I tend to give major respect to anybody that votes against their own self interest…
To me it shows some serious major thinking about the bigger picture…
Most people see it as a sign of stupidity…I see it as a major flag in the other direction.
Listen. Correct. Inform.
I know you empathizers don’t like hearing this, but your idea doesn’t work unless you’re an amazing silver-tongued artist of rhetoric (read: con man). Most of us, and **Bo **no offense but from your posting here I’d say this includes you, cannot empathetically lead someone who believes untrue things into the light of reason over the course of a casual exchange or even in a structured conversational venue. It takes a lot of blunt repetition of ideas for people to even begin to entertain some ideas; the kind of repetition they get from their favorite infotainment sources and their peers. If you’re not a peer, you can’t empathize them out of their delusions. If you are a peer, you’ll have to work at them over and over before you get any movement at all.
Many of those attracted to Trump *et al *do not “get” empathy. If you’re empathetic and understanding they will hear only agreement. If you refute them, they’ll either deny your arguments or ignore them, but at least you haven’t reinforced their ignorance. All you can legitimately address is the actual valid underlying concern if it exists. “I’m afraid of chemtrails” can’t be rectified through empathy. “I’m afraid of Mexican rapists pouring across our border” can be redirected into more productive questions about immigration and crime prevention, but the initial statement has to be addressed.
You get more flies with honey than with vinegar, but that presupposes you want to encourage the fucking flies, and glosses over the fact that the honey is almost as tasty to the flies as the shit piles they prefer. You’re temporarily substituting their propaganda fix with an affirmation fix. And they walk away more hungry than ever for the propaganda. Spray those fuckers down with vinegar, man. It’ll wash some of that shit away.
Except it would have made no difference. I know quite a few people who voted for Trump. Mostly, they are ignorant of facts and have been purposefully led away from learning factual information by the media from which they take their news: Breitbart, zerohedge, Drudge, Fox, Infowars, all the rest, and to a lesser extent, CNN. These are the sources that “inform” their views.
How do you have a reasonable, nuanced conversation with someone who agrees with Trump that climate change is a Chinese hoax, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary? Who staunchly clings to birtherism, despite being shown a perfectly acceptable birth certificate?
These are people who have been deliberately misled on their “facts,” and no amount of evidence-based information will dissuade them.
Did it occur to your subject Muslim immigrant female Trump voter that maybe the bigger concern wasn’t the fact of what Podesta’s email said, but the means by which it was obtained? Was she willing to consider the nuance of being responsible for a worldwide charity foundation that was the recipient of donations from the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, but simultaneously holding those governments’ feet to the fire for their support of ISIL? Obviously not.
Over the course of this election period, I did not mock Trump supporters, nor did I demonize them. But in my conversations with them, I found them not only ignorant of important facts, but absolutely unwilling to change their views, despite overwhelming evidence-based information presented to them that demolished their preconceived opinions – most of which are informed only by the aforementioned media sources.
How are journalists supposed to do their jobs when their paychecks depend on spouting the views of their sponsors? Good sweet Jeebus, watch CNN for 5 minutes, and you see ads by Koch Industries, Northrup Grumman, Exxon-Mobile (“I’m an Energy Voter!”), BP, and every pharmaceutical company known to man. If you think the main stream media hasn’t been entirely co-opted by the Oligarchy, then you haven’t been paying attention. I vehemently disagree it is controlled by “liberal elites.” CNN’s head weather guy, Chad Meyers, is a climate change denier, for fuck’s sake.
So now CBS is saying they should move to be more inclusive of this ignorance? Yeah, I’m thinking they’re giving themselves cover to move even more to the right than they already are.
I agree that it is wrong to mock and/or demonize Trump voters. I’ve always felt that a discussion should be an exchange of factual information, and the truth will out. But in the end, I don’t think it really makes any difference with the majority of Trump supporters. They won’t change their minds. Further, they have no difficulty in mocking and/or demonizing people they think they know to be “elite liberals” – like me.
Both sides were blind to their side making mistakes … love does not see the blemishes.
Most people that work for a living don’t come home and turn on CNN or Fox or MSNBC to see what the other side said today. Most people that work get what they know from other people at work.
Most people that vote vote according to what they think, not what the news media thinks.
Hillary Clinton would be the president today if she hadn’t of called out that most of (over 50% was that her statement) Trump’s supporters were deplorable.
My neck of the woods was worried about the next Supreme Court justice being against their guns. They voted Republican.
Remember when President Bush laughed at Clinton and Gore and called them, “Those two bozo’s” Those two won two in a row and served (8) years.
Don’t blame the news media, blame the side that lost, because they hid from the news media for 9 straight months without a press conference.
If you want to blame anyone blame youtube for giving you a choice to chose which video to watch … (no link needed)
SHOCK VIDEO: Hillary Clinton Collapses Leaving 9/11 Memorial 1,358,531 views
The early demographics don’t seem to support that theory. Obviously, there is no reporting demographics for “racists”, so for the sake of argument let’s substitute the category “non-college educated whites”. Trump did carry a larger portion of this group than the Republicans did in 2012, but it was 67% vs. 61% - not nearly enough to account for a victory.
Instead, the numbers show the opposite - Trump didn’t gain voters, Clinton lost them.
Yes.
Now, is your plan to let them know this, over and over?
Or is there some other plan you have? Some plan that does not include reminding these voters how blameworthy they are?
How many Trump supporters “Listen. Understand. Empathize” with the concerns of those who voted against Trump, do you think? Based on the comments of Trump supporters throughout this message board, the answer is “zero”; I suspect the answer is not much different outside of this board.
Any plan that’s going to have a lasting impact has to get people to take ownership of voting consequences. That’s going to hurt the fee-fees of the Trump voters and non voters alike. Boo hoo. (There, I’ve shed a tear over it.)
And another good quote. This thread’s on a roll.
Before someone responds to this with a hearty" tu qoque!" I want to endorse this comment with an observation that those who aren’t well practiced at utilizing empathy are also not very good at receiving it. In my experience, and I know the plural of anecdote isn’t “data”, my empathy is usually seen as sympathetic agreement with whatever bizarre idea I’m trying to understand. Followed immediately by confused anger when I go ahead and disagree. It’s just more effective to make sure you’ve correctly heard the point being made and then honestly respond to it without trying to feel the other party’s pain.
Oh, my fucking God. I can’t believe some people are still pushing this canard of “maybe Clinton would have won if you liberals had just been nicer to Trump supporters.” How are we supposed to tell which ones can be persuaded, and which ones just hate brown skinned people and gays? Not to mention the fact that “they were mean to me, so their marriage can go to hell” doesn’t exactly sound compelling to that side of things.
But that’s one reason why I created the thread to ask Trump supporters policy questions. I wanted to see to what extent their vote was based on certain factors, and what their beliefs were towards the people that posters here seem to think should’ve just been nicer.
Trump’s political career got rolling with his racist, puerile, fact-free, energy-wasting Birtherism.
No one need observe anything after that (though it all corroborates this). That’s quite enough right there. Anyone that would associate with such a person for any reason whatsoever, let alone vote for them as President of the United States, deserves to go fuck off and die.
Sorry, no more Mr. Nice Guy. I’ve had it with all 59 million of you fucking fucks. Fuck you all, every fucking one of you.
Bye for now.
Well that escalated quickly.
You’re everything wrong with the left.
It’s bullshit to imply that the media weren’t attempting to listen, understand, and empathize with Trump voters. There was more than enough of that. We heard over and over and over again about the disaffected white working class. This article in the OP is just one more journalist saying it again, with a holier-than-thou veneer from a Monday morning quarterback armchair.
In fact, what the media did do was give these voters too much credit. The media assumed that if they pointed out Trump’s offensive behavior, they would eventually see through his bullshit. But instead, all they did was provide Trump with more and more free publicity; they were the enablers, and co-dependents in Trump’s addiction to attention.
The vast majority of ALL American voters–whomever they support–are uninformed, and make their choices without knowing shit about how government works. They base their votes on the personalities they perceive in the candidates, and nothing else.
A good number of Trump voters had voted for Obama. Why? Because they “wanted change.” And that’s also why they voted for Trump. They’re chasing after whatever squirrel they see next. But do they have any clue what kind of public policy will actually bring about the change they want? No. Do they understand that the change they want isn’t going come about overnight? No. They don’t want to learn about that because it’s boring. They’d rather spend their free time watching Celebrity Apprentice, and other bullshit. If they really want to change their plight they have to do more than just vote for the next shiny thing that comes along.
The media’s “complicity” was not in ignoring the concerns of Trump supporters, but in chasing ratings, and playing into the game of turning politics and governance into instant gratification entertainment.
Would you support some sort of qualifying test for voters?
Oh please, you know better than that. The people get the leaders they deserve.
It’s irritating that the first suggestion after quizot’s accurate condemnation of dismal US voter information focuses on voter qualification.
How about better fucking journalism? How about journalism that gives accurate and complete reportage of what each candidate will likely do in office, based on what they’ve actually promised? Ya know how I knew what G. W. Bush would do? -He told me in speeches and policy statements. Ya know how I knew what Obama would do? -He told me too, in the same way. Maybe I could try and share my esoteric information gathering techniques with reporters and they could start summarizing and even -gasp!- explaining and contrasting the various positions to their viewers and readers?
I guarantee very few Trump voters had any correct information about Hillary Clinton. Because all they heard from the media about Clinton was what the media reported that Donald Trump said about Clinton, and what Republican committees claimed about Hillary Clinton and updates about investigations that still weren’t finding any wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation. All they heard about Donald Trump was what Donald Trump said about Donald Trump and what Hillary Clinton claimed about Donald Trump. There were occasional “Pinnochio” analyses of the candidates’ statements, but no actual relevance or deeper coverage provided for any of that by CBS News, except in terms of personalities and allegations.
It’s not that Trump voters were uninformed, but that they were misinformed by the professional political press. As are the majority of those who voted for HRC, for the same reasons.
Maybe that’s a citizenship failure on the part of 100’s of millions of Americans, but most of us have other, non-journalistic jobs, and voter literacy tests are kind of illegal, counsellor. Maybe the Fourth Estate should live up to what it claims to be its awesome responsibility. Maybe instead of citizen responsibilities most of the poorer working citizens won’t be able to fulfill, we should think about enabling and incentivizing better journalism?
I think the vast majority of journalists are Democrats, and/or overwhelmingly favor the Democrat candidate in every election.
This plan seems to carry with it a certain danger, from my point of view, that “better,” is going to mean in practice, “better publicity for Democrats.”
If “better” means “more accurate” why would this disturb you?
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