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Coming from a family raised conservative, Christian, Republican and most changed to the left… It’s both
Distills down to, “Nice guy; little on the dumb side.” and “That guy is smart; but he’s kind of a psychopath.”
So has been said, “I’ve met smart Trump supporters, and I’ve met kind Trump supporters. I’ve never met a smart, kind Trump supporter.” The semi-smart psychopaths tend to be the ones grifting the rest, like Bannon or Musk.
Billionaires can distort reality; alter reality for the masses.
For the “poorly educated” working-class Trump supporter, as many Americans know in their extended families? I tend to view them as victims used as pawns.
I tend to view them as victims used as pawns.
It’s true, but at some point they should have woken up and seen what they’ve been fighting for. Far too many just keep reaching for the sleeping pills.
I’ve crossed the rubicon, if you still support all this, you are an evil person, or at least a person who wishes evil on others. You cannot get complacent with evil, everyone needs to learn the paradox of tolerance asap.
Oh I do agree. I just try my best to study the optimal ways of reaching these people. The disconnect is that the pressures they feel are often legitimate; it’s just that church, their social circles, their lack of education and travel, social media, fox news and affiliates redirect their attention to the wrong root problems over and over again every day.
If I tell these victims to fuck off or ghost them, history shows that tends to send them further down the rabbit-hole of ignorance.
Not saying I have all the answers, just saying what I struggle with.
Also agreed. I just happen to believe that real growth takes hard work and self examination, something most people aren’t willing to do. Most have no desire to overcome and instead just become complacent. I find this to be a moral failure as well.
I don’t know if there is an optimal way to reach these people, or any way at all. This same stain of lazy, willfully ignorant, selfishness has been a mainstay of American culture for at least my entire life.
Shame them and make them afraid more than the Nazis are doing.
Keep telling them they destroyed America and God knows what they’ve done.
Hasn’t worked so far but I’ll keep it up.
The optimal way to reach them is the same way they fell in. Shame and fear. That’s why they keep pushing the idea that psychology says that doesn’t work. That’s a lie. It works on these people incredibly well.
Do exactly as they did decades ago. “No family of mine would vote for Trump” if they push “now i know you’re not a bad person i don’t know why you insist on pretending you like a rapist” “here’s my letter that tells you why you have turned away from all that is good and right and I’ll be praying for your soul until that time comes where you’ve denounced Satan from your heart” or a little “WHAT ARE YOU??!?!?! A NAZI?! GET OUT OF AMERICA IF YOU HATE IT SO MUCH “ etc etc
I think they support it in the same way people supported Charlie Kirk getting shot. I’m sure the average opinion lays somewhere along the lines of ‘just comply and you’ll be OK’ which is wrong on so many levels but also isn’t it you view it from the angle where she ran over the guy. This isn’t an argument that what happened was she ran him over. My saying they believe it so they feel it is not evil to defend yourself.
I’m with you. Sadly opinions like yours are being removed slowly online in favor of more radical ones. Mods all over are getting crazier and thought policing their communities that don’t align.
I don’t buy it. The MAGA i know are all bad people. Now they would give you the shirt of their back lol but they would do it to feel superior then go vote to have you arrested and put in jail far away from them.
Holding right wing views because you grew up and live in a society that incentivizes being right wing isn’t a complicated idea or even surprising, and I think we do ourselves a disservice by supposing that it is.
Maybe - and I realize this is a radical concept - they aren’t all the same person acting for homogeneous reasons?
It… It’s almost like there’s more than one of them!
That’s a fair point. Some of them want to hurt X group of innocent people whereas others of them want to hurt Y group of innocent people.
There’s a lot of reasons to push someone to have a political view. They are still human, just like you. Just like you they see the world from their own eyes and experiences. Understanding each other is never easy, but villainizing will never lead to understanding
That’s where Fox News comes in. Gotta shape that dough into klan hood triangles and bake the hate in at a brisk 500F convection
Don’t bake it too long though, or the damn thing will eventually turn black! /s
Overwhelmingly conservatives do not pictures themselves as evil. They do believe that everything is zero sum so making positive changes somewhere means negative changes in other places. They do not believe in “win-win” scenarios and believe there is a catch or additional conditional clause.
By this logic they also see the tremendous harm being done and believe that there must be an inverse, so tremendous good being done. That’s their faith in the economy or security or some vague idea like “prosperity” filling in the gap. They don’t want to be evil or encourage harm but only through great harm can we achieve great salvation.
It’s fucked thinking but one that is important to consider. They NEED a trade off whether gold or bad. The truly evil people are the ones who don’t need good, like billionaires, and still inflict harm. There are about 1,000 people who can have their resources shared with the world and literally 80% of all problems like war, housing, and food security will be solved.
I’m unsure which view OP holds. To be honest I’m unsure myself.
It doesn’t seem right for it to be so black and white, but God damn if I don’t have to ignore every piece of experiential evidence I have to hold that view.
I rely on Grey’s law to get through my days: any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice. Ignorant? Malicious? It doesn’t matter.
Exactly. You must treat them collectively as a threat, but treat those around you based on the things you know about them.
Like my uncle is a conservative and racist. I don’t give him space for either, but I do know that he’s only like that because he 1, likes to feel clever, 2, he’s kinda dumb, and 3, he gets his info from fox and his rich, asshole friends. So he’s mindlessly parroting things he’s heard others say so that he can feel like he gets it, whatever “it” is. That doesn’t magically make him safe, though. He will act based on his shitty thoughts, and that makes him dangerous.
Can’t understate the importance of fear in the right wing. Everything is motivated by fear. Fear of the unfamiliar. Fear of change. Fear of losing what they have. Fear of facing their mistakes. Fear of losing control.
Which is how you get to them.
Make them afraid of losing everything. Because they will of this continues.
Exactly. You can’t talk to them about law or ethics because that doesn’t matter compared to their fear.
Motivated and magical thinking. Intentional ignorance. Evil values.
It is certainly easier to think the top way than the bottom but in much the same way it’s a more complicated explanation that crime rates stem from socioeconomic inequalities and must be solved with community outreach and spending on xyz than just saying “blah blah people are natural born criminals”
Por que no los dos?
They’re not evil because they want to be evil; they’re evil because they fundamentally don’t care. Ibn Khaldun famously (???) said “the morals of oppressed peoples decline.” Scarcity makes people desperate and causes them to make questionable or even evil decisions that they believe they need to make to survive. These decisions are then rationalized and justified to avoid cognitive dissonance (i.e. we didn’t do it and they deserved it). Combine that with this economic oppression and it’s not hard to see why the far right gets so much support; if you accept the underlying assumptions and feel desperate enough it’s not hard to sell “your suffering is their fault, it’s either you or them” to enough people to do some pretty evil shit, and they won’t feel guilty about it because they’ve already done the math.
SCARCITY?! The fucking MAGA i know all own boats! I don’t know a single poor fucking MAGA yet they act like Biden personally made them homeless.
I think you are underestimating the amount of them that are just
so fucking stupidas well.ah yes, the world is only black and white - enjoy living life that way? sure makes it easy doesn’t it? ;)
