My take on that is that the Bible emerged from a period in human history when authoritarianism was the only mindset.
Skepticism and pluralism are recent innovations. Most people only cultivate these when they have some specific experience where they feel authority has betrayed them beyond the pale of “lean not on your own understanding”. So it’s not surprising that we have these holy texts, and cultures surrounding them, that discourage skeptical or individual thought.
Why would you ever expect renaming ideas to work? Either you have to persuade enough people to support the concepts, or you modify or drop them.
This one @jimmy_chitwood linked to above.
It wouldn’t be a good idea in any case, but you could entirely drop concepts like white privilege, structural racism etc. and it wouldn’t matter. The GOP would move on to “why is it racist to say all lives matter.”
The solution can’t be to keep pulling back until you abandon any socially progressive cause.
I had trouble reading it with my work laptop. Still can’t. Will have to try again later with my personal laptop.
Isn’t the Democratic party platform a big compromise anyway? I doubt it’s anywhere close to most people’s ideal, so why the horrified reactions to the idea of changing anything?
Yes, it is a giant compromise between a lot of groups who have to swallow some very bitter pills on some issues in order to get some ground on others. However, when the compromise is between people who want a higher minimum wage versus small business owners or something like that, there’s an actual issue to compromise on.
The cultural issues that people want the Democrats to compromise on are not something where you walk back enough and then someone will be happy. The people who get riled up about “critical race theory” trainings don’t have problems that will be fixed by getting rid of those trainings. They’ve been tricked by the GOP into thinking those are the real issues, and because they aren’t the real issues, no matter how far the Dems slide back those issues and those grievances will still exist.
The task for the Democrats is to convince people like that that whatever socially progressive cause they’re mad about is not actually hurting them. Right wing economic policy is hurting them (in reality a lot of things about the world that are not up to any politician are also hurting them, and no policy will be a perfect solution).
There are none. Have you gotten us that cite yet?
I feel like the whole Obama-Trump voter analysis has a glaring flaw and that it assumes they were democrats who suddenly bought into what Trump was selling as an indictment of where the democratic party went. What if they were Bush-Obama-Trump voters? In other words that Obama was the anomaly whose trailblazing candidacy won republicans over at a time when the incumbent Republican president’s popularity was at basement level and the republican candidates were seen as a continuation of Bush policy. But in 2016 when Obama was not on the ballot and the republican candidate ran against the Bush legacy to get the nomination, they returned to the GOP.
Here is a Op ed piece that accuses the Dems of calling fraud every election:
I can’t read that due to my ad blocker. What kind of fraud did Democrats call out in 2016?
If the claim is that people voted for Trump who otherwise wouldn’t have, due to Russian propaganda and gullible brain cells, then I think “fraud” is a bit of a stretch.
There were cites provided upthread already. Millions of such voters.
Give me a post number then.
Note that in post 135 I also asked for a cite.
Oh, wikipedia. That’s a poor cite as one of it’s cites says "However, as we pointed out above, there are reasons to be skeptical of reported past vote. "
https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/just-how-many-obama-2012-trump-2016-voters-were-there/
From the article:
In 2017, after Donald Trump’s shocking victory, Democrats again waged a congressional floor fight to stop certification of the Electoral College.
“I object because people are horrified by the overwhelming evidence of Russian interference in our election,” said Rep. Barbara Lee of California, as she and others attempted to toss the electors from Alabama, Florida, Michigan, Texas, Mississippi and the Carolinas.
Then, from the linked story in the quote:
Members of the House of Representatives objected to the electoral tally in states including Alabama, Florida, Michigan, Texas, Mississippi and the Carolinas in a symbolic move that exposed lingering dismay over a contentious election campaign.
Some members complained about long lines at polling stations while others cited concerns over Russian attempts to influence the result in Trump’s favor.
So not really any claims about fraud.
For many years, going back to around the end of Obama’s first term, I’ve had a feeling about the dynamic between the Republicans and the Democrats — specifically, that it reminds me of an abusive marriage.
This comes from direct personal experience: My biological father was a monster who gleefully mistreated my mother when he wasn’t emotionally tormenting or physically beating me and my brother. And for my own part, I showed I hadn’t really learned from my childhood when I spent a few years married to a sad and angry person who actively worked to sabotage my relationships with friends and family so she could drag me down as a full-time collaborator in her black hole of despair. (I’m much better now, thank you.)
In that context, the behavior of both sides makes a lot of sense. The GOP is an aggressive gaslighter, claiming to be defending elections while eroding universal suffrage, pretending to be financially responsible while hollowing out the middle class and destabilizing the economy, waving the flag of law and order while assembling administrations vastly more criminally corrupt than their opposition, and on and on. Whenever the Dems raise a voice of disagreement or take tentative steps toward a progressive policy, the GOP’s wild overreactions sound very much like the abuser’s rationalization: “It’s your fault I’m punching you in the face; I don’t like it but you asked for it.”
And the Dems, for their part, are the fearful, desperate appeasers, forming political strategies not in the interest of moving forward but on the basis of avoiding getting punched again. They implicitly validate the GOP’s arguments and accept the implied reality behind their talking points by responding to them directly instead of calling them on the begged questions and working to establish an alternative foundational perspective. They pre-emptively filter and dilute their own agenda in anticipation of the GOP’s negative response, they apologize for their actions as provocations, and they deny to outside observers the hostility and maltreatment they constantly receive. “The GOP isn’t that bad,” they say, “it’s just going through a phase, and if we can reach out to them, show them we’re willing to compromise, we just know they’ll work with us again.” And this happens over and over, the Republicans constantly on the attack, whittling away at the foundations of stable governance, and the Dems occasionally being called on to clean up GOP messes and restore a semblance of normalcy without the ability to claim credit or describe openly what’s happening.
The thing is, though, I’ve avoided talking about this too much, or too directly, because I’m aware that as a cishet male, it’s distasteful and problematic for me to make blunt pronouncements about marital abuse. Especially coming from my side of the divide in cultural power, casual statements about this deeply fraught topic can come off as detached and patronizing and gross. You’ll note that, even here, I was careful to couch my perception as coming straight from my own personal life, because I don’t want this analogy to feel like a mere “observation” from a perch of condescension. I’m also very conscious that, like every analogy, it’s not a perfect match for reality. And because it can be nitpicked, it’s vulnerable to angry fault-finding rebuttals from people who take offense from all sides (conservatives: how dare you accuse me of being a wife-beater; women’s advocates: how dare you minimize this tragedy by reducing it in your metaphor).
For those reasons, I’ve kept this mostly to myself, using it as a private lens for looking at and understanding the political dynamic, and arguing indirectly from the insights it provides. For example, Donald Trump is a literal abusive husband and misogynist, the ur-pig among chauvinist pigs, so it makes perfect sense why the GOP would actualize its inner self by latching onto him so strongly. And the Dems get traction against Trump and his minions not when they normalize his breaks from political custom and human decency but when they outright reject and mock his delusions and puncture his inflated bubble of power, the same way one confronts a puffed-up bully.
So it was intensely gratifying to read Rebecca Solnit’s recent essay about the Left “reaching out” to the Right and see her come to the exact same analogy. “I grew up in an era where wives who were beaten were expected to do more to soothe their husbands and not challenge them,” she writes, “and this carries on as the degrading politics of our abusive national marriage. … Feminism is good for everything, and it’s a good model for seeing that this is both outrageous and a recipe for failure. It didn’t work in marriages, and it never was the abused partner’s job to prevent the abuse by surrendering ground and rights and voice.” And then this is picked up and elaborated in the comments; one poster says that if one accepts this model, “it becomes clear why Democrats have to do all the emotional labor: the compromising, the reaching out, the understanding, the conciliation, the apologizing.”
The point of all this is to sum up my perspective, as follows: The GOP’s current line of argument, where they grudgingly concede the loss but warn the Dems that the concerns of Trump voters “better be listened to,” along with the Dems’ agonized internal debate about the extent to which they should “reach out” to those voters and “make peace” with them, feels almost exactly like a spouse who has sobered up and found himself on the lawn, locked out of the house, and is now begging to be re-admitted, while his partner watches quietly from a window, wondering whether to open the door.
The GOP will never stop trying to get back into the house, and Lord knows they may still find a way to get inside on their own. But it would be madness for the Dems to willingly open the latch and issue an invitation.
Another compelling and very readable mini-essay - thanks, @Cervaise.
Absolutely. You cleanly articulate something I’ve been saying for years right respect to accusations of liberal bias in the news media. I’ve even used the “abused spouse” analogy in that instance.
I’ve been the one saying that I’m skeptical that they exist in consequential numbers. Poll estimates vary from 6.7 to 9.2 M. But every cite of their existence I’ve ever seen is based on polls and statistics. I’m pretty sure nobody polled anywhere near 6.7M voters. The data is sampled and relies on self reporting. And, as if it needs to be pointed out, people in polls are notorious fucking liars. I think people in a poll like ‘Obama-Trump voters’ are particularly motivated to lie for obvious reasons.