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   Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 06-Jul-2026 11:25:47 JST Paul Cantrell

   RE: https://mstdn.social/@DemocracyMattersALot/116868444258059787

   I encourage you to troll anyone Ayn-Rand-adjacent by sending them this image with the caption “Makers vs Takers” and then completely ignore every word of the long reply you receive

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 06-Jul-2026 12:42:20 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Knut 🏳️‍🌈 🇳🇴🧸

     @praetor

     I'm not sure I completely buy this argument: (1) Wyoming only just baaarely crept over the net donor / net recipient line recently; it was a very small shift. (2) The gas industry •needs• to die, and I’m all for using fed money to soften the blow of killing it for individuals. (3) Most skeptical: “let MAGA usurp the state?!?” Wyoming has been one of the most deep-red states in the country since I was a kid next door to it in the 80s, so….

   • Embed this notice
     Knut 🏳️‍🌈 🇳🇴🧸 (praetor@mstdn.social)'s status on Monday, 06-Jul-2026 12:42:21 JST Knut 🏳️‍🌈 🇳🇴🧸

     in reply to

     @inthehands Wyo actually used to be a donor state. At onetime, we had so much in the coffers, they were considering on giving checks to everyone. And then honestly, Biden killed our gas industry, and we never recovered which let MAGA usurp the state. "That square state..they're doing things right. Let's not let them do that" is kinda what happened. We're a little a little bitter about it.

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 06-Jul-2026 12:50:51 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Knut 🏳️‍🌈 🇳🇴🧸

     @praetor

     I don’t know, I was in high school maybe an hour or two from where homophobes murdered Matthew Shepard and left his body by the side of the road, which hardly seems a Libertarian thing to do.

     Again, I'm from that part of the world. I know the Libertarian veneer, and I also know how much it resembles MAGA beneath that veneer even in the 80s and 90s.

   • Embed this notice
     Knut 🏳️‍🌈 🇳🇴🧸 (praetor@mstdn.social)'s status on Monday, 06-Jul-2026 12:50:52 JST Knut 🏳️‍🌈 🇳🇴🧸

     in reply to

     @inthehands maga wasn’t a problem until the freedom caucus came in. Red yes. But republicanism in Wyoming works more like Libertarianism does.

     GreenSkyOverMe (Monika) repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 06-Jul-2026 12:53:41 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Knut 🏳️‍🌈 🇳🇴🧸

     @praetor

     I mean, I don't know, maybe we got different cross sections of that Western Libertarian streak…but many of the tastes I got in Northern Colorado and Southern Wyoming growing up there were appalling racist, homophobic, religiously fundamentalist, and primed for Trumpism.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 06-Jul-2026 13:52:39 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Knut 🏳️‍🌈 🇳🇴🧸

     @praetor

     I'm basing what I said on encountering people like this (this church was just a few miles from the house where I grew up):

     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaPorte_Church_of_Christ

     Maybe that brand of more already-MAGA-flavored conservatism was more Colorado Springs centered, and attenuated the further you got into Wyoming? Maybe it's just about what each of us happened to encounter by chance, born roughly the same time and not too far apart but having different experiences? Who knows. I can only speak from my own experience; both of us can. In any case:

     > So you can shut your fucking mouth, mm’kay. I knew Coloradoans were self-righteous but fuck.

     That’s really not necessary.

   • Embed this notice
     Knut 🏳️‍🌈 🇳🇴🧸 (praetor@mstdn.social)'s status on Monday, 06-Jul-2026 13:52:40 JST Knut 🏳️‍🌈 🇳🇴🧸

     in reply to

     @inthehands I partied at the bar he was it when I lived in Laramie. And I’m also gay. And BORN there in the 80s, romped in the 90s, went to UW in the 00s, and moved to SLC….literally 90 mimutes from my hometown in the 10s. So you can shut your fucking mouth, mm’kay. I knew Coloradoans were self-righteous but fuck.

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 06-Jul-2026 23:26:41 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Ben Royce V͎O͎T͎E͎ ᶜʸⁿⁱᶜⁱˢᵐ ⁼ ᵃᶜᶜᵉᵖᵗᵃⁿᶜᵉ
     • Hadeny

     @benroyce @hadeny

     Sources and more specific numbers are not hard to find. Here’s one:

     https://usafacts.org/articles/which-states-contribute-the-most-and-least-to-federal-revenue/

   • Embed this notice
     Ben Royce V͎O͎T͎E͎ ᶜʸⁿⁱᶜⁱˢᵐ ⁼ ᵃᶜᶜᵉᵖᵗᵃⁿᶜᵉ (benroyce@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 06-Jul-2026 23:26:42 JST Ben Royce V͎O͎T͎E͎ ᶜʸⁿⁱᶜⁱˢᵐ ⁼ ᵃᶜᶜᵉᵖᵗᵃⁿᶜᵉ

     in reply to

     • Hadeny

     @hadeny @inthehands

     NM is just an outlier

     like north dakota is an outlier because of the bakken oilfields

     the outliers don't disprove the general and truthful trend that blue states take care of the poor in red states, mostly

     why do you feel the need to object to the generally truthful trend? why not just acknowledge it?

   • Embed this notice
     Hadeny (hadeny@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 06-Jul-2026 23:26:42 JST Hadeny

     in reply to

     • Ben Royce V͎O͎T͎E͎ ᶜʸⁿⁱᶜⁱˢᵐ ⁼ ᵃᶜᶜᵉᵖᵗᵃⁿᶜᵉ

     @benroyce @inthehands I’m not disputing the claim, my very first reply aligns myself with the claim. I’ve been aware of this statistic many times for years. What I’m calling for is better sources from the get go instead of a visually misleading graphic that likely wasn’t even created by a person. Wouldn’t this graphic be more effective if it provided the actual numbers of contributing vs receiving funds? Wouldn’t this be more effective if it listed sources that it pulled from?

   • Embed this notice
     Ben Royce V͎O͎T͎E͎ ᶜʸⁿⁱᶜⁱˢᵐ ⁼ ᵃᶜᶜᵉᵖᵗᵃⁿᶜᵉ (benroyce@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 06-Jul-2026 23:26:42 JST Ben Royce V͎O͎T͎E͎ ᶜʸⁿⁱᶜⁱˢᵐ ⁼ ᵃᶜᶜᵉᵖᵗᵃⁿᶜᵉ

     in reply to

     • Hadeny

     @hadeny @inthehands

     i get you now

     yeah i can agree we don't want ai slop or just sloppy charts and graphs

   • Embed this notice
     Hadeny (hadeny@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 06-Jul-2026 23:26:43 JST Hadeny

     in reply to

     @inthehands the original thread has some gems in it, like how this is likely #aislop and the coloring of blue and red implies a party bias, New Mexico is a safely blue state yet a lot of people would make the assumption that states like NM that take more federal funds than pay into it would therefore be conservative. It would also be stronger to have citations that people can actually look into as well as concrete numbers rather than just blanket labeling