To respond seriously, I don’t often discuss politics much with Trump leaners or supporters. So personally yeah I am “quiet” in those spaces.
For the few I know well enough to engage with, yeah I will try to stay respectful so long as I am being treated that way in kind. If not then the conversation is over.
For our candidates and their campaigns? Absolutely not demure or quiet and absolutely respectful of those who have supported Trump in the past and likely do now. The candidates I support may not win their votes but I don’t want them motivating higher turnout against them by portraying those voters as idiots and evil.
Even if there are repubs who are “not racist” “not fascist” “not evil”, they still are supporting a racist, fascist, evil candidate. A candidate who considers me and mine to be sub-human at best.
From my standpoint, it matters not a whit if they hold these beliefs personally. If they support those who do it’s functionally the same thing. They can go fuck themselves.
I’m sure there were a small proportion of “good” Nazis too. But i’ll be damned if I’m going to lose any sleep over them when they get sent to the Hague.
IMO there are a lot of traditional conservatives, mostly the country club set but also many middle and even working class, who have always voted for “[Whoever] (R)” for definitely non-Progressive but not blatantly evil reasons and are now faced with the difficult (to them) choice of:
Admitting that “trump (R)” now means Fascist Kleptocracy and they need to abandon their lifelong habit of voting “[Whoever] (R)” to preserve actual democracy and the rule of law in their country. OR
Pretending that trump and MAGAtism is an ineffectual passing fad and so “[Whoever] (R)” still means what they care about, and only what they care about: low(er) taxes, less regulation, and avoidance of the so-called “nanny state” intrusion on their personal behavior. Despite the acknowledged fact that this time “Whoever” is trump.
It takes a lot of cognitive dissonance to actively pay attention and still choose #2. But if they have their fingers stuffed in their ears enough and their eyes screwed shut enough they can pretend that trumpism is close enough to (R) business-as-usual-ism that it’ll all be fine. For them. Which is the only person who matters. To them.
One heck of a lot of Germans figured Hitler was a passing fad who wouldn’t do much damage before his term was up and normalcy was restored. The desire for your personal applecart not to be upended by political strife looms large in all of us regardless of party or inclination. Wishful thinking is some of the most thoughtless thinking there is. Shame it’s so common.
“Our” individual images and portrayals of Trump voters (who may or may not be motivated to vote this time) as simple cartoons or more complicated messes is not how Trump wins. But those two groups above trafficking in those simplistic tropes would be. It motivates the turnout of his supporters, fails to win new supporters, and fails to increase our own turnout.
Exactly, we are at this point precisely because we pandered to fascism in order to keep the peace and now we don’t have peace. We created entitled monsters who see every attempt at creating a more just world as an affront to their liberty.
White centrists just don’t like to have to confront their complicity in creating these monsters.
Why should we tip toe around these people? So that they don’t try to overthrow democracy? That’s already happened.
I have no belief that the SDMB will impact anything with regards to the election. My concern is that the attitude and language used here will carry over into how others interact IRL. If you dehumanize the opposition in your mind, that can’t help but affect how you treat them.
If you want to go around cursing and spitting at people all the time for blame by association, that’s your choice for how to live your life.
FWIW I doubt many who go on here about how Republicans are fascist or enablers of fascism or evil or idiots (or all) do such to real people in real life, to the degree they engage about such subjects outside the bubble of those who are mostly likeminded. I see it as more a form of virtue signaling in a safe space. And maybe occasionally simple venting. No harm. No good done either but we all have our hobbies! A bit amusing when they think that they are somehow fighting fascism by doing so, but hey, whatever.
Again, how Trump wins (the thread subject) is if those in charge of the campaign fail to distinguish between pointing out Trump and MAGA candidates as fascist self focused windbags, and their voters as such.
I sever ties with fascists and I tell them directly, including my sister. I say some version of: “I cannot reconcile your political beliefs with my morality.”
Of course MLK said it best in his Letter from the Birmingham Jail:
I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.
Playing golf this morning, I was in a group with the 55 yr old son of an 85 year old man I also golf with, whom I’ve long known was a consistent Trump voter. I’ve known the dad for 35 years and the son almost as long. I don’t have a lot of good friends, but these 2 are among the few I have. If they were strong fascists or racists, I think I would’ve noticed that by now.
I asked the son if his dad was voting for Trump. He said, “Yeah.” I asked if HE was going to and he said, “Yeah.” I asked why, and he said, “Harris is a fucking moron!” I asked why he thought that, and he said, “Just listen to her talk.” Then he said Trump is not personable, but he supports Trump’s policies. I asked which policies, he said, “The economy.” I asked which of Trump’s policies would do what for the economy, and he said, “I just want to go to the store and not have to pay $4 for a dozen eggs. They were $1.85 when Trump was president.” I asked where he got his news from, he said, “Various sources. Not just Fox, I know they are biased.”
I thanked him for being willing to share his thoughts, and we moved to other topics. I made no effort to persuade him to think differently, but I appreciated his willingness to express his views.
Just saying, feel free to say anyone who votes for Trump is evil, a fascist, or a racist, if that makes you happy. But you are not going to convince me that these 2 people, whom I know quite well and you do not, are evil, fascist racists. So I’m still left with, why are decent people willing to support an evil candidate?
Is it your estimation that your cutting off your sister makes her less likely to vote for Trump? I can get how your own mental health may be served by insulating yourself from what you feel are toxic family interactions (don’t get me going about my sisters!) but to the thread subject, does your sister having even less exposure to perspectives other than her own help ensure Trump gets fewer votes, or fight against fascism?
(The relevance of the MLK quote is lost on me.)
Accept that as true. What is implied then? What is best way to defang the political potency of “White Fragility”? Team Harris is banking on that their having empathy for some of the root causes of that sense a fragility lowers its power a notch or so, while attacking them makes the fragile more afraid. Attacking those who exploit their fears while highlighting our common values is their preferred tactic. I think they’ve got that right.
But I don’t think the answer is to cave in and walk on eggshells lest you offend a white man. This whole idea that you can win over some mythical MAGA-lite voter by pandering to their racist, sexist or transphobic fears is unrealistic. What you end up doing is becoming them, slowly but surely, by adopting their policies.
To riff a bit, to some people, “R” is part of their personal brand. They are not thinking too deeply about it. They are being dumb–sometimes just dumb about politics. That’s why I have always said not that Trump voters are not necessarily evil but rather some combination of evil and stupid.
I have an example of a severe case of the “partial stupids” from last night. This is someone I know very well, who is an intelligent woman who has worked in IT for decades. We were hanging out yesterday, having some brewskies, and the topic of politics came up. Now I already knew she had been raised in a Republican household (as was I) and she just doesn’t care a lot about politics, so we have barely talked about it. She said she didn’t know for whom she’d be voting (not good), but it wouldn’t be Trump (good), but she’d probably just vote for RFK Jr. (oh fuck no). But she doesn’t like Kamala–just doesn’t like her! And–here’s the really bad thing–about every political issue we discussed, all she had to offer were GOP/MAGA talking points. And that’s, well, really fucking dumb. And, in our discussion, she wasn’t IMO being a smart person with bad information; no, she was being genuinely espistemologically challenged and, well, just dumb. Because repeating a bunch of bullshit with a lot of confidence and a bit of vitriol is dumb!
So this kind of smart/dumb person also exists. Thank goodness she lives in Illinois and her vote won’t count.
Because, by his own quote, they’re upset they have to pay $4 for a dozen eggs.
That’s the thing, the ideological underpinning of the Trump voter is shallow – for that matter, the ideological underpinning of the Tea Party-age Republican voter or middle-level political operative was shallow, that’s why Trump had so little trouble taking over.
(They are not fascists themselves, they have no idea what it means and if you summoned up Gentile and Mussolini to explain it to them they would probably be annoyed at having to listen to those two blowhards try to educate them on the intellectual basis of the policies, they don’t care.) They just know that “liberal” or “left” policies inconvenience them, and that’s enough.
@Dinsdale, what disappoints me about that interaction you describe is its one sidedness. You asked and listened without attacking. It would have been nice if they then did the same. Not with overt intent to argue or convert, but just your being able to share your perspective that you here her speaking quite cogently, personally hear Trump as incoherent, and why you personally see the economy in better shape than he does. You wouldn’t have converted them, but maybe you could have sown the seed of doubt anyway.