To add to this, I think there is some belief that not only is the opposing side “the bad guys,” but that *they must also know and consider **themselves *to be the bad guys, too.
It’s binary thinking. In addition to excluding that oft-mentioned middle, it also defines the two opposing goalposts as the ultimate in their own direction and completely ignores any lateral direction thought as being of any relevance whatsoever.
Get into an argument about economic systems some time and you’ll see it coalesce into capitalist western-style corporate electoral democracy versus state-operated socialist redistributive systems, and gestures towards anything other than those positions are treated as illegitimate sneaky excuses for bringing in the evils of the enemy goalpost position, or ignored entirely as if they were non sequiturs.
Lots of people enter into a debate or discussion with a really rigid notion that there are two sides and we already know what they are, that they’re on the correct one of those two, and any dissent is by definition coming from the mouth of some damn fool or evil hateful creature who has embraced the other one, the wrong one. They don’t come to listen, they come to “win”.
ETA: I’m saying a lot of the same things you folks are saying so consider me to be agreeing while stating it my own way.
Except the electorate did NOT swing to the GOP in 2016. The orange terror lost the popular vote and essentially won by ~70k votes in three counties to take a biased electoral “college” that values a Wyoming voter as 3X a Californian. A candidate could take the White House with 23% of the popular vote, showing not the electorate going their way, but a system that installs losers. A party taking 40% of a gerrymandered state’s vote but 60% of legislative seats reveals not electoral preference but a rigged system. Forget that “didn’t teach the GOP a lesson” example - doesn’t apply.
Don’t say it’s not a rigged system. 17% of the populace, mostly in small (R) states, are represented by 50% of US senators. Even a (D) supermajority can’t win. RIGGED!
Back to topic. I’l credit human credulity and insularity for the “they’re not like us” mindset. “They” are an alien species so we can do to them what they would never dare do to us, the swine! But then they don’t react as we expect, the monsters! It boils down to fear and hatred of The Other. Bomb “them” with our [del]propaganda[/del] reasoned arguments and if they don’t turn our way they must be mentally deficient. No, they’re just not as dumb or cowardly as we expected. Who is the idjet then?
The answer to the warfare questions/examples is that the capacity to endure is usually much greater than the capacity to inflict.
The US political questions is that you had two amazingly charismatic candidates. If you had said in 2004 that the next US President would be a biracial man called Barack Hussain Obama, people would have laughed at you. If you had said the same about Trump in 2012, you would have been taken to the nut house.
Obama and Trump are once in a generation phenomenons. Like Bill Clinton a generation earlier.
If you’re going to assess party preferences for the 2016 election, you’re better off looking at the cumulative votes for the House representatives. The vote for president is much more about personality and charisma, and is in many ways a popularity contest. The Democrats improved their share of the vote in 2016, but were still 1.1% behind the Republicans. 2016 United States House of Representatives elections - Wikipedia
As for the OP, I think that humans are instinctively tribal, and we tend to emphasise differences rather than commonalities. We think that someone who talks differently and dresses differently, or who has a different political view, is fundamentally different to us. The reality is that the vast majority of people have mostly the same motivations. But something in us is hard-wired to note the differences and assume that because others are different in small but noticeable ways, they are different than us in essential ways as well.
Hmm, that’s a subtle distinction you’re trying to draw, Tripolar.
Show me the space between:
- Poor at risk assessment
and
- Good at risk assessment but unwilling to act on it
The second part of statement 2 seems to show the inability to make good risk assessment. The greatest idea in the world, if not acted upon, isn’t a great idea.
It’s not very subtle. It’s the difference between ignorance and reckless disregard. That’ll easily get an extra 2-5 tacked onto your sentence.
RioRico, I’m not sure how to explain this, but please go back and read what you wrote there. Are you absolutely 100% crystal-clear sure you’re not kinda-sorta demonstrating the topic? Because it sure sounds like you’re exhibiting exactly the kind of behavior you’re decrying.
I thought I was evidently sardonic. Should I have include an emoji?
When did this occur? The GOP had just nominated McCain and then Romney who both got waxed. Nobody in the GOP establishment thought that McCain or Romney were hard right wing racist candidates. They were both a “hold your nose and vote for them” candidates who were not loved by the base of the party.
Who in the GOP was saying that we not only need more of that, but we need candidates further to the left than that? If anything, those two defeats are what led to Trump, e.g. we need someone stronger, more bold, and ready to illustrate differences between “us and them” instead of just offering a softer version of a Democrat.
Despite Trump’s upset victory, this was exactly the wrong lesson to be gleaned. The smart guys in the party were looking at the nation’s changing demographics and issuing a warning that the party could not continue to alienate such massive numbers of new left leaning voters. Coming decades will prove them correct.