When those same people apply themselves to the needs of the born with even 50% of the passion that they bring to the needs of the unborn, I will have some respect for that argument. But until then I have none.
They vary, you know. I have pro life friends who foster troubled children. There are others who oppose abortion for other reasons, but there really are some who care about babies, and have a very expansive definition of “babies”.
I have read parts of this thread but not every single post (yet).
For many people there is a very good and honest reason to vote for Trump even though he’s a evil clown: There are two, and only two candidates to vote for in almost any US presidential election. One is a Republican, one is a Democrat. So if you’re a normal, intelligent Conservative there is only one way to vote regardless of the particular candidate. You vote for your party. Simple.
You vote that way because you can not stomach voting for a Democrat and want your candidate to choose conservatives for SCOTUS and generally advance conservative policy.
Face it— for many Democrats here and in general there is almost no situation imaginable that would cause one to vote for the a GOP candidate. At worst you might choose to not vote at all. It works exactly that way for Republicans too.
Until there are more than two viable choices for president this will not change. Aside from the dark-money and corporate personhood problem this is by far the single most important political issue facing this country. We absolutely have to change something so that we are not all forced to make a binary decision of who to vote for.
It’s really hard to castigate any thoughtful, caring, good conservative people (and the evil, stupid GOP fucks too) for voting to advance their interests.
This system must change.
Trump is against the the interests of the vast majority of them, however. As are the Republicans in general. They are just deluding themselves.
Also, “thoughtful, caring, good conservative” is a contradiction in terms.
Yeah, I was about to say something similar, except more from the perspective of the uneducated, rural, white voter.
In short, they feel like they’ve largely been passed by and abandoned by modern society, and are being ridiculed for being country, dumb/uneducated, rural, etc… They don’t know why, and what they do know is that their local shops and industries are largely closed/closing, and are being replaced with large, impersonal outlets of national/international companies that don’t pay well.
So along comes Trump, promising to “Make America Great Again”, and scapegoating ethnic and social minorities as essentially sucking all the political air out of the room under Democratic administrations (i.e. the government’s spending all its money and effort enriching black/gay/hispanic/trans/etc. people). What they hear is that he’ll stick it to them, and in their mind the whole MAGA acronym translates to “revitalize our community by reintroducing our old industries, or bringing new ones we don’t need education for”
This is not really realistic, but they’re desperate, and will happily attach themselves to any politician who promises them results, no matter how odious, because their lives are so tough, and there are bonus points for defining out groups and then sticking it to them, because they feel like they’ve been discriminated against.
Stuff like structural racism is particularly offensive to them, because in their minds, they’re already pretty low, and hearing someone say that some other group deserves special treatment because of historical events they had nothing to do with, versus doing stuff that helps everyone, or helps them.
I’m not convinced they’re all evil Klan members sitting around in their pointy hoods wishing ill onto racial and social minorities. But I’m pretty sure they’ve been convinced that those groups are getting an outsized piece of that sweet government pie, while they’re languishing in meth, fentanyl, unemployment, and poverty. They’re low information voters, and Trump is playing to them by providing them with information, even if it’s just lies and bullshit.
Then they watch most any Democratic political TV, and it doesn’t look like their world- no country, no hats, and a whole lot of black/hispanic people. And the white people who there are, tend not to be from their states. So it’s not surprising that they don’t feel like the party represents them very much.
So they vote Trump. I’m not entirely convinced that from their admittedly limited perspective it’s not an entirely irrational choice. They largely want better lives and economically healthier communities and Trump plays right into that.
The white, upper middle class, suburban Trump voter is more reprehensible. They’re largely educated and well off, and despite that, believe the same lies and bullshit, because they’re a combination of racist and basically greedy/stingy. They feel like they put themselves where they are through their own hard work, and resent the idea that the government is going to help anyone specific if they didn’t get helped. A great example is that I’d bet most of the people railing against student loan forgiveness because their loans were already paid off were people with that mindset. I didn’t get it, so you can’t have it either type thinking. And they especially hate the idea that someone should get anything like that because of the color of their skin. They’re the main consumers of the “people are poor because they make poor decisions” type of thinking, without being self-aware enough to realize that making good decisions is something that you are taught, and that your community understands and values. They don’t realize that a lot of the financial decisions that are self-evident to white middle class people are not necessarily so to non-white, non-middle class people. So they assume these people are stupid and/or lazy, and that the government is rewarding that.
Trump’s rhetoric is one-size-fits-all enough to work for that as well, so they vote for him out of the expectation that he’ll shut all that down, cut taxes, and leave more money in their pocket, as well as stop subsidizing poor behaviors by members of undeserving communities.
I don’t want to derail this thread into the same old abortion argument that has been hashed 20,000 times, but I do want to point out - however briefly - that just because someone opposes killing XYZ, does not mean one is obligated to care for XYZ.
I can oppose my neighbor killing her cats. That does not mean I am personally obligated to take care of her cats should she put them up for adoption.
To be fair, this one crosses political lines. I’ve seen a number of nominally liberal (or at least Democrat-voting) Boomer/GenX folks complain bitterly about the lack of fairness in Millenials/GenZ getting handouts when they had to pay their loans. Not infrequently framed as people too often taking irresponsible loans to pursue non-economically productive degrees and then being bailed out. In fact I’ve seen it on this board.
I’m an Eisenhower antifa.
I thought antifa is the default position. It demonstrates how far the Overton window has moved to the far, far right that your sentence that I quoted even makes sense.
Sure, but they generally don’t think that way about everything that the poor/downtrodden get from the government.
That’s the defining thing- they feel like black, hispanic, gay, etc… people are getting enriched on the government dime, which they feel like they largely pay for.
There are none. He is a malignant narcissist who lies, cheats, and commits crimes, the biggest of which is sedition. He openly tried to overthrow the democratic government of the United States and instill himself as a virtual dictator. He should be in prison for the rest of his life. In fact, there was a time when he would have been executed. I consider him the most dangerous person this nation has ever produced.
Again, there is NOTHING about this man that is worthy of admiration unless, of course, you consider the ability to con and mesmerize millions of people a worthy attribute.
This. They are ignored by one of the major parties in this country and lied to by the other.
What percentage of voters are rural, white, and have a high-school education or less? (I assume that’s what ‘uneducated’ is?)
This site (University of Maryland in Baltimore County) says that 15% of Americans are rural and white. Presumably some of them have more education than a high-school diploma. So some number less than 15% are uneducated, rural, and white?
I would argue that those folks will vote GOP no matter who’s on the ticket. So even if the Democrats try to appeal to these folks, it will fall on deaf ears. I grew up rural and white, and my experience is that all our neighbors voted Republican no matter what. The last Democrat to carry my home state of Kansas was LBJ in 1964, and even then a sizable minority of counties voted for Goldwater.
I tended to agree with bump said, but I would have thought it would be more than 15%.
It may be a feeling - regardless of the stats, if they feel dumb or rural or whatnot and feel left behind. I know a lot of people who, and it feels ironic to type this, identify as rural even though they most certainly are not.
Late: I’m assuming “rural” is purely tagged to your home address. And doesn’t account for someone’s lifestyle, etc.
Really? Such as?
I would agree with others here who cited deregulation. One of Trump’s first acts was the idiotic rule about removing two old regulations for every new one, and SCOTUS justices he appointed did strike down Chevron.
So, if you’re one of those people who thinks government regulations are nothing but bureaucratic red tape intended to make it more difficult to run a profitable business*, you can honestly say you like Trump’s track record on the issue.
(*It should hopefully go without saying that I’m not one of those people.)
Exactly. It’s purely defined, by the Census Bureau, as living in a community or area in which population and population density aren’t big enough to be classified as “urban.” It has nothing directly to do with lifestyle, income, type of employment, etc.
Sorry, don’t have detailed cites for you, but 2 instances that come immediately to mind are he had the NOAA eliminate a lot of statistical/historical info from their cites. My wife teaches business law, and several previously available legal databases were restricted.
It ought to be indisputed that he eliminated many environmental regs. And, of course, he appointed judges who issued many anti-bureaucracy rulings such as overruling Chevron.
He continually beat the drum against the Deep State, claiming career bureaucrats were evil and incompetent, and should have no civil service protection. He had department HQs relocated into the hinterlands, in an apparent desire to encourage retirements. He attempted to politicize departments such as Justice and the FBI.
His efforts to undermine the bureaucracy were no secret. From your second post, I’m unclear whether you were simply seeking examples, or were questioning my assertion?
Sort of questioning your assertion that he successfully attacked the permanent bureaucracy and reduced categories of information/services provided to the public. Yes, he did those things, but successfully?
Beating the drum against the Deep State, attempting to politicize departments and lying about the competency of career bureaucrats aren’t actual accomplishments. I didn’t know about the relocation of department HQs; that might qualify as some sort of success.
Eliminating NOAA data doesn’t strike me as any sort of accomplishment – just anti-science bullshit.
I agree that he eliminated many environmental regs, and that people of a certain mindset might view that as success, as per my next post.
OK. Perhaps from my position as a career bureaucrat of 38 years, I perceived his actions more personally than some. I do not believe it would be too hard to find any number of commentators who believe he succeeded in reducing the public’s trust in government institutions - look no further than questioning the legitimacy of elections, or the USPO’s delivery of ballots.
The NOAA data is simply one of many instances in which he eliminated publicly available information - which IMO is important for an informed electorate. Yes, Biden was successful in reversing many of his efforts.
And, yes, I believe upthread I posted that a support for reduced regs could be a basis for an argument supporting Trump.
His efforts were successful IMO, certainly for the time that he was in office. Also, he appointed judges who support his approach. Moreover, his efforts impaired the agency’s ability to continue in their missions, and required effort by a successive administration to undo them.
When he was in office, the message that he believed civil servants were “the enemy” was very clear. There were many instances of experienced bureaucrats quitting rather than deal with it.
Not going to try to sway you from whatever your position is. And not going to try to expand upon my previous posts.
On the contrary – your response makes it clear that we’re in agreement. I misunderstood your use of the word “successfully” in your older post to imply that you agreed with these actions.