saying they are mostly old and waiting for them to die, another is that they have outdated ideas, even the ones not that old, and to go extinct just means they don’t have power and don’t matter.

                  Dinosaurs were made extinct by an Asteroid in the Yucatan. So to contribute to that latter half, work toward making them irrelevant, voting and chosing your media engagements appropriately.

                  At this point, I would not presume someone is advocating literal lethal violence against the entire GOP, if nothing else that is wildly infeasible and as it stands much more reasonable actions are available to minimize their influence…

            • @Zachariah@lemmy.world
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              54 months ago

              Woah, woah, woah!…

              One of those is the natural outcome of forces set in motion—and the other killed poor innocent dinosaurs.

  • @LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
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    4 months ago

    Maybe if you’re Lindsey Graham. Pretending to be something you’re not and constantly sucking up to people who hate you to keep your job sounds miserable enough.

    • @Kalysta@lemm.ee
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      44 months ago

      He clearly still hasn’t recovered from his boyfriend passing.

      RIP John McCain, thanks for saving the Affordable Care Act.

  • @Cephalotrocity@biglemmowski.win
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    4 months ago

    The state of the border is due to Republican interference on that border bill specifically requested by Trump to keep it an issue this election, and Inflation performance was better overall when compared to other Western Nations during Biden’s term and worse than during Trumps.

    source

    Republicans are full of shit when it comes to both issues.

  • BarqsHasBite
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    4 months ago

    Now who’s miserable in their lives and wants to make the rest of the country miserable too?

    • Em Adespoton
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      44 months ago

      Oh, he’s both wrong AND responsible. He’s pointing at results of policies and blaming people who set the policies that will improve the situation in the future for the results of the policies set by him and his cronies.

      He’s trying to normalize a false equivalency.

      It’s like blaming the current government for global warming and its effects, instead of just tasking them and empowering them to move the needle back in the right direction so it doesn’t get much worse than it already has.

  • @TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com
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    4 months ago

    Joy is not easy.

    Happy can be had for the cost of a hobby, or of a friend buying another round, or jamming another game onto the screen.

    But as J. D. Salinger said: “The fact is always obvious much too late, but the most singular difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is a solid and joy is a liquid.”

    Happiness needs a vessel of a certain shape and size.

    Joy can fill up anything finite.

    Don’t mock Graham for this. He is expressing his sadness even if he doesn’t see it. Express sorrow for his lack of understanding of our time here.

    • @Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world
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      84 months ago

      Joy is fleeting, but it is there, and it is possible to feel it with some frequency. Does everyone feel it? Well, obviously not.

  • Rhaedas
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    304 months ago

    Projection. If he’s not happy then how can anyone be?

    during Donald Trump’s presidency when “the world was not on fire.”

    Dude, where were you? Convenient amnesia? Ever heard Billy Joel’s take on “the fire”?

    • @Cephalotrocity@biglemmowski.win
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      74 months ago

      Yeah, it’s not like Trump’s presidency ended during a pandemic bad enough people had to stay home, with no vaccine or anything.

      Like, the only way it could be remembered as being worse was if it was during a Great Depression.

  • nifty
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    284 months ago

    “Americans are not joyful when they go to the gas station and fill up their car,” he continued. “They’re not joyful when they make their mortgage payment. They’re not joyful when they go to the grocery store. People are hurting, and this whole joy love fest doesn’t exist in the real world.”

    These are all great points, and he’s right! The problem is that the policies he and his party support are not helpful towards solving any of these issues.

    • Nougat
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      154 months ago

      What, banning books and preventing people from getting healthcare don’t bring down gas and grocery prices or interest rates? Surely you jest!

    • @Feathercrown@lemmy.world
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      44 months ago

      As someone with a good amount of privilege, I do smile when I buy snacks. I just wish we had more democrat policies so that others could feel the same way.

      • Em Adespoton
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        24 months ago

        I smile when buying gas too… it’s still MUCH cheaper than it will be, and I’m looking forward to abandoning gasoline powered motors completely in the near future.

        The smile is both for what will be, and for the increased price of gasoline driving us towards that future.

  • magnetosphere
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    264 months ago

    “Life is a joyless slog, and I do my best to help keep it that way.”