Not sure if this is better as GD or IMHO; I’ll let the mods decide:
On a number of issues, people hold the view that others are fundamentally psychologically different - that whatever the “other side is,” that they will behave differently than the way oneself would.
Example 1: We’ve had some Americans (including some Dopers) who fairly recently advocated U.S. bombing and strikes on Iran, saying that this would “teach Iran a lesson” and that Iranians would meekly slink away with their tails between their legs (this was before the pandemic.) This despite the fact that America’s response to being attacked (Pearl Harbor, 9/11, etc.) has been anything ***but ***slinking away with tail between legs; it led to American entry into World War II and Afghanistan. Why the notion that Iranians (or North Koreans, or anyone else) respond to being bombed with meekness and surrender, while Americans respond with patriotism and unified defiance?
Example 2: After the 2012 election, there were some Democrats who crowed that the election results “taught the Republicans a lesson” and that the GOP would respond by becoming more diverse, embracing immigration reform, becoming more liberal, etc. Instead, the Republicans went down the Trump route, doubled down on everything instead of compromising…and won in 2016. At which point many Republicans then crowed (including, again, some Dopers) that 2016 “taught the Democrats a lesson” and that Democrats would adjust by becoming more humble, conservative, and move towards the right…which, of course, didn’t happen; a new wave of leftist-progressives like AOC, Bernie, Warren, etc. ascended to prominence (even if Biden is currently the nominee.) Why the notion that “losing an election will teach the other side to humble and moderate” when it has no such effect on one’s own side?
I could cite more examples but don’t want to clog up the thread. But…whether it’s welfare, or abortion, or LGBT, or warfare, or negotiations, or sports, or whatever, why this notion that “the other side” will behave fundamentally different than one’s own side would?
If you didn’t have unreasonable contempt for your enemies they probably wouldn’t be your enemies and since people need enemies, they need to have unreasonable contempt for those enemies.
With regards to elections and the losing side moderating there views, it does happen. The 1992 election and Bill Clinton’s victory is a good example. 2016 was just a little to soon. I think it takes at least 3 POTUS losses in a row for a party to learn their lesson. Had Clinton won, I think there would have been a movement to get the far right to moderate their views.
ETA. Maybe I’m wrong in a way that proves my point. Republicans are all about doubling down. Democrats are more likely to change their positions based on the facts.
In early 2013 it wasn’t just a bunch of Democrats crowing that the Republicans had “been taught a lesson.” **The Republican establishment was saying the same thing. ** The RNC’s 2012 postmortem was all about how the party needed to become more inclusive, more open to social issues, less racist, etc.
The GOP looked, listened, and then decided that doubling down on gerrymandering, voter suppression, and astroturf-fueled populism would be less work.
You actually have the answer there. These types of arguments only makes sense if the person giving them believes there is some sort of qualitative difference between the group we consider US vs. the group we consider THEM, and that this difference will change how THEY react vs how WE reacted.
Technically, this isn’t an invalid argument. But then the OP is a valid counterargument. “We didn’t act this way. What makes them so different from us?” And then person making the original argument needs to have an answer.
Now, if they don’t have such an answer, then it is the fallacy of special pleading, I believe. That we have a special fallacy named for it shows it’s part of our psychological makeup. It’s probably similar to the bias that creates the self-attribution fallacy.
because people generally don’t learn from errors.
Before WW2, the general feeling was that the next war will feature massive air raids on cities that will be ruined by bombs and gas, up until the moral breaks and “they” beg for peace.
The German bombing of Warsaw did nothing to soften the Poles.
when german bombers hit London, the Brits did not panic.
When in retalliation, churchill bombed berlin, the Germans did not cede.
when in return, Hitler launched the Blits on England, no surrender either.
when Bomber Harris leveled the Ruhr , Hamburg and Dresde, German landser were still fighting fiercely.
Rince and repeat with Hiroshima, Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc
So nobody took a second to think " wait, they did just that and that didn’t work! why would it work now?"
The basic fail is to not think of “the other” as someone with toughs, feelings as a human, but as some kind of movie caricatural villain that will be coerced into submission if Batman hit him strong enough.
And it’s an old old fail, since that was the modus operandi of the French in 1914 ( charge boldly with bayonets and the German will flee… in fact not, he will fire his machinegun), the colonial wars ( charge along Custer and the savages will flee…), the crusades ( charge and…you get the point), up until the Medique wars( with Persians thinking the Greeks will just flee if threatened)
It is very easy to think the other guy is inferior in will, strenght or cunning, since YOU are the good guy and HE is therefore the bad guy…how can he win?
“Yes, Them too! A lot of Them. Mostly Them and not many of Us! And that’s why we’re here and they’re there! So there, Mister Monday Morning Quarterback, Mister Wheelchair General!”
I think what you’ve demonstrated is that it’s not enough to believe your cause and to make a strong statement. You must commit to completely annihilate your enemy. Germany capitulated when they had no other choice. Japan capitulated when they had no other choice. And allied powers continued to invest in the victory over fascism long after the fighting was done. In contrast Vietnam and Afghanistan were a draw at best because the price of “winning” was deemed too high in American lives and treasure.
Republicans will not change their right wing rhetoric and policies unless and until they are entirely annihilated in election after election by Democrats.
*People and nations will make rational choices only when they have exhausted all other options. *
In truth, people do learn from errors. But most people - the vast majority - only learn from their own. If an error from someone else didn’t personally cause them pain they pay it no mind.
“If God be for us, who can be against us” goes all the way back to the Bible and before.
It really all boils down to one of ol’ JC’s basic rules of dealing with people.
Humans are extremely bad at risk assessment.
We are, as individuals, horrendous at judging the real world nature of things based on our own anecdotal experiences. From the markets, to wars, to whatever, we suck.
That;s an overly broad assessment. Plenty of people are good at risk assessment, but something makes those people ignore their own sense and the better sense of others. It’s some kind of emotional response that results in people finding comfort in the crowd instead of their better sense. And some people who may not even know better as a matter of calculation but still sense the risk become afraid to speak out against it. And then the crowd will turn on those who try to raise a warning.
So people are prone to ignoring risk even when they know better. It’s not so much an innate inability to understand it.
It wasn’t so much about Republicans doubling down, it was about Trump riding a worldwide populist wave and hijiacking the Republican party. If he hadn’t been around you’d have some relatively milquetoast guy in there, again, that didn’t have such extremely views, and probably would have lost. NO ONE in 2012, Republican or Democrat, would have predicted Trump would sweep all the other republicans and win. I don’t think Trump thought he would win, until he did. And he won not because of what “Republicans” did, but because of discontent in key areas and a strong populist undercurrent that was becoming obvious by movements in the UK and other places. A significant amount of people voted for Trump that voted for Obama, enough to win. Like him or hate him, he tapped into that bigtime, succesfully. He was also very much helped by HRC being his opposition
Adding a less-serious example to the thread: A New York Giants fan claimed that his team wearing red jerseys (they were worn every now and then by the Giants up until around 2007) would frighten and intimidate the opposing quarterback, even though his own team’s quarterbacks were never fazed by playing opposing defenses wearing red jerseys.
Another example: After the Democrats held the Presidency for 20 years (1932-1952), winning 5 consecutive Presidential elections, the Republicans basically bent the knee to the New Deal. Dwight Eisenhower didn’t try to revive the Herbert Hoover minimalist governing philosophy, instead choosing to expand Social Security and build the Interstate Highway System.
You are correct in assessing Trump as a somewhat unique factor, but I don’t agree with the above. The election of a Republican was by no means guaranteed, but there were strong political reasons to think that the electorate would swing Republican in 2016. Moreover, Trump turned off many, many voters, especially in the suburbs; meanwhile Hillary Clinton ran a poor campaign and focused on the wrong areas, and arguably, the wrong issues. Of course, much depends on whether you assume Trump never got into the race, dropped out early, or stayed in late trashing everyone. Obviously the last would likely not have been the best outcome for party unity.
However, getting back to the OP: You can see something similar to Trumpism in the wave of Bernie-ism that swept over, and nearly won the Democratic primaries. Bernie never had majority support, but he did have a dedicated following of a candidate that was decided out of the party mainstream, let alone the mainstream of American politics as a whole. He, like Trump, was not even a party member and his criticisms were much more wide than just opposing the ‘other guy’ in Washington. Of course, there are broad and obvious differences in the two men: whatever your criticisms of Bernie, nobody accuses him of being a phony or a fraud! But in this case they occupied a similar political positioning.
We are the good guys, and they are the bad guys. We are fighting for our homeland and our families and justice, while they are just fighting for selfish reasons. They are also a superstitious and cowardly lot, so if we simply strike terror into their hearts they will find it in their own selfish interest to give up their evil ways and capitulate.
