I was on the verge of becoming involved in a spirited political discussion when some person spewed out the line, “Yeah, but they’re all a bunch of crooks.” At which point, I kind of backed away.
I mean I do indeed find myself pretty disillusioned with most of “them”. My ideas and ideals are somewhat off the map, but the fact that no candidate/politician comes close to where I am at is not a deterrent to me. I try to advocate toward where I think we should be and not feel to let down that we are not getting there fast enough.
The dismissive “they’re all crooks” is particularly frustrating. Immediately, you realize the person saying it means, “fuck it, it’s hopeless, nothing I do will matter.” Which, I guess, is fine, there is one less idiot you have to deal with. But then it hangs over the conversation like some poisonous cloud, which kind of smells a little like “rapists, fraudsters, pickpockets, jaywalkers, they’re all about the same.” It is like the evil are dragging the somewhat unpleasant down with them, along with any hope of even incremental progress.
My question is, when someone drops this turd into the punchbowl, what do you do? How does one prevent adamant cynicism from stifling meaningful dialog?
“People feel a little bit reluctant to take sides.”
“I have an unusual position. I think that some of our reps are pretty good.” This one requires preparation. You have to have some reps in your back pocket who are pretty good. Unfortunately, Rush Holt retired and Al Franken embarrassed us.
Discuss how false equivalence empowers the worst players.
ETA: “The funny thing is that everybody jumps all over the government, while I think there are far worse aspects of society. Advertisers are pretty sleazy.” The problem I guess is that the government doesn’t have its own lobby or advertising campaign. Ironic!"
My son is fond of saying that. I have talked a blue streak trying get my 3 kids to stand up for something, anything and go vote their opinions. They just don’t have the drive to care. I have rarely missed voting, and I always talk it up to my kids, friends and extended family, encouraging them to go vote. I am basically mild mannered, but in my family I am considered the political one. Sad.
It’s not hard to believe nowadays with the blatant bullshit that the Trump train shovels out as filet mignon, or the overall ineffectuality of Washington even before then, but the point I would make to the politically indifferent is that it’s defeatist. There’s no chance anything will change if they sit on their hands.
I think you have to separate two similar, but importantly different, statements. First “all politicians are crooked” and “Everyone in government will lie to you”. More and more on the talk shows, I hear pundits express the latter, that every politician and their spokespeople will lie to you. They aren’t saying they lie all the time, but that is the implication. Thrump certainly lies at the most extreme rate of any politician I’ve ever seen. One cannot trust anything he says, nor the word of any of those close to him.
Yet, one has to really try hard to find instances of lies from many politicians. Most are careful about what they say, and most will never tell you everything they know to be true about a proposal or situation, but that isn’t the same as lying. The politicians whose actions are motivated by extreme political philosophy (most Republicans) do, on occasion, lie their asses off.
right now, in order to preserve their ability to get legislation favorable to their fatcat sponsors passed, congressional Republicans have learned how to kiss Thrump’s ass at every opportunity. They even participate in the “tell me how much you love me” Thrump sessions that I find to be vomit inducing. Any Republican who says anything favorable about the Thrump’s goal and methods is simply an ass-kissing rump fed runion.
When someone says “they are all a bunch of crooks”, the actual situation is likely that they have come to realize that someone they thought was a straight shooter was actually just another of the long line of liars. So, instead of admitting they had bad judgment, they deflect by say that “everyone” is a liar, “everyone” is a crook. Welcome to the Republican party, youngster.
I’ve had this used a number of times as an ‘out’ when I’m talking with a not-very-knowledgeable conservative who brings up a political issue, thinking I’ll have to agree with him (it’s usually a ‘him’), but who finds himself quickly over his head in the discussion.
I suspect the trouble with a lot of politicians is that, in a sense, they aren’t lying: they genuinely persuade themselves that the counterfactual is true, and that’s the problem.
I think there are several reasons why people say this, and in no case is arguing with the person going to be of much use:
They really don’t care about politics, and are too lazy to do the work of researching individual politicians and finding out that there are, in fact, meaningful differences between them, so they use “They’re all crooks” as a kind of excuse for not caring.
They do care about politics, but have far left / far right / otherwise way-out-of-the-mainstream views, and no mainstream politician is going to be satisfactory to them.
They care about politics and have a preference, but they know that other people in the conversation are of diametrically opposite political views, and “They’re all crooks” is code for “Let’s agree to disagree, and talk about something else before somebody gets stabbed with a dinner fork.”
They know, in their heart of hearts, that a particular politician THEY support is a crook, and “They’re all crooks” is a way of evading responsibility; if all the others are crooks TOO, then people can’t fault them for being a fan of this crook.
#3 and #4 are being disingenuous, so persuasion isn’t going to be of much use there. #1 and #2 genuinely believe what they are saying (although in #1’s case, mostly because he/she has heard it so many times from other people), but are probably not persuadable.
I hear “all politicians lie” a lot as a defense of Trump. While it’s probably true that all politicians have told a lie, not all politicians have a goal of discrediting the idea of truth itself. Similar thing with the crooks line. There are levels. Most politicians compromise, but that doesn’t mean they’re all blatantly corrupt.
I meet up with some good friends I used to work with once a month at a bar. One time a few years ago, a burly buzz-cut stranger sat down amongst our group and the third sentence out of his mouth was “What do you guys think of Obama?” We just shut him down by saying that we were there to have a good time so we do not talk politics.
The direct approach is often preferable to bullshit (and it involves no poison in the well).
I’d say to these people, “Ok, well wouldn’t you rather have a crook who tries to protect the environment, or fund an ambitious national project like Kennedy did with the Space Program that results in technological advances and overall morale for the country, or makes an effort to avoid war through effective diplomacy, or whatever, than a crook who DOESN’T do any of those things?”
They’ve been persuaded that uttering cynical remarks (such as ‘they’re all crooks’) will lead others to believe that they are intelligent.
This is a common belief; it’s often employed by advertisers. Dozens of ad campaigns currently on display use the basic formula ‘You can’t fool ME; I’m just too smart!!!’ (Liberty Mutual: “no, I picked the wrong insurance COMPANY!”; Neutrogena “Oh, look… Another anti-wrinkle cream in no hurry to make anything happen”; or the old Sprite campaign “Image is nothing, thirst is everything.”)
So saying ‘they’re all crooks’ permits the speaker to feel “smart” and above being fooled, as well as to broadcast his or her supposed superiority to others.
Good politicians master the art of saying nothing while flapping their lips when they don’t want to answer a question. Trump, on the other hand, isn’t good at much of anything. He isn’t even a good liar.
Heh. Good one (since there’s no way to escape that little catch, I guess. :-D)
Like most successful techniques of persuasion, this one–getting people to do stuff or believe stuff because they want to look smart–works because it plays on a nearly-universal human foible. (I say ‘nearly’ only to allow for those rare souls who manage not to greatly care what others think of them; I’m not among them, but I believe they exist. ^_^)
