Trump is a destructive force in politics, plain and simple. If there is progress to be made, it will be done by others, certainly not by him. You don’t thank the bomb for the trees that eventually grow in its aftermath.
At the risk of being the smug liberal that we’re talking about, continuing to hold positions that have been demonstrated to be factually wrong is stupid.
It’s what make me most irritated about the Right – the idea that facts and opinions are equally valid in determining reality, and particularly the dismissal of settled science that doesn’t match their political desires or agendas.
There’s no getting around that. It is stupid. And if saying so makes me smug, then so be it.
Yeah, somehow I knew someone would come up with something along those lines. Nature has its own mechanisms and doesn’t need help. A bomb isn’t natural.
Trump has revealed that many (most?) people who vote Republican have no allegiance to modern Republican ideology. That’s a good thing, I suppose. We always wondered why the white, working class, average Joes were voting for a party that was making everything harder for them. Turns out it’s more tribalism than policy, and they’re even more excited to vote for someone who breaks away from standard Right Wing bullshit. The bad news is they’re falling for a simpleton who–more than most politicians–promises the world but has zero chance of delivering anything. That’s true despite his self-proclaimed ability to make “great deals.”
The Unites States is not in crises. Things are fairly good, and the Republicans efforts at whipping the voters into a frenzy about how Obama has ruined everything has caused their voters to seek a more radical engine for repair. I’d say he has about 0.4% chance of winning in November.
The Vox article is excellent and challenging. And I think many aspects of it are very true, including the contempt many on the left have for the poor, while claiming to promote policies that would help them. We liberals are champion NIMBYists and snobs.
I don’t think the whole article is correct. I think that many on the right have utterly rejected science in favor of religion and ideology (but many on the left reject science in favor of woo and ideology, so again, don’t get too smug).
It’s all well and good to say that the Republican party and American conservatism are embracing utter bullshit. But let’s not act as if we are immune to the utter bullshit ourselves, if we cocoon ourselves in echo chambers (I like to mix my metaphors. Sue me). The number of posters on this board who will swallow any negative rumor about conservatives and repost without a thought is sky high.
Go read at Redstate or Free Republic. If you don’t think idiotic liberals and idiotic conservatives can sound eerily similar, you will after you read there and then read the comments section at HuffPo and RawStory.
The Vox article paints with entirely too broad a brush, and does a lot of cherry picking to try to make its point. There’s a difference between pointing out individual examples of smugness – people condemning Kim Davis’ appearance, for example – and showing a consistent pattern of smugness that’s endemic and peculiar to the liberal wing.
A far better article is “I Can Tolerate Anything Except the Outgroup” by Scott Alexander (2014). I Can Tolerate Anything Except The Outgroup | Slate Star Codex
Alexander does a great job of examining the causes of tribalism in our current Red/Blue political landscape, and the effects that arise from it. I found Alexander’s take on this subject to be insightful, while Emmett Rensin, the author of the Vox article, provides little other than anecdotal examples.
well said. hence why Dems need to stop the crusading on transvestites and boycotting states like NC because they don’t see eye to eye on it.
Democrats should crusade on transgender issues, although I agree that boycotts are a tool that really shouldn’t be used. You really don’t want conservatives responding in kind and creating more Dixie Chicks situations. But we might have to start doing that to send a message. Maybe we should start with California, which won’t pay for expensive cancer meds, but will pay to euthanize you.
On no, couldn’t be conservative’s fault. If liberals start boycotting things they disagree with, conservatives would have no choice but to do the same. Can’t blame them; it’s purely retaliatory, completely out of their hands.
Never mind that the Dixie Chicks thing happened first.
Actually, it started with the civil rights movement. The Dixie Chicks were far from the first people to basically get ostracized for saying something impolitic. That’s really what needs to stop, this thing where people basically get excommunicated for saying one dumb thing.
But as for laws getting passed, boycotts over duly passed laws is a bit new, and if this is going to be a thing now, it might be time for conservatives to pick a target and start organizing boycotts.
This isn’t being smug, it’s bullying.
The bathroom thing is not a Republican vs. Democrat thing. It is a bigot vs. non-bigot thing. Sure, Democrats, as the party that has been strongest against bigotry, are often the ones getting involved in the various kinds of protests, including boycotts. But there have been plenty of Republicans against such laws, too.
Boycotts are an inherent part of the free market. They can’t be wrong if you think the free market is a good thing. All people have the right to choose who they buy their products and services from. If an entity does not want to do what its customers want, then its customers have the right to not purchase from that entity. It is a companies job to provide what the customer wants to buy.
It’s a little different being applied to a state, and there is at least the argument that you are hurting other businesses in the middle. Sure, you aren’t paying taxes to North Carolina, but you are also hurting businesses who may be fighting against it. But this isn’t that different from hurting employees who fight what their employers do.
But companies have a choice employees don’t. They can brand themselves as specifically LGBT friendly. They can get around the bathroom legislation by changing their bathrooms to unisex, with only suggestions on who goes where if they have stalls you can see over. And the state can’t fire them for it.
So you pay them, but not those who don’t. And it becomes much closer to a traditional boycott–abandoning the businesses that, through inaction, support something their customers don’t want them to.
I won’t get into the ostracization thing, if only because it would only be argued over the other one. Suffice it to say that ostracization is the way that society enforces its mores. It’s natural. Just because its mores are now more liberal doesn’t make it wrong.
And one mistake doesn’t hurt you. One mistake without apologizing does.
No, it’s not. At most you could argue that calling people stupid is bullying–though I’d argue it depends on the circumstance. But calling an idea stupid? That’s not abusive, it’s just stating an opinion.
And it’s an opinion that is often well-supported. If what you say is contrary to reality. If the experts all agree that what you say is wrong, what you’re saying is stupid. Saying that anthropogenic global warming is false is stupid. Saying that Mexico can be made to pay for a wall is stupid. Creating a tax plan that even conservatives say will actually double the deficit withing a year is stupid. Saying Muslims were celebrating in the streets in the U.S. at 9/11 is stupid.
And notice that all but one of those come from one man? That’s why people have no problem saying TRUMP is stupid. Sure, he clearly has some rhetorical/political chops. But when it comes to any of his positions, he is being completely stupid.
And, like it or not, his followers are the most misinformed, believing more untrue things than others. These beliefs are–get this–stupid.
The issue now is that conservatives are embracing a lot of counter-factual ideas, but then trying to make it sound like the problem is calling them stupid. Instead of aligning with reality, they go after the wrong thing. Ironically, the more politically incorrect party is starting to act like those “politically correct” jerks who say “stupid” is a slur.
You can’t actually argue based on the issues, so you turn to tone policing. You go back to your arguments of liberals being “elites,” which really seems more and more to mean “intellectuals.”
And it’s not surprising that the party that prides itself on praising anti-intellectualism would be called stupid. That’s what it means to be anti-intellectual.
Yep. I’m getting sick of seeing editorials saying, essentially “You can’t dismiss Trump’s ideas as stupid when so many people are supporting him”. Yes, yes I can.
Stupid is ignoring the facts and revelling in ignorance. Or worse, just making up facts (e.g. “I saw people celebrating on 9/11”). And then suggesting ideas that just a few minutes of critical thought would show as unworkable.
And force of numbers doesn’t make any of this less stupid.
(I should be clear though: “dismiss ideas as stupid” implies disengaging, and not being prepared to discuss any further. I’m happy to have an open-minded conversation on what I think are the problems with his ideas and rhetoric)
The bathroom thing is a women vs. women thing. The issue concerns us men not at all. And yes, some women can be pretty bigoted towards men in their bathrooms.
Boycotts are a legitimate form of political expression and consistent with free market economics. No disagreement there. It’s also basically a nuclear bomb that can ruin pretty much everything if it becomes a regular thing, rather than a rare thing to be broken out in extraordinary circumstances.
True, I just wish we’d ostracize murderers and rapists first and then worry about people who have views on race that are not perfectly acceptable. Al Campanis’ career ended, Mike Tyson still gets work in entertainment.
The correct term should be “Shouldn’t”. Not because Trump’s ideas aren’t stupid, they are, but because generally you don’t dismiss the views of large groups of people. It tends to not be very constructive. Most Americans are ignorant about issues of politics and science. Write off “the stupid”, as liberals are wont to do, and pretty soon they’ll find themselves without a voting base. Ironically, it’s their PC instincts which save them. They only tend to directly insult dumb white people. If liberals had thrown fits over African-Americans voting for anti-gay propositions in California, that might have had consequences.
Yeah I tried to clarify that at the end of my post.
I call his ideas stupid, because they are. However, “dismiss” implies not listening or engaging and I would not do that.
But it also means finding ways to address their legitimate concerns. My views on immigration are pretty close to libertarian, but I understand the anger at how politicians have consistently lied about the issue and promised enforcement while trying their hardest not to deliver on it. The anger at that is justified and legitimate and it damages are political system. Which we’re seeing right now.
Then there’s the anger at “the other” for their economic circumstances, but it’s not like the Liz Warrens of the world are producing a more convincing narrative. Donald Trump directs his fire in all directions: at immigrants, at business, at politicians, at foreign countries. Democrats would have us believe it’s all the rich people’s fault, which not many people are buying, and which is also simply not true. But that’s what happens when you are only willing to blame those it’s politically correct to blame. Which is also, well, stupid, but I don’t dismiss the concerns of people who actually believe that the rich are the cause of all their problems.
Cite please? I live in California and I’ve never heard of this supposed policy.