There’s some truth to that, but it cuts both ways. The Trump types are losing contact with the educated liberals, too. If Trump voters find talk of “flyover country” to be dismissive and insulting, then they should stop talking about godless, America-hating, ivory-tower liberals. Neither group has a claim to being the true Americans. And where are the Trump voters’ attempts to reach out, or to understand the other side?
Yes, this. It’s so one-sided. Which is actually patronizing, even infantilizing, if you think about it.
It seems that one of those major [del]FAKE![/del] news outlets viddied some fat guy out a golfing, at a time when said fat guy claimed he would be buckling down to Master Artful Grift Again. Fat guy’s handlers got peeved about this intrusion on fat guy’s privacy, so they hired a large vehicle to escort fat guy around the course, postitionec so that [del]FAKE![/del] news cameras could not record the golfing. Fat guy’s SS people claim that they are only there for protection, and the vehicle was someone else’s idea.
In case of a server error, the GOP website is coded to deliver the error message “Oops! Something went wrong. Unlike Obama, we are working to fix the problem… and not on the golf course.”
Of course, it was actually coded incorrectly, and won’t be able to deliver that message ever. Because irony is dead.
Even better.
That…is the Trumpest thing ever.
I think there is more to it than a failure to convince others to vote a certain way or to share this or that political opinion. I think most people here will agree that, on the right, there is a massive amount of outright misinformation being spread. AGW is a hoax? Um, no, and it isn’t an opinion question, just look at the data. A wall will keep out immigrants? Um, even if we were to agree to hate Mexicans, most illegals are here because they overstayed their visas. A wall won’t stop that, and besides, have you ever heard of a ladder?
Some of the misinformation is quite old. See How Republicans Learned to Sell Tax Cuts for the Rich. This trickle-down con goes back to way before Reagan- it is almost 100 years old!
My point is that there is an awful lot of factual information that is being obscured in the minds of righties by sheer misinformation. It isn’t that we failed to convince them to vote the right way, we have failed to communicate some basics about reality. Whoever is the source of all this propaganda should not be able to get away with it, and they wouldn’t if we had an informed citizenry. So, it is your fault and my fault and our fault that Trump rode a wave of bullshit into the White House, because we did not keep our fellow citizens informed. How did we let that happen? (Plus Hillary was a lousy candidate, mmkay?)
I’m going to make an ethical argument here: informed people should use their position to support and benefit mis- and uninformed people. It is wrong to do to them what Fox, Trump and the GOP are doing. They are our fellow citizens, therefore capitalistic competition should be tempered when it comes to disseminating basic information.
The misinformed are taught to think and say certain things about “liberals” (whatever that really means) to the point that it has been cultivated into a culture trend. They are taught that we need to increase our bloated defense budget by billions, yet it would be Socialism Itself for the government to lift a finger to defend our people against this. Is that “domestic tranquility”? Is the “general welfare” being served? Un-American ideals are being spread, and I believe it is the responsibility of those in the know to set straight those who are weak and vulnerable to pernicious propaganda.
So, maybe they don’t reach out. We need to find a way around that. We shouldn’t just throw away 1/3 of our population because some Pied Piper has led them down the path to believing being an enemy of one’s own government is patriotic.
It is a separate question how to do this without seeming condescending or infantilizing or what have you.
TL/DNR: I agree with the foreign guy who says “eff you!” to all of us in response to Trump’s election.
This is absurd. In fact, it could be called a “wave of bullshit”. Never mind how patronizing and infantilizing it is to Trump voters (you didn’t quote that part of my post), because Trump voters probably deserve that. But it is so #notourjob to be the special ed teachers to 40 million adult voters, even if there were some way we could actually get a bunch of people, mostly older than we are and already suspicious of pointy-headed egghead liberals, to accept our guidance.
What you are suggesting is not practical, fair, or in any way reasonable. Furthermore, I suspect if we unpacked it a bit, you’d allow as you’re not really endorsing blaming black or brown people for Trump. Maybe not even women? So what that really means is that you are saying anyone who happens to have been born with a Y chromosome and a fair complexion has some kind of collective genetic responsibility to keep others with similar genetic profiles in line. Which is batshit crazy, you do realize. Right? :dubious:
I suppose in a way I admire your certainty and self confidence, but I can’t see it ever working the way you describe. I like to think I could meet anybody halfway, and exchange views about what I think, and why; but I can’t force someone to have that dialog if they’re not also ready to have it. And if I want other people to have an open mind, and to discuss disagreements respectfully, I have to be willing to be that way, myself. Be the change that you want to see in the world, and all that stuff.
You can be the change you want to be, but it’s not gonna change shit. I would unfortunately probably also agree that lecturing these people like a college professor won’t work either.
The problem is deeper than just ignorance; it’s a cultural problem, which is why the rest of the outside world really has no patience for trying to understand the fears and concerns of the white working class that voted Trump into power and the apathy of others that otherwise allowed it to happen.
The cultural problem is that America values capitalism and individual competition to degrees that are unhealthy. There’s nothing wrong with capitalism in and of itself, and most people around the world would agree that it’s a great system for creating wealth. But wealth needs to be redistributed so that people who aren’t quite as capitalistic can at least have their basic needs met. Humans evolved to be more cooperative than competitive. We have a built-in fairness meter, and we know when we’re getting screwed.
A major problem with American capitalism in particular is that it is a system that was built on racial exploitation (and class exploitation more broadly) - and we have still never completely addressed that fact. We have created civil rights laws (which are now under attack by the way) and that’s all well and good, but nothing is going to change substantively until we embrace a different kind of value system in which we demand that everyone have certain inalienable minimum standards of living, which will inevitably involve some modest sacrifices from those at the apex of economic and political power.
Does that mean that in the event the site does go down, the actual error message will be, “Trump can’t Javascript”?
WHAT?!
Look, if you disagree with what I actually said, that happens. But let’s not strawman me into whatever it is you’re seeing. Black people, women, a lot of them simply DID NOT VOTE. They’re to blame, too. We are one nation. But before I answer you any further, do you mind giving me a response to what I actually said instead of making stuff up?
Odds and ends: I didn’t quote your post, but I did use the word “infantilizing”. There is a problem there, agreeed. And, I don’t consider myself a liberal, so maybe I am more suited to this cause than literal “liberals” (whatever that word even means).
But we’ve seen it work in the other direction. How did all these people get their heads full of bullshit? Propaganda. It worked. Therefore, there must be a way to get it to work for the cause of justice.
I can talk to moderate Republicans. I recently discussed immigration with some of them. I talked about the incredibly high cost of detention,deportation and walls. I talked about how the trade war mentality makes conditions worse in Mexico and increases illegal immigration. I talked about how weakening Mexico economically makes it harder for them to police their Southern border and increases illegal immigration. I talked about how when you let companies move low skill low pay jobs to Mexico it decreases illegal immigration.
I talked about how people, regardless of country of origin, increase economic demand for goods and services by simply existing, But, my friends said, they send all their money back to their home countries. Good point, I said - maybe if they can sponsor family members more money will stay in the US. Maybe that’s behind the policies that you reflexively refer to as “chain migration”.
What can I say. They listened to me and I’d like to think I gave them some new perspective. But it seemed fragile.
But I cannot imagine having the same conversation with the hardcore Trump supporters I’ve met. Because they seem to be blinded to both kindness and reason. There is too much anger and hate driving their policy. It’s about exerting power and to them, exerting power is about hurting your enemies. And making enemies of everyone that doesn’t agree with you.
I tried having a persuasive conversation with a Trump supporter about the hurricane response. But I ran into a factual barrier because this Trump supporter did not realize what the word “troop” meant and was going on about the 10 thousand battalions of soldiers we sent to Puerto Rico. How could I complain about the response when they sent over a million soldiers? What more do I want?
I said “ when the newscaster says 10,000 troops they mean 10,000 soldiers.” But the dude didn’t believe me.
So I lost patience and fell back on my stock response, which is “YOUR President Trump can suck my balls”. Sorry.
Trump wants to add a question about citizenship to the Census forms, which would almost assuredly lead to nondocumented residents not answering the questions. Which would, of course, lead to a miscount in areas with large numbers of nondocumented residents.
Trump Justice Department Pushes for Citizenship Question on Census, Alarming Experts — ProPublica?
Ask him why he hates the US military. The US Army and the Marines have the following units, from smallest to largest:
(Team)
• Squad.
• Platoon.
• Company or Battery.
• Battalion.
• Regiment.
• (Brigade)
• Division.
• Corps.
• Field Army/Marine Corp
No Troops. With the exception of “a group of soldiers, especially a cavalry unit commanded by a captain, or an airborne unit” or “a small formation of cavalry, subordinate to a squadron.” I’m pretty sure they’re not sending horses to Puerto Rico.
If you look up troop in a dictionary, the first definition is “soldiers or armed forces.” But you knew that.
Surprised that this hasn’t been mentioned yet: Trump has fired all the remaining members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS. No warning, no explanation, just “You’re fired.” According to Newsweek:
I’m aware that HIV/AIDS is not really on Trump’s radar, and that the number of gay Republicans is probably miniscule, but what great timing it is to fire the whole group directly after Christmas. If I was a betting man, I’d wager none of those positions are ever filled while Trump is in office.
These are the same idiots who didn’t recognize Tim Kaine’s “Blue Star Family” pin and thought it was the Honduran flag.
It tells you who really has influence with Trump and who’s driving his agenda. That was a thank you note to the religious right. Yes, I know - Trump couldn’t quote a verse from the Bible if his life depended on it. Doesn’t matter. Trump and the religious right need each other, and he’s delivering his end of the bargain.
Ann, a quick google search tells me that Rush Limbaugh has been in radio since the 70s, though not national until the mid 80s. Still, he has been pushing his style of propaganda for decades. He gets an emotional reaction, and so people eat it up. And apparently some people really really need someone to blame, so his lifetime campaign of hating and strawmanning “liberals” has gathered much momentum.
Point is, people have been exposed to misinformation constantly, for many years. It will take more than one conversation to reach them. Don’t give up, and remember, it serves the interests of certain unscrupulous billionaires when the population is divided against itself, gumming up the works of democracy.