Not sure if this belongs in GD, IMHO, or the Pit. Started it in GD to allow us to talk about our personal feelings while hopefully keeping it civil (and not naming any names of posters).
In the last year or two, I find myself feeling more and more twinges of vitriol and even hatred towards some of my fellow Americans. I recognize this is not a positive thing. I don’t remember ever feeling this way in the 90s or 00s, except about fringe assholes like David Duke. I used to have many friends with differing political views - now I find it impossible to stay close friends with Trump supporters (though I still have many conservative friends who disagree on a multitude of issues… just not about Trump). I think these sorts of feelings of hatred and vitriol are harmful and negative and ultimately detrimental to society.
I understand politics is about compromise on so many things, but I haven’t figured out how someone who truly values women, or truly thinks racism and bigotry are abominable, can support and make excuses for Trump.
But this isn’t meant to be another thread to bash Trump or his supporters. It’s meant to be a thread for Dopers to talk about their feelings of hatred, vitriol, and similar feelings. How have these feelings changed for you in the past few years? How has it affected your life and your relationships? Are these feelings based on fundamental fissures in our culture and society, or something more superficial?
I think there are fundamental differences in values that have lead to these deep fissures. Progressives are often accused and shamed of expressing contempt for a segment of the population that is currently identified as Trump supporters. I beg to differ. When a full 33% of the country has demonstrated and continues to support values of racism and bigotry of the worst kind; When the same 33% has knowingly supported willful ignorance and bold faced lies; When half of congress has embraced an openly corrupt and morally bankrupt administration as a political means to justify an end that only serves to further undermine the social fabric of the country – Anyone with a conscience has to ask themselves, is it progressives expressing contempt for a third of the country or is it a third of the country expressing contempt for the majority of those who do not align themselves with Trump Party values?
From my perspective, the Right has been engaged in a decades long project to re-frame the Left from “opposition” or “adversaries” into “enemies”. To the result that the garden variety FOX view / AM radio listener only hears the word “liberal” as a sneer word.
Whereas, the Left, over the same period was still playing the game of the Right being the “loyal opposition”, without a co-comitant decades long project to re-frame the language (and consequently, the belief system).
IMHO, however, the past couple of years, and antics on the Right, have pushed more mainstream Left into a similar level of enmity that has been the traditional purview of the Right.
IMHO, one of the biggest changes in society is that we have gone from “Hatred is bad” to a stance of “Hatred is good if it’s targeted at the right people.”
I feel a big chunk of the responsibility deserves to be laid before those who are withholding their votes, to be honest. There is one thing that will always unite both sides, however divided, and that’s democracy. But it’s being malformed and exploited by a lack of participation.
I kinda think, as deplorable as you may find the views of the other side, if an actual sweeping majority of Citizens voted, the defeated side would, quite possibly, be more willing to suck it up.
But with such low voter participation, it is stunningly easy to assume there are more people who agree with your views, than quite possibly, is the reality.
If either side had a sweeping majority, in a large turn out, they wouldn’t need the salty dialogue and degraded tactics.
Which is not to say the distasteful rhetoric, and those exploiting it to political advantage, are and always will be, gasoline on a fire.
There’s a new guy at work. His vehicle has a couple of American flags in the back window, so it’s easy to spot. I saw it around the corner from my house one day, and realized I had a new coworker neighbor. At work I said Hey, I think you’re a neighbor of mine. He said Oh hey, you should drop by, we’re grilling tonight. (Aside- my neighborhood is racially mixed. Like, highly.) I stopped by and we met in his garage which featured wall decorations including a big confederate flag and a Trump/Pence campaign sign. I stuck around for an hour or so to be neighborly, and in that time he mentioned that the neighbors didn’t seem very friendly. Big mystery, real head scratcher, huh? I won’t be back and I don’t second guess that for a second.
You’d see ***worse ***than salty dialogue and degraded tactics. You’d see outright oppression, done via “clean” means. If U.S. elections were consistently 80% Republican or Democrat, the winning side would soon try to strip away the losing side of various rights and freedoms. They wouldn’t have to resort to vitriolic language because they could simply *politely *squash the other side. No executioner has to be rude to the man he’s about to execute.
I feel bad for people who have their identity so entangled with politics. It is a symptom of democracy that many will feel hatred for their countrymen. I feel it is acceptable to hate the state, even required if one says he favors liberty. If war is the health of the state, and I believe it is, there is no wonder that a cold civil war among factions in a democracy only serves the interest of the state.
Vitriol is ok if it has an element of humor to it. H.L. Mencken is a good model for approaching political issues.
I think for me, the real revelation has been to find out just how many people are so afraid/paranoid/brainwashed against the Democratic party that they’re willing to put up with all that stuff (racism, homophobia, sexual assault, etc…). I mean, these people aren’t necessarily bigoted, racist, etc…, but they’re so wound up about socialism/socialized medicine/collapse of family values/small government/what-have-you, that they’re willing to go along with the GOP’s position on all that stuff.
It’s like they’re thinking “Well, he may be a baby-eating dog sodomizer, but at least he’s not a Democrat.”, and not realizing how ridiculous and insane that sounds.
At what point in US society was ‘Hatred is bad’ the actual philosophy and not just something people paid lip service to? It certainly wasn’t when open warfare against Natives to seize land and things like the Trail of Tears were common, or when balck people were so hated that they were considered chattel and were routinely forced to labor, tortured, raped, and killed. Was it maybe when things went from outright slavery to Jim Crow? Were ‘no Chinese or dogs allowed signs’ a sign of lack of hatret? Or perhaps once racial issues settled down, was it during the time when gays were routinely beaten and killed by police and classed as mental defectives, or during the time when ‘I found out this person was trans or gay and I don’t like it’ was considered a valid defense for murder charges?
I’d really like to know what this time is that we changed away from. Because it seems that what has actually changed is that people are standing up to the hateful, destructive people instead of just saying ‘oh, it’s a difference of opinion’.
In the spirit of the thread, that would have been a good time to open a dialog. Ask him why he needs to fly the flag. Suggest that in your neighborhood, so-called “liberal” attitudes prevail.
Now, also in the other spirit of the OP, I admit my “opening a dialog” would have started with, as soon as I walked in the garage, “What the everlovin’ fuck? You have a confederate flag in your garage? What the fuck is wrong with you?”. So I have begun leaning to the side of hate and vitriol.
For many, “politics” can be a threat to their body and even their lives. I have trouble judging anyone harshly for being very wrapped up in an issue that has a decent chance of resulting in their avoidable suffering or death, but YMMV.
This is a good point. People are tribalistic by nature. It is easy for leaders to stir up hatred for other tribes instead of actually improving things. People used to hate each other for being the wrong nationality, race, or religion, but now they hate each other over who they vote for.
As he is a coworker, I’m falling on the side of keeping the peace. I don’t care to know why a grown man can’t understand why the confederate flag can be hurtful. I don’t hate the guy, and I actually just expressed sincere sympathy to him when he confided in me about his dying dog. But if he’s looking for friends, he’s gonna have to keep looking.
(For the record, not that you stated so but just for the record, I do not consider the confederate flag to have anything to do with “politics”. Flying that flag is not an expression of a political opinion.)
I find myself swinging between unvarnished contempt for the “other side,” and working on seeing commonalities and understanding their concerns.
I believe that the embers for this level of divide were present, but that the current President in particular has fanned them to ever higher levels for his own gain. I think it’s dangerous to continue to exist in this environment as a country. I also persist in the optimistic idea that we have more in common with each other than we realize.
I think this last part is probably true. And people are complicated – having been in the military in life-threatening situations, I’ve personally known people with abominable and even hateful political beliefs who, nonetheless, put their lives at risk to help their shipmates (in one case, a sailor who had pretty openly expressed white supremacist ideals put himself in danger to help a black shipmate). Does this mean he was a good man, in spite of the hate he put out into our little community? I don’t know. And I don’t know what it means about all these millions of folks that, by appearances, seem to be tolerating, excusing, or even celebrating abusers of women and open bigotry.
I don’t judge them harshly. I feel bad for them. If they are being victimized by the state to such an extent, that is unfortunate. I would still advise them to avoid politics and make changes to their style of life. They will be much more likely to experience a positive change.
I’m definitely more angry about politics now than in the past. I think I’m internalizing Karl Popper’s thoughts on tolerance.
If “they” are intolerant about equality, race, sex, gender, poverty, whatever, I’m not interested in playing nice and tolerating their point of view anymore.
I think this attitude coalesced during the push for gay marriage. I looked at myself as a married, straight man, and could not for the life of me dredge up anything in my life that would change if gay people got to marry. Besides calling married gay couples “married”, of course.
Yet, other people like me were fighting, arguing and voting to make sure gay people couldn’t marry. Putting huge energy into denying happiness and security to people, for literally no benefit to anyone else’s life, not even their own. I’m supposed to tolerate this? I’m supposed respect their position enough to debate it, as though it’s not just a repackaging of hate for gays?
