So well stated.
I’m so full of anger and hatred for Trump and Kushner and Graham and so many others. But for my own family members who were fooled by him, I just feel sadness and so I want there to be a way for them to get back in the house.
Anti-Cult therapy sounds a bit extreme, but there has to be some way to reach these people.
Very well articulated.
Related to this thread, have there been any calls for Republicans to listen to Clinton or Biden voters? Maybe it’s the media I consume, but the calls always seem to go the other way.
I’ve asked:
Still waiting.
This is a really sound observation. I would also observe that what makes this an abusive relationship is that Dems need republican voters. We can freeze out the politicians, but the voters aren’t going anywhere. Look how many of them turned out in 2020. Freezing out 70 million people would be satisfying, but it’s not a path to the kind of power that lets you lock Republicans out of the house for good.
True. Part of it may be that even a lot of liberals deep down feel that these low-information, often (not always) rural people are the “salt of the earth,” romanticized like in a gauzy John Cougar Mellencamp video.
(Note I am not accusing JCM himself of any particular political allegiance).
Remember the scene in “Easy Rider” when they spend a day and night at a farmer’s place, and the Peter Fonda character is truly impressed with the guy?
Of course, only a small percentage of Trumpists are actually farmers…but I’m talking about deeper associations here.
I think Democrats (and I count myself as one) need to be very careful about not differentiating between Trump fanatics and Trump voters.
There are lots of voters that are very skeptical of many Democratic initiatives (Green New Deal, Medicare-for-All, Defund the Police). I believe public polling is significantly overstating support for these ideas for the same reason they overstated Biden’s support in many states.
Biden won the presidency because a lot of people just could not stand Trump. I have many in my family that traditionally vote Republican, and probably did for some down-ticket offices, but just can’t stand the man personally and did not vote for him (some of them actually did in 2016). But that doesn’t mean they support Democratic policies writ large.
I do believe that Democrats are most successful when they govern well and from the center. They make it far too easy for the GOP, particularly with the massive institutional advantages the Senate and the Electoral College give them, by giving too much support to ideas that are too far left.
I have pretty big concerns about how the 2022 mid-terms are going to go, and not much faith that the GA runoffs will be successful for the Democrats. Which means Biden is going to have a hell of a time getting anything significant done. The questions is to what extent McConnell’s obstruction of Obama was Obama-specific or if he is going to repeat the same playbook again with Biden. I do have some hope that there are enough outgoing/opposition GOP Senators (Romney, Murkowski, Portman, Toomey) that personally seem to like Biden to get some reasonable things done.
@Cervaise: You raise good points, but - the problem is, for a marital abuser to come to his or her senses, they need to recognize that they are the abuser, not the victim. And what you just wrote here is eerily similar to something I read on a Trump message board once - “For too many years, we Republicans have played nice while Democrats took advantage of us again and again. We need to stop being Mister Nice Guy.” (Yes, they genuinely believe that.) Newt Gingrich once said that “Democrats play pro football while Republicans play badminton.”
When you have both sides convinced that they are “the nice, meek, abused spouse” while the other is the tough, ruthless abuser, that’s a recipe for an ever-more-and-more-vicious war.
I personally struggle with that tendency, because I grew up in that milieu and I would like to believe the best about people I know and love, and the above myth is what we all told one another about ourselves.
Though to be honest, I’m not sure that there’s any political salt left in the political earth that isn’t inextricably commingled with cyanide at this point.
This is why Americans can’t ever have nice things. The constant appeal and appeasement of the lowest common denominator of the right.
No Republican (or Trump supporter for that matter) can claim the slightest bit of high ground when it comes to fiscal responsibility. That train left the station and has crashed and burned a long time ago. What’s left are the right’s objections to progressive social policies like UHC, pro-choice, gay rights, climate change, and separation of church and state. Not a single one of these policies, if enacted, will hurt a single GOP voter. In fact, most of them will be of huge benefit to all Americans. But the petulant childish fuckers would rather set fire to their own house than allow a Democrat to help them not lose it.
I feel like we’ve been having this discussion since the administration of Bush the Lesser. I happen to agree 100% with all the rhetoric that Republicans are only weakly (or falsely) anti-deficit and pro-life. But if you ask them how they see it, they are definitely spending hawks who are employing a wily strategy of using tax cuts to starve programs they dislike.
They have reasons to see themselves as they do. I find those reasons unsound and delusional, but it is a reasoned position.
See, this is where some of what I’m trying to say gets lost trying to type it out.
I agree that most of what you say is correct from a policy perspective. UHC, gay rights, climate change, etc - in all areas I believe at least what I would call the “center left” has the correct policy prescriptions. Certainly the Democratic party has been by far the more fiscally responsible party when in power - it’s not even close.
What I’m talking about is messaging. You have to sell your policies, and the best way to do that is by wrapping them in positive, popular messaging.
Climate Change: Look at the wonderful improvements we have made to our air and water since the 1950s. Look at our beautiful national park system and the huge improvements in things like acid rain and ozone depletion. America can solve any problem when we work together with our industries to find solutions. And by inventing these new technologies we will have entire new industries for our children and grandchildren to work in.
Instead we get: Big oil is ruining the planet and lying about the science and the only solution is to eliminate carbon-based fuels in 20 years by highly taxing it. No more big trucks and no more fast cars. If you currently work in the fossil fuel industry you can take some courses to learn how to code.
Now the second message may actual include the correct policy prescription (pricing carbon just like we did other harmful pollutants and invest in workforce re-training for obsoleted industries). But the first one sells a lot better. Biden should have just clearly said “I’m not banning fracking and I think the Green New Deal is too extreme” and then do simple things like getting us back into the Paris Accords and working on getting CAFE standard back in place. Maybe pass some infrastructure spending that includes investment in renewable power generation.
Nonsense. They don’t believe that at all. It’s part of their gaslighting. Literally, the abuser in a toxic marriage frequently portrays himself as the victim. Only fools and those with a vested interest will believe it.
The thing is, big oil has been investing in cleaner renewable energy. They have no plans to be out of business 20 or 50 years from now. They will be producing renewable energy with the best of them. Just today GM announced that they are abandoning Trump deregulations and returning to Obama era emissions standards that will be in line with the incoming Biden administration policies.
Industry is not so far out of step with progressive policies as some people seem to think. The only people getting left behind, by choice and willful ignorance, are those on the right. My worry is that it will only get worse and some may get desperate enough to resort to violence and acts of domestic terrorism.
GOP leadership is gaslighting, for sure. But thanks to that gaslighting, lots of GOP voters truly believe they’re the victims of oppression by the left. Just because they’re misinformed and delusional doesn’t mean they don’t believe it – and this is what makes them so unreachable.
Not that I’ve seen. Probably because the Trump voters consider themselves to be the only “real” Americans, so why should they listen to the others?
Exactly. And that is what gives me hope. The future will come, and (as an unrepentant optimist) I am hopeful that it will be better. Because basically that has been the course of history for quite a long time now.
Politically I think it wise to highlight that progress, rejoice in it, and then focus on what the future will look like and how we will all get there together. I don’t think the left does itself any political favors by focusing on the negative.
So I guess to answer the OP, I don’t think anybody needs to listen to Trump voters. But they do need to start talking to them using language they understand. Tell them how the future will be better for them. And try very hard to resist the urge to call everybody that disagrees with a particular policy racist or ignorant or “overly religious” or whatever. It doesn’t help win more votes.
Yep, altho the GOP can somewhat rightly call the Dems “Tax and spend” the GOP is “borrow and spend”, which is worse.
The national debt, of course, is only important when the dems are in power.
This is what Biden said at the convention when he accepted the nomination:
Here and now, I give you my word: If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us not the worst. I will be an ally of the light not of the darkness.
It’s time for us, for We the People, to come together.
For make no mistake. United we can, and will, overcome this season of darkness in America. We will choose hope over fear, facts over fiction, fairness over privilege.
and
We can, and we will, deal with climate change. It’s not only a crisis, it’s an enormous opportunity. An opportunity for America to lead the world in clean energy and create millions of new good-paying jobs in the process.
That sounds pretty similar to what you suggested. So you tell me, did it work?