Does anyone else have a hard accepting republican voters are decent people lately?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I live in a deep red state, work in a deep-red job, surrounded by deep-red voters. I really feel like I’m in some sort of bizzaro world, and while a I used to be able to broach the subject of politics in casual conversations with my co-workers I just can’t now, really for my own sanity. I still overhear them discussing their support of Trump and the literal demonization of democrats, and it just makes my stomach turn. To me, the republican agenda is best described as Bill Maher said, “what would an asshole do in this situation?”, and I’m sorry, but those that support this sort of gov’t are just not good people. It’s really hard to be surrounded by this at work everyday, but I just try to ignore and not get into any political discussions.

I put a lot of blame on republicans, and I don’t see it “on both sides”. I don’t see democrats appealing to the worst aspects of human behavior for votes.I blame Fox news and right-wing media for giving hateful people a way to feel good about themselves. It seems like there is no “deal breaker” for republican voters, it’s the ® that matters. And for what? What is the ultimate agenda? It seems everything they bitched about during the Obama administration is happening 10-fold now but they defend it. Deficits only mattered between 2009-2016 it seems.

I don’t even try to debate the other side now, I just try to understand and find some logic in their reasoning and it usually boils down to the hate for welfare, and not welfare for “those who really need it” but welfare for those others that don’t share the same skin tone.

I truly believe there is a physical difference in the liberal and conservatives mind. Something about diminishing empathy for increasingly differing DNA. I mean we probably all care more for family than a blade of grass, but the line of diminishing empathy between the two hangs a lot lower for conservatives.

Sorry, don’t really know where to go with this, I just felt like ranting.

2

Honestly, yes.

I know it isn’t good for the country, but yeah. After Trump got elected oh yeah.

The thing is about 90-95% of the people who voted for Trump also voted for Romney and McCain. I had no problem with the people who voted for Romney and McCain. Some conservatives will say ‘it is because your candidate lost’. Nope, I don’t care about that. Had Mike Pence been the nominee I wouldn’t have minded people voting for him same as I didn’t care when people voted Romney and McCain (and again, its the same people who voted Trump).

But Trump is such a different animal, and the GOP’s refusal to admit what a deranged, treasonous criminal Trump is has really made me look at republicans askew. The ties to Russia, the way he serves Putin’s interest, the sociopathic behavior, the chronic sex crimes, the accusations of sexually assaulting children, the way he preys on bigotry and nationalism, the authoritarianism, the cult like loyalty of his followers (I don’t even feel comfortable calling a lot of his voters voters, many are cult followers).

It is hard to look at anyone who would vote for that and think they are informed, moral and responsible.

I think this division will be far larger than people realize. It isn’t like we’ll all get along after Trump is out of office unless there is some kind of national reckoning with people admitting how bad he was (on various levels), and I don’t see that happening.

3

If you look up Jonathan Haidt’s research, there are differences in the morality of liberals vs conservatives. Liberals have 2 channel morality, conservatives have 5 channel morality.

Liberals care about harm and fairness which is why liberals support the policies we support. Egalitarianism, protection for the weak, equality, etc.

Conservatives care less about harm and fairness, and far more about authority, purity and ingroup. To southern whites, blacks are an impurity. To christians, gays and muslims are an impurity. Also ingroup/outgroup dynamics are important too. Call it bigotry, tribalism, nativism, or whatever you want but purity and ingroup morals are just that, when you identify with a particular trait (skin color, religion, ethnicity, nationality, belief, orientation) and you feel that people not in possession of that trait are impure outsiders.

Liberals don’t care about that much, so their morals don’t make sense to us.

Also conservatives notice and respond to threats more strongly than liberals. Combined with their higher level of concern over respect for authority and you get their adulation of the police and military, why they care about guns so much (they feel guns keep them safe), why they are so worried about an open border, etc. also why they are so scared that if the police and military do not have a firm hand that immigrants, muslims, blacks, etc. will threaten the fabric of society.

Conservatives score higher on conscientiousness and liberals score higher on openness to experience.

There are major differences between the two groups, and they aren’t rectifiable. Because one group’s morality is the other group’s immorality. Equality for blacks or gays is seen as fairness and care to liberals, but seen as a threat to tradition, ingroup and purity to conservatives.

4

No, it’s just you.

5

Does anyone else need a new irony meter?

6

I like to think that a lot of my Republican neighbors are decent to others face-to-face IRL and not hate-filled zealots, but that they are fearful about what they’re told to fear, so they want hate-filled zealots “on that wall” to represent them.

7

That is really interesting. I still am curious about the science-denial and the mistrust of expertise that I see. A group valuing fairness and minimizing harm above all else, you would think, would be more apt to fight against science. Those that respect authority and structure, you would think, would be more apt to accept it. Not that science is based on authority, but non-scientists have to trust those that do science.

8

I guess I’m slow, you’ll need to explain this one to me.

9

I think many Republican voters have just swallowed conservative propaganda. The right wing media has been telling people for forty years that Democrats are evil and corrupt and treasonous and whatever else. And if you tell people a consistent story long enough, some of them will start to believe it just through repetition.

The Republicans benefit from these lies in two ways. First, it works in discrediting the Democrats. Second, it opens up room for the Republicans. If they’ve convinced enough people that the Democrats are so terrible, they can afford to be almost as bad as they claim the Democrats are. They’re not being compared to the reality of the Democratic party; they’re being compared to the image of the Democratic party that they made up.

That’s why some people were able to believe that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were equally plausible candidates. They weren’t comparing Trump to the real Hillary Clinton. They were comparing Trump to the imaginary Hillary Clinton they’ve been hearing lies about since 1990.

10

Edit- OK, I get it. To clarify my poorly worded description, the “literal demonization of democrats” is referring to politicians of the democrat party. And, one co-worker loves to express how they are demonic. Like, biblically demonic, nothing but evil. Which is kind of scary as in you don’t have to play by the rules when fighting evil. I know not every conservative feels this way, but I don’t see any other people calling him out on it.

11

I’m Republican, and as impossible as it may be for you to believe, I am a kind, considerate, loving person. I would never have the audacity to ask if people that vote Democrat are uncaring, inconsiderate people. I think people choose both how they treat others and how they view the political landscape.

12

I am having a hard time talking to people in my own family, forget about work. My own mother, even! She and I have a complicated enough relationship as it is, but we could always debate with civility on politics until last year. She became a hardened Trump supporter, and I watched her change from a regular, even somewhat moderate Republican to someone who has done and said things in defense of Trump that have floored me, and frankly, have caused me to lose a lot of respect for her, and that hurts me to my soul.

I walk around on eggshells around her constantly and once a few weeks ago we almost came to blows because I said I thought Melania was nothing but a walking coat hanger and didn’t have much going on upstairs. My mother leapt out of her chair and pounced on me and practically spat in my face that “Melania speaks SEVEN languages!!!”

Which we all know is total woo, but seriously, I think all this has permanently damaged our relationship. Forever. It makes me incredibly sad.

Donald Trump is malignant and I hate him so much.

13

And also want to say, while I am on a roll here, that I myself am a moderate. I have voted both R and D in my life. There are things I like and dislike about both parties.

I am a Southern white woman and I can tell you so many stories of good and bad behavior among both white and black people in my world. I know plenty of folks who are doing a whole lot to reinforce bad stereotypes on each side of the racial aisle. Plenty of white Republicans I have known have done many kind and compassionate things to help people different from them, so I never paint anybody with a broad brush, I just wasn’t raised that way.

But something, something has really tipped everything over. My family has always been politically diverse and fairly open-minded. We are educated people, Master’s Degrees and higher…and here we are, unable to engage in healthy debate because oh, the slightest cognitive dissonance might make somebody’s head explode.

This isn’t the same Republican Party I grew up with.

I am plotting my way out of Thanksgiving. :frowning:

14

Yeah. It couldn’t be you and your hatred of Republicans poisoning your relationship. It must be your mother.

15

But “Melania is nothing but a walking coat hanger and doesn’t have much going on upstairs”. Because you know her so well and talked to her extensively, right?

16

People can be decent without being perfect. Some who are otherwise decent people can make the mistake of voting for party instead of policy, believing the worst about one candidate and ignoring the facts about others, or just not admitting that they made a mistake the last time they voted. The longer the current situation goes on the fewer people I can accept as being mistaken instead of morally corrupt, and I am afraid that we have reached the point of no return, but I won’t blame every single Republican voter for doing so on an immoral basis. Not quite yet anyway.

17

I don’t hate Republicans. Pre-Trump I would have described myself center-right. And believe me, I have turned myself into all kinds of pretzel knots trying to give Trump & Co the benefit of the doubt, but every time there’s just a big fail. I don’t think it is just the evil media painting Trump in a bad light, he is doing that well enough on his own. I don’t know what he is, but a Republican he ain’t.

18

Well, he said that was he thought of her, for what that’s worth. Personally, I’m willing to give a lot of slack to someone who tries public speaking when:

A) they don’t have a history of it or training in it, something a fashion model would likely consider a low priority, and

B) they’re speaking in a language other than their mother tongue.

Interestingly, I see her wikipedia page dispels an assumption of mine (though not a firmly-held one) - Trump didn’t meet her until after separating from Marla Maples. I admit I’d kind of taken it for granted that he cheated on Marla with Melania, and I’ll still casually accept without a blink the idea that he cheated on Marla with somebody.

Anyway, sure, whatever, Melania’s a polyglot genius. Does it matter, either way? She’s not part of the Republican leadership who is determinedly indulging the worst aspects of American fear, racism and nativism, encouraging the behavior that the OP has noticed and finds upsetting.

19

Well, the Republicans seem to have grudgingly adopted him, nonetheless. I don’t doubt for a second that if running as a Democrat had seemed to be the line of lesser resistance, Trump would have gone that route.

20

I’m sure many Republicans are kind intelligent people, whom I might like if I got to know them without discussing politics. It is paradoxical — and very sad — how America has become so polarized over politics.

Despite that intellectually I know Repubs are often good people who have just been misled, I find myself hating them viscerally. Yet I know many of them think they’re the rational ones, and hate progressive thinkers. I keep thinking “Strange! Don’t they understand how ugly their opinions are, that we are the righteous ones?” But they have the mirror-image viewpoint — it seems paradoxical!

Conservatives emphasize self and family and other in-groups (their own race, their state, their country), while liberals extend their compassion much more broadly (to all Americans, all humans, even to animals). While I give preference to my own family in day-to-day decisions, I’ll follow Kant’s imperative when exercising my tiny power in the voting booth.

It is known that there are, on average, fundamental differences in brain structure between liberals and conservatives. Have these been pinned down? Are the brain structures set at birth, or do they develop environmentally? I think I’ve helped popularize the use of “bloated-amygdala” to describe right-wingers, although there is one Google hit from before my first usage. The amygdala is the brain’s center for the emotions of fear and disgust.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

As I tried to explain in another thread, in older days the political divide involved factors where both sides had partisans of both brain types, cerebral and bloated amygdala. It is recently that the divide is no longer about geography or economic policies — Americans today pick a party based on their cognition mode.

The political divide is now cerebra versus bloated amygdalae.