# Does anyone else have a hard accepting republican voters are decent people lately? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 22, 2017, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-have-a-hard-accepting-republican-voters-are-decent-people-lately/799514 "2017-10-22T01:06:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Grumbacher\_Red](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/85e7bf/32.png) [@Grumbacher\_Red](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumbacher_Red)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2017, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-have-a-hard-accepting-republican-voters-are-decent-people-lately/799514/21 "2017-10-22T04:46:58Z")
> [@Okrahoma](#): > > 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? The broader part of that conversation started with a discussion about Melania’s Anti-bullying campaign, to which I said not much had been done. My mother insisted she has done all kinds of this and that, it is just that the media doesn’t report on it, and I said, “Alright, what has she done that the media haven’t reported?” She couldn’t name a single solitary thing. My opinion of Melania’s lack of substance comes from the fact that she hasn’t shown the American people that she has any. I’m not gong to let you draw me into a pissing match, the point I was making was that I, like the OP, am having a hard time accepting the way some Republican voters around me are acting, and doubly worse, they happen to be people that I love and KNOW to be decent people because I have seen past evidence of it. ---
**Author:** ![Grumbacher\_Red](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/85e7bf/32.png) [@Grumbacher\_Red](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumbacher_Red)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2017, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-have-a-hard-accepting-republican-voters-are-decent-people-lately/799514/22 "2017-10-22T05:20:37Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > 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!] There are certainly different ideas among Conservatives and Liberals in what defines fairness. In my mind I don’t see one argument as right and another as wrong, but in my experience Conservatives define fairness as: Equality means equality, so everyone should be treated exactly the same. That means no special set-asides for minorities or women. You get in here in this tank and sink or swim with everyone else. The people doing the best work will be the most rewarded and will rise to the top. That is why Conservatives get so irritated with special programs and such. It makes them feel like there is no special group speaking for them, so that feels unfair. It feels like tearing one group down to lift another one up rather than bringing everyone to the same starting line. Liberals define fairness as: Inequalities are too great to just throw everyone in the tank to sink or swim because some people already know how to swim and others don’t and will drown. In order to give everyone a fair chance, we are going to make sure those who don’t know how to swim are going to get extra attention and resources so they are brought up to the level of the best swimmers. Sure, the mediocre swimmers who never got any extra resources and attention are going to be the ones to drown, but it feels fair because the people who needed the most attention got it and the mediocre swimmers should have made better life choices. I see advantages and flaws in both ideologies. Sure, we have to help “level the playing field” to use that overly-used phrase, but we also have to acknowledge that not everyone in the “privileged” group is the same and some of those might need a little boost too. And you also can’t be so progressive that you actually encourage dependence on the system. Social safety nets are great and necessary, but people move the fastest when there’s a little fire under their ass. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2017, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-have-a-hard-accepting-republican-voters-are-decent-people-lately/799514/23 "2017-10-22T05:37:20Z")
**Grumbacher Red** , you have fallen for racist propaganda. Racists don’t announce to the world that they hate blacks; they construct alternate realities in which their grievances seem fair. Only in a pretend-world are whites discriminated against, as the neo-Nazis would have you believe. ---
**Author:** ![Grumbacher\_Red](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/85e7bf/32.png) [@Grumbacher\_Red](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumbacher_Red)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2017, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-have-a-hard-accepting-republican-voters-are-decent-people-lately/799514/24 "2017-10-22T05:43:01Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > **Grumbacher Red** , you have fallen for racist propaganda. Racists don’t announce to the world that they hate blacks; they construct alternate realities in which their grievances seem fair. > > Only in a pretend-world are whites discriminated against, as the neo-Nazis would have you believe. I didn’t say anything about race, nor did I say I agreed or disagreed wholly with one or another. I said these are the lines of thinking in the 2 groups. ---
**Author:** ![Grumbacher\_Red](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/85e7bf/32.png) [@Grumbacher\_Red](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumbacher_Red)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2017, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-have-a-hard-accepting-republican-voters-are-decent-people-lately/799514/25 "2017-10-22T06:01:34Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > **Grumbacher Red** , you have fallen for racist propaganda. Racists don’t announce to the world that they hate blacks; they construct alternate realities in which their grievances seem fair. > > Only in a pretend-world are whites discriminated against, as the neo-Nazis would have you believe. Annnd, I assure you I haven’t been hanging out with neo-Nazis or coming close to falling for propaganda. I know that when I see it. It seems to me this is the very problem so many of us are encountering in this Trump era and exactly what the OP was ranting about. That we can’t even have a compare and contrast discussion to try and get to the heart of differences without jumping way out to the fringe. I am willing to listen to someone else’s point of view, I can handle an opinion I don’t agree with and not judge a person. We need healthy intellectual intercourse, and that means trying to understand a variety of personal experiences. I am not citing studies and statistics, I am just talking about what I see and hear, and I am interested in what others see and hear. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2017, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-have-a-hard-accepting-republican-voters-are-decent-people-lately/799514/26 "2017-10-22T07:35:03Z")
Well I see and hear that Trump is a total failure as POTUS. He hasn’t accomplished any of his stupid agendas, not even 1. He has made the USA a joke around the globe. He doesn’t give a bloody rats ass about 6 pack Joe and his middle-class problems. And, sad to say they are who put him in office. A day of reckoning will come. I hope it ain’t gonna be war or some other disaster. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2017, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-have-a-hard-accepting-republican-voters-are-decent-people-lately/799514/27 "2017-10-22T09:33:48Z")
I have no problem with humane and intelligent conservative opinions. @ **Grumbacher Red** - The present GOP Senate has confirmed Betsy DeVos and Scott Pruitt for cabinet posts, just to name two of the most obviously egregious examples. What do you think of these appointments? @ any conservative reading this - The present GOP Congress has come close to repealing Obamacare, with no serious plan for replacing it, other than disrupting the insurance business and throwing millions off insurance. What do you think of that? @ any conservative reading this - America has never been more prosperous than it is now, and corporations have never been more profitable. Income inequality has never been this bad since the Roaring Twenties or the Great Depression; soon there will be individual Americans with 12-digit net worths — that’s Hundred Billion Dollars with an H. (The Koch Brothers together are already worth more than this; the Walton kids together are worth even more.) _ **Yet the present GOP Congress believes the #1 priority is further tax cuts for the rich.** _ What’s your view on this? @ any conservative reading this - what’s your view on the Muslim ban? What’s your view on the woman being held against her will in Texas to prevent her from paying for an abortion? _ **Any genuine conservative with conscience and intelligence should now be denouncing the present Republican as loud as he can.** _ ---
**Author:** ![LongTimeLurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@LongTimeLurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LongTimeLurker)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2017, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-have-a-hard-accepting-republican-voters-are-decent-people-lately/799514/28 "2017-10-22T10:17:07Z")
> [@nate](#): > > 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 (R) 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. Thank you for saying what I have not been able to express. I loved our country, now I cant say that anymore. ---
**Author:** ![LongTimeLurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@LongTimeLurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LongTimeLurker)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2017, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-have-a-hard-accepting-republican-voters-are-decent-people-lately/799514/29 "2017-10-22T10:32:15Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > \ > > 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. Thank you for your informed and well thought out opinion. Your premonition about our post-Trump life is a bit sad, but it will take a long time to undo the damage that Trump and his CEO butt buddies have done to us. I really can’t thank you enough for putting these words together in such a well thought out and well delivered manner. This should be required reading for any political person. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2017, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-have-a-hard-accepting-republican-voters-are-decent-people-lately/799514/30 "2017-10-22T10:44:12Z")
I have two friends, both of whom I admire and respect a great deal, who are moderate Republicans. Neither one can stand Trump. I also recently read Jeff Flake’s book, and while there were a few things I wanted to call him out on, and I certainly don’t agree with him on most issues, for the most part he seems like a decent human being. So yeah, I can respect Republicans - they need to EARN my respect, and if they defend Trump there’s no way in hell I can think well of them, but it is certainly possible for me to regard them as principled people. ---
**Author:** ![LongTimeLurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@LongTimeLurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LongTimeLurker)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2017, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-have-a-hard-accepting-republican-voters-are-decent-people-lately/799514/31 "2017-10-22T10:58:49Z")
> [@Grumbacher\_Red](#): > > 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. This is too sad. I don’t believe in the supernatural, but there is some kind of shit going on here. DJT is a conman at best. In reality he is a bullying man-child that brags about molesting women. What is wrong with the 63 million people that voted for him? I don’t get it, Did a black president enrage the racist vote? Did a possible female presidential candidate enrage the misogynistic vote? Did a White Supremacist win the White House because 63 million of our neighbors want to be proud to be racist? If you voted for Trump, you might just be a racist. ---
**Author:** ![LongTimeLurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@LongTimeLurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LongTimeLurker)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2017, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-have-a-hard-accepting-republican-voters-are-decent-people-lately/799514/32 "2017-10-22T11:06:50Z")
> [@Grumbacher\_Red](#): > > 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. ☹ You are obviously well educated, what do you think causes this massive divide between Trump supporters and humanity? ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2017, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-have-a-hard-accepting-republican-voters-are-decent-people-lately/799514/33 "2017-10-22T11:17:11Z")
This was written in 1930s Germany, but every single word applies equally to America today: > [@](#): > > Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed - in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical – and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack. For that reason, greater caution is called for than with a malicious one. … > > If we want to know how to get the better of stupidity, we must seek to understand its nature. This much is certain, that it is in essence not an intellectual defect but a human one. **There are human beings who are of remarkably agile intellect yet stupid, and others who are intellectually quite dull yet anything but stupid.** We discover this to our surprise in particular situations. The impression one gains is not so much that stupidity is a congenital defect, but that, under certain circumstances, **people are made stupid or that they allow this to happen to them**. > > - Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from ‘After Ten Years’ in Letters and Papers from Prison ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2017, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-have-a-hard-accepting-republican-voters-are-decent-people-lately/799514/34 "2017-10-22T11:51:07Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > 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. > > [http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-f7pJcH8ya8g/TpF35wkzQ4I/AAAAAAAAAUo/p1G5ULyUbSs/s1600/316\_998\_F1.jpg](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-f7pJcH8ya8g/TpF35wkzQ4I/AAAAAAAAAUo/p1G5ULyUbSs/s1600/316_998_F1.jpg) > > [Moral foundations theory - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_foundations_theory#The_Five_Foundations) > > 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. > > [Unconscious Reactions Separate Liberals and Conservatives | Scientific American](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/calling-truce-political-wars/) > > 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. That just seems to be a fancy way of saying that “Conservatives are racist jerks and Liberals are moral ethical people”, which I don’t think is particularly helpful or true. Conservatives and Liberals are not two fundamentally different species of people. I believe that in general, Conservatives were people for whom historically the traditional concept of what “America” is has largely worked for them. Typically rural folk with long-standing ties to their communities and suburbanites whose hard work has afforded them a relatively affluent lifestyle. Liberals tend to be people who for whatever reason, the standard concept of “America” is not working for them. Minorities. Gays. Poor people. Smart people who just didn’t “fit” in their rural communities and left for more urban areas. The reason that Liberals generate such animosity with Conservatives is that Conservatives are largely the ones who see their lifestyle having to change to accommodate the Liberals. From the perspective of Conservatives: - They see themselves as just normal people who go to work every day so they can support their families - When they look at groups like OWS, they see a bunch of lazy, dirty, entitled, unemployed hipsters sitting on their ass in Zucotti Park with their iPads harassing anyone in a suit. - When they see their taxes increase, they seem corrupt government transferring their wealth to buy votes with little real impact - When they see social justice warriors picking on people for a particular Halloween costume, they see bullies who are an affront to the First Amendment. - When they see Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the National Anthem, they see an entitled millionaire shitting on the American flag. - They see the constant accusations of “racism” as a race-baiting witch hunt. They also see Liberals playing the “race card” to give a free pass when people of a certain color commit crimes. - When they see a mass shooting on TV, that just reinforces their belief that they need more guns to protect themselves. The more anti-gun protests they see, the more in convinces them that they need their guns as a check against overly liberal policies that will marginalize them and redistribute their wealth. Now, I believe that rank and file conservatives are a different animal than the Republican Party and their propaganda machine at Fox News and Breitbart. I believe that those groups represent a relatively small party of the extremely wealthy who intentionally exacerbated political divisiveness for their own gains. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2017, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-have-a-hard-accepting-republican-voters-are-decent-people-lately/799514/35 "2017-10-22T11:56:53Z")
> [@nate](#): > > 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. Do you object to the demonisation of Republicans here? If not, why not? Does that make you a hypocrite? > [@](#): > > To me, the republican agenda is best described as Bill Maher said, “what would an asshole do in this situation?” Like praise corporates helping out in Florida (see [here](http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/10/what_i_saw_in_the_floodwaters_of_houston.html)), do disaster relief, serve in the military? > [@](#): > > I truly believe there is a physical difference in the liberal and conservatives mind. Wow. Get over yourself (so should they). You are not so different (neither are they). I’ll bet that you agree with those Republicans on most things and disagree with them on but a few, but those few things are those you find significant. You are not going to persuade them - nor they you - by being a dick. Fight their ignorance by fighting your own. ---
**Author:** ![LongTimeLurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@LongTimeLurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LongTimeLurker)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2017, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-have-a-hard-accepting-republican-voters-are-decent-people-lately/799514/36 "2017-10-22T11:59:26Z")
> [@Patx2](#): > > 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. So you are a proud Republican. You don’t have any problem with calling out Democrats as being uncaring, inconsiderate people. Your words. And you think that people choose about how they treat others and how they view the political landscape. You voted for Trump. Your asinine excuses and your craven excuses for fucking over your neighbor don’t mean shit to anyone else but another Trump voter. You might have been a good person in your previous life, but you voted for Trump. You voted for someone that will take away money from your children’s education. You voted for someone that will take away safe drinking water and safe air from your children. You voted for someone that will make a college education for your children so expensive that only the 1% of our population can afford it. I don’t know you, I don’t know if you have children. I will tell you what I do know about you. You voted for Trump. You voted against a woman’s right to choose about what happens to her body. You voted for the ‘Religious Right’ to come into my life and the lives of millions of others. You voted for the NRA to continue making money by selling guns to people that really don’t need them. Since you voted for Trump, why don’t you just tell people to keep smoking cigarettes? Cancer isn’t all that bad. You voted to keep coal miners employed so they can keep risking their lives to dig out a product that isn’t a sustainable product. Since your president seems to think that coal mining is such a valued profession, I guess that taxpayers should also pay money to make certain coal fired plants buy the coal that Trump is so happy to have other people die for. You voted for Trump. So now our preschooler president is calling a Nuclear Capable Nation derogatory names. Little Rocket Man. How proud your choice of a president is that he made up such a quaint name for a nuclear equipped nation.I can’t see a downside there. So you voted for Trump. You have too much pride to admit that you were stupid to vote for him. It is ok. Everyone knows that you are a dumb ass because you keep trying to defend Trump’s actions. Do you get off when Trump takes away health care from a million people? Do you get off when Trump slashes the budgets of social safety nets for our most impoverished people so that he can justify giving tax benefits to the richest people in the world? So you voted for Trump. What did you think an Oligarch would do our lives? ---
**Author:** ![Grumbacher\_Red](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/85e7bf/32.png) [@Grumbacher\_Red](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumbacher_Red)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2017, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-have-a-hard-accepting-republican-voters-are-decent-people-lately/799514/37 "2017-10-22T12:06:48Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > I have no problem with humane and intelligent conservative opinions. > > @ **Grumbacher Red** - The present GOP Senate has confirmed Betsy DeVos and Scott Pruitt for cabinet posts, just to name two of the most obviously egregious examples. What do you think of these appointments? > > @ any conservative reading this - The present GOP Congress has come close to repealing Obamacare, with no serious plan for replacing it, other than disrupting the insurance business and throwing millions off insurance. What do you think of that? > > @ any conservative reading this - America has never been more prosperous than it is now, and corporations have never been more profitable. Income inequality has never been this bad since the Roaring Twenties or the Great Depression; soon there will be individual Americans with 12-digit net worths — that’s Hundred Billion Dollars with an H. (The Koch Brothers together are already worth more than this; the Walton kids together are worth even more.) _ **Yet the present GOP Congress believes the #1 priority is further tax cuts for the rich.** _ What’s your view on this? > > @ any conservative reading this - what’s your view on the Muslim ban? What’s your view on the woman being held against her will in Texas to prevent her from paying for an abortion? > > _ **Any genuine conservative with conscience and intelligence should now be denouncing the present Republican as loud as he can.** _ I said earlier that pre-Trump I would have called myself center-right. Now I am very strongly center-left and leaning moreso everyday. I voted for Hilary, not because I was really all that in love with her as a candidate, but because I felt she was the better of the 2 choices I had before me. Even mother had to acknowledge Trump’s weaknesses back during the campaign, and she said said she believed he would get into office and surround himself with competent people, experts in their fields, and they would have this grand collaborative, and it would be a beautiful gut-busting disruption of all the stagnation in Washington. And what has Trump done? Appointed hard-righters and know-nothings that he doesn’t listen to anyway. He certainly has not assembled this much hoped-for Dream Team. He doesn’t do his homework, he listens to no one, he undermines his own spokes people…has to make everything about him. The guy truly thinks he is the smartest man in the room and he actually thinks he is this fine Gentleman with fine manners, when he is offensive and odious. I don’t feel i have to list examples, ya’ll know what they are. He’s delusional and gross and dangerous. I have a conscience and I am intelligent and I have been denouncing him for a long time. That is why I myself and a few others are finding ourselves outliers at the present moment in our family, and I fear it is permanent. I haven’t had a political discussion with Mama, my sister or BIL or anyone else familial in well over a month, and that’s because I have been avoiding them. I don’t see how anybody can defend him as his words and actions get more horrific and embarrassing every day. I do, however find myself wondering, with each new incident, “Alright Mother…how ya gonna defend THAT?” ---
**Author:** ![Grumbacher\_Red](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/85e7bf/32.png) [@Grumbacher\_Red](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumbacher_Red)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2017, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-have-a-hard-accepting-republican-voters-are-decent-people-lately/799514/38 "2017-10-22T12:23:45Z")
> [@LongTimeLurker](#): > > This is too sad. I don’t believe in the supernatural, but there is some kind of shit going on here. DJT is a conman at best. In reality he is a bullying man-child that brags about molesting women. > > What is wrong with the 63 million people that voted for him? I don’t get it, Did a black president enrage the racist vote? Did a possible female presidential candidate enrage the misogynistic vote? Did a White Supremacist win the White House because 63 million of our neighbors want to be proud to be racist? > > If you voted for Trump, you might just be a racist. Yeah. It is really sad. And this is the same woman who I can recall sitting around our dinner table when I was growing up and us having very good debates about all kinds of things. She used to be fairly open-minded, but as she has gotten older, I have watched her mind just close up and retreat into wierdo places. And she’s not that old, she is only 70. She was one of the people who taught me to be kind and not judge other people, so I am puzzled for sure. She hasn’t been the same since my Stepfather, who was the love of her life died 25 years ago. It’s been a slow slide, with Trump accelerating it greatly. My Stepfather was a moderate Republican, very active in local and city government, and she thinks by hanging onto Republican ideology she is somehow honoring his memory, but what I have tried to tell her is that he would be ashamed of the far-right way she is acting. I said, “Mama! Go dig him up out of the cemetery right now, I tell him that and he would slap you into next week! He would not recognize this Republican party!” I know he wouldn’t. He would probably be turning Democrat right now. I remember my parents had this big fight when Jimmy Carter was running for Gov of Georgia. Daddy campaigned and voted for him, ad when he won, Mama sat in the floor and cried. But we got through that, and everybody knew it wasn’t the end of the damn world. Now I am not so sure. ---
**Author:** ![Grumbacher\_Red](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/85e7bf/32.png) [@Grumbacher\_Red](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumbacher_Red)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2017, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-have-a-hard-accepting-republican-voters-are-decent-people-lately/799514/39 "2017-10-22T12:37:26Z")
> [@LongTimeLurker](#): > > You are obviously well educated, what do you think causes this massive divide between Trump supporters and humanity? Well, some of it is those differences in ideas about fairness I already said upthread. And some of it is what I said in a thread called “Health Care Tirade” in the Pit started by Wesley Clark. I said that, unfortunately you have many people who are less educated, with less of a work ethic, with less inclination to do the hard work it takes to be an informed person these days, parroting things they heard their parents and grandparents complaining about decades ago when they were children, which probably may have been legitimate complaints at that time. But they aren’t legitimate gripes any more now that they are grown, and these working class complaints don’t apply in the present day, yet these folks are still sitting around saying this outdated crap and they look crazy as a sprayed roach saying it. It is just a lack of keeping up with modern politics and the way the parties have changed. I wish I had a better answer, but that’s my reporting from the inside. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2017, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-have-a-hard-accepting-republican-voters-are-decent-people-lately/799514/40 "2017-10-22T12:37:44Z")
> [@LongTimeLurker](#): > > So you are a proud Republican. You don’t have any problem with calling out Democrats as being uncaring, inconsiderate people. Your words. I agree with everything else in your post, but to be fair **Patx2** didn’t say that. She said the opposite, “_I would never_ have the audacity to ask if people that vote Democrat are uncaring, inconsiderate people.” i.e. she does not consider Democrats to be uncaring, inconsiderate people. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-have-a-hard-accepting-republican-voters-are-decent-people-lately/799514.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-have-a-hard-accepting-republican-voters-are-decent-people-lately/799514.md?page=3)