I’m not saying appease the likes of Scott Atlas or Stephen Miller – fuck them. But there needs to be more outreach in places where Democrats are likely to lose most of the time, but before they go, they need to have a message that will matter and they need action.
Democrats lost unions in many of these places when the factories shut down and the union jobs went with them. The union workers know that Republicans are anti-union, but curiously, they stopped seeing Democrats as being defenders of unions, as many of them ended up chasing corporate fundraising – which is fine to an extent but it makes them less credible when they claim to be defending the interests of the common man. Moreover, they not only lose union support, but their environmental policies and advocacy for things like “green energy” puts them at odds with voters who are fighting to hang on to the remaining industrial plants that they have.
That reminds me of a problem that Dems had even in urban centers: they became the shut-down party. Again, it’s completely understandable why they ordered shutdowns, but they’ve not done a particularly good job in conveying empathy to workers and shop owners who’ve lost their businesses. I’m not saying that they’re losing the argument based on the science and facts, but they’re losing the message, so in a way, they are losing the argument anyway.
Yes there’s a lot of misinformation out there, but it’s a mistake to assume that people aren’t genuinely concerned about their economic futures and that just ordering businesses to shut down induces extreme anxieties about the future of an owner’s business and the economic futures of employees who work there.
Agreed. How can we possibly have a rational conversation with a party that tells it’s followers to “rise up” against scientific and medical advice that is there to save their own lives?
How can we deal with a party that thinks “alternative facts” is a just as good as the truth?
The Republicans are living in a world of fantasy, of falsehoods and of denial. They WILL NOT shift from this. It’s not a matter of opinion, it’s a matter of what is FACT and what is FICTION. They embrace fiction with an unshakable tenacity.
Republicans live in a world where the WW II allies invaded France to rescue it from “socialism”.
Republicans live in a world where a pandemic is a hoax, and diseases are not spread by viruses.
Republicans live in a world where a mentally ill person can put forth an opinion that Democrats are keeping children prisoner in the basement of a pizza parlor, and they believe this to be true.
Republicans live in a world of fantasy.
There is no “middle ground” between what is undeniably true and what is simply made up garbage. There are not “two sides” here. And they refuse to negotiate. They refuse to listen. There is no point engaging with them.
My governor consistently writes quite empathic and lovely Facebook and official messages about the effects of shut downs. What she gets back is insults and hate speech.
Great. So we have to wait until 5 million people drop dead before these morons go, “Y’know, maybe we need to re-prioritize here.” How many is it going to take??
This. And we’re told “oh, you’re just not trying hard enough to reach out to them.”
It’s like there is a rabid squirrel in your yard, that tries to bite you every time you get near. Your neighbor gives you the advice “Oh, he’s probably really nice deep down… just try to pat and cuddle him. All he needs is love.”
No. He’s a rabid squirrel. No amount of cuddling will make him into anything other than a rabid squirrel. That’s who he is. He cannot be changed by your good will. It’s time to recognize that.
Again, having a discussion on how to best handle the pandemic is great. A discussion that understands the challenges and fears about jobs and economic futures.
But they won’t let that discussion happen and instead perpetuate that fear by denying the pandemic’s very existence. Now there is no debate on solutions because all the oxygen in the room is yelling about whether a global pandemic even exists. I do not think your solution will help.
And yeah, fuck Scott Atlas but, as noted, he is not on the fringe. He is in the government helping to set policy on this stuff. It matters and ignoring him does not help (much as I would like to ignore him).
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi… but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.” ~ Hannah Arendt
Stated differently, the death of truth, or the idea that the truth can’t really be truly known. Authoritarians want to be the source of truth. I agree that this is what the Republican party is turning into - no question.
They’re evolving in this way because there are real fissures to exploit, and real grievances among their voters, which are mixed in with some grievances that are more perceived than real.
Level 1 disgusting: That acknowledging and adhering to the results of an election – as every other losing candidate has done for centuries – is somehow a character test for the GOP.
I disagree. What grievances? What is so bad to cause these voters to split so radically? That someone had to bake a cake for a gay man once? A transgendered person might be in a public bathroom they are in? Really…what is so awful?
Really interesting analogy … except I kind of doubt BMO people spend much time on social media spewing hate about CIBC people. (Though I don’t live in Canada, so I could be wrong. )
I think the better analogy is college sports alliances. You’re born into an Ohio State family (even if no one in the clan has ever attended!) and you grow up hating Michigan. You never think about why. You certainly don’t spend much time carefully weighing the benefits of one institution of higher learning against the other’s. You just root for the scarlet-and-grey and wish nothing but bad fortune on the maize-and-blue.
Our governor is a Republican. But apparently not Trump’s kind of Republican. He’s the kind who started out strong listening to medical advisors, then started crumpling to demands of deranged people, and lately has been begging people to wear masks so we don’t have to shut down again. He’s really trying to compromise but Ohio Republicans and Trump are through with him.
I will remember that as a historian, one important bit will be to never forget that right now Trump can save many lives by recommending or setting an example of what it needs to be done.
Trump advising doing the most reckless things means that he’ll be IMHO remembered by posterity as one of the biggest negligent criminals in history.
That’s a good analogy too, but the reason the banking analogy is better, IMHO, is that it actually affects your life. This is a decision that - as much as banks are generally the same - could honestly make a difference of thousands of dollars to you, depending on which products you need, and yet most people don’t bother to look.
It’s also more analogous in that banks DO compete for your business; sports teams really don’t compete with each other for business; while they compete with each other on the field, they are all business partners. They compete with other entertainment options. The thing is, a bank in Canada KMOWS everything I wrote. They are fully aware of the fact that 90% of the customer base is unconscious and that they’re fighting over stealing or retaining a small slice of the customer base. Similarly, the GOP and Democrats are fighting over a relatively small slice of the voters, while 90% of the voters either don’t really care or don’t matter anyway (which makes them less likely to care.)
The shit coming out of rural Ohio is completely out of control. These are the same people who showed up with weapons and Nazi flags outside of Dr. Amy Acton’s home. These are the same people who scared off her replacement before she even started her new job. Dewine should have never tried to appease them. Trump’s tweets will only embolden them further if that is even possible at this point.
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