…I’ve passionatelydefended some of the people that voted for Trump here in the pit. But the reality is that the typical Trump voter was richer and more well off than everyone else. The most common factor with Trump voters was a “penchant for authoritarianism”. The farmer is susceptible to change. But they aren’t reading the pit.
There really isn’t much to debate. Should you reach out to Trump voters? Sure. If you want. I’m not going to stop you. But we’ve had eight years of reaching out. This New York Times article about the Obama era letter office is the most beautiful thing I think I’ve ever read. But Obama is gone now. And the people in the White House now do things like this. Are you going to reach out to the likes of Sarah Palin and Kid Rock? Or the other thousands of people, who if they had the opportunity, would be doing exactly the same thing? Republicans control everything. And in the first 100 days in office they have shown over and over again that they are not fit to govern. We’ve gone from “no-drama-Obama” to “what-the-fuck-Trump” and many Trump supporters are positively gleeful about it.
People are angry. They are gonna say angry things. They will say the occasional stupid thing. I sometimes roll my eyes at what I read. I don’t see a problem with calling out specific examples of people saying stupid things. But that wasn’t what you were doing. You were calling out hyperbolic statements and attributing to “the group” as if it were some sort of tactic, and as if it could be controlled. But it isn’t a tactic, and you can’t control it. It is just people being people.
And good on you for a fair minded response. You are a good egg after all.
The Authoritarians (PDF) by Bob Altemeyer offers suggestions for restraining authoritarian impulses in society.
Good ideas:
College education
Exposure to diversity
Peer pressure (authoritarians desire to be normal)
Visible minorities
Laws (authoritarians obey laws they disagree with)
Profiles in courage:
Civic outreach:
**Ideas that sound good, but probably won’t happen because of conflicting interests:
**
Parents teaching children to be skeptical of authority and question rules.
Getting authoritarians to read about the downsides of authoritarian psychology. They assume it’s talking about someone else.
Getting authoritarians to understand they’re being played for suckers. They’re too invested and will just lump you in with the outgroup. Even if they realize they’ve been played they won’t re-evaluate their thinking, they’ll just blame the conman and then accept the next one with open arms.
Reducing fear. The news media and partisan groups are incentivized to raise fear in the populace.
Religious instructors teaching the youth they are, like everyone else, children of God, instead of say, Baptists, which makes them better than everyone else.
Bad ideas:
Violent protest activates authoritarian desire for law and order.
Knowing the history of the two countries and philosophies, I find amusing any Nazis (neo- or otherwise) to be chanting, “Russia is our friend.”
Are tweets admissible in court? Can it be proven that the realDonaldTrump tweets were in fact, typed by the real D.T.? If so, talk about making your own rope.
I could swear this isn’t even the first time he’s misspelled “counsel.” I have this memory of him mixing it up with “council” a few weeks ago, but I can’t seem to find the tweet. Anyone have a memory of this?
It’s great when Trump goes off on his own and tweets idiotic things.
Why?
Because his words are often used against him later. This is why the Whitehouse was happy yesterday because they projected a measured and contained response to the special counsel, and then they were dismayed later when little fingers found his phone and tweeted the usual foaming at the mouth nonsense. He can’t control himself. And nobody can control him.
If Trump thinks that there were illegal shenanigans in the Clinton campaign, he could always direct his Attorney General to investigate. It’s like he keeps forgetting he’s President.