On Twitter today I noticed that the hashtag #cult45 is being used quite proudly by people who support Trump, instead of by people commenting on the nature of that support. There are a few of the latter here and there, but by and large this idea of being a cult has been enthusiastically adopted by the right.
No irony is involved; just the idea that being a member of a cult is a wonderful thing. How amenable to reasonable arguments would you suppose such people are?
Add to this the fact that some large proportion of those posting online—here; on other message boards; on Twitter; on Instagram; on YouTube; on Facebook, etc.—are being paid* to post pro-Trump messages. Clearly it’s not much use to try to employ reason with someone whose livelihood depends on continuing to post defenses of Trump and attacks on his critics.
Throughout history some people have been certain that their views are correct and they are not remotely interested in any facts that might contradict those views.
On the other hand, there have always been other people who are willing to consider facts.
Part of wisdom is knowing the difference–and not wasting your time trying to persuade those who find facts offensive.
And I’m sure he’s sorry that you live in denial of reality. But really, both your opinions as stated in this thread is thoughtless cynicism and not worth more of my time.
Politics involve working with people you do not like to win elections and establish policy. Some seem to have hands too clean to be involved in this rough art of the possible.
No, you aren’t. Your OP is you arguing that Trump’s winning is a fait acompli–that he has already won because of this one “slogan” (which sure looks like a meme to me, not a slogan). You can’t have a problem with people giving up when that is literally what you do in your OP.
On the other hand, the person you are responding to still has hope that Trump won’t win–they haven’t given up. They are simply saying that the people who would be convinced by this slogan are not the target audience.
You are projecting the thing you did in the OP onto others who are doing the exact opposite. You are the one who thinks that this slogan means Trump will win.
Speaking of the above: why is this being called a slogan? It very clearly looks like a meme, with the Impact font and everything. It has not been put out by the Trump administration. It’s a post by some rando made 3 months ago, and that I at least have not noticed actually in use, despite running into Trump supporters all the time.
If I actually see this meme being used to defend Trump, then I’ll worry. For now, I’m going to not make a big deal out of it, as outrage is part of what makes memes spread so well.
Right now, I don’t think anyone believes this who isn’t already a Trump supporter.
Ron White said it best. “You can’t fix stupid.” When farms are going bankrupt at a breakneck pace and farmers say, “I’m still gonna vote for Trump!”, you’re dealing with stupid. When evangelical Christians look at everything Trump says and does being antithetical to their stated beliefs and still shout, “I’M GONNA VOTE FOR TRUMP!”, you’re dealing with hypocritical stupid. When you have the common clay of the West ignoring Republicans gutting the social safety net in order to give the CEOs of the company a massive tax break, then finding out there’s no help for them when said CEO fires them for even greater profit margin, only to spend their last $5 for a MADE IN CHINA “TRUMP 2020” bumper sticker…well, you get the point.
I refuse to cater to the dumbest common denominator for public policy. It’s Idiocracy writ large.
Dehumanizing people isn’t the answer. Having an actual solution to their problem that doesn’t fit the “fuck em” narrative that they are being told your side has just pushes them away. This is how Trump is re-elected as far as I can tell.
I’m not dehumanizing them at all. I’m just refusing to assign intelligence to people that are given an actual solution to their problems and elect Trump instead.
Would you rather win elections and make policy by working with our countrymen, or lose elections and stamp you feet about how stupid everyone else is? I would prefer to win elections.
The discussion started with “ACA didn’t work for the people that actively sabotaged it, so Democrats focusing on healthcare is bad.”
Would you rather win elections and help Americans, or blow billions on SPACE FORCE and A WALL and have more and more of your minority citizens fearful for their lives and safety due to increased hate crimes because someone said you’re not the brightest bulb in the box?
Did you read that ad? “They are coming for you”. This isn’t “they’ve neglected you”, “they’ve failed to bring you solutions”. This is a 100% abject simpleminded appeal to fear.
If you want to ask how to reach the theorized economic-issue Trump voter, that’s a different and legit question, but that’s not what this ad about. Maybe you should start a separate thread on that.
If you want to ask how to reach voters who are going to respond to the message “they’re coming to get you” ad, those people are beyond reach. Their self-described defining characteristic is that they’re out of reach.
These 2 groups of people may overlap in some ways, but don’t conflate these different angles.
Reaching out to those who feel threatened by progressive values by giving them some of the things they really want and not taking all the things we really want.
Excuse me, I have to go buy Christmas donuts for everyone at the office.
Some of my countrymen, it appears, are eager to put brown children in cages and deny them decent medical care. So, what I need to do, then, is find some reasonable compromise between my humanity and their utter lack of it?