This describes several people I know who supported Trump, mainly wishing for “Change!” I don’t understand why someone wants CHANGE! if they are doing pretty well in life.
Nope, what you are talking about here is the perversion of environmentalism coming from interest groups using nativists as a resource.
Do not be fooled by them.
No, the play works as written. This is not me resisting a dramaturge; it’s me signalling that the end result for the purposes of choosing a path is a single voice.
But let’s discuss Option 2 a bit more. You say you don’t know how treat these people such that they’ll come back to reality.
First: you mean your view of reality, not an objective, measurable fact. Right? Because this is not a matter of objective, measurable fact. You cannot assign a weight to every concern and declare it to be the correct weight. How should a voter weigh Supreme Court nominations against global warming? You can’t say that’s “reality.”
So lesson one: stop claiming “reality.”
Lesson two: stop claiming superiority. If your attitude drips contempt, you won’t win converts. Clinton 42, Bill, never seemed to be contemptuous of his audience. Perhaps in private he shared identical sentiments, but I never remember him calling his opponents’ supporters deplorable. Bill was a likeable presence. You knew – we all knew – that he was a flawed guy in his personal life, but I think he could win a third term today. He connected with a crowd; people report that when they meet him, he had a way of focusing complete attention on you and for a moment you believed you were his top and only priority.
Which leads me to lesson 3: select a likable candidate. You may rail at the injustice of many of the accusations leveled at Secretary Clinton, and factually you’d be right to do so: many were bullshit. I said so myself about the e-mail business. But she was unlikeable from a charisma standpoint.
Lesson 4: as it pertains to lying. Select a candidate who knows how to lie successfully when needful.
I hope I don’t need to explain this. No candidate in 2008 was going to win the presidency professing support for same-sex marriage. If you happen to choose one that did, that candidate should conceal that truth in service of making it a reality. I have no idea if that’s what happened with Obama; in fact I accept his explanation that his views changed. Mine did. But as an illustration, the point remains valid. FDR lied to the country about neutrality while violating the Neutrality Act to prop up the UK. What a good thing he did.
Now, notice above that there is nothing in the above about moving rightwards or abandoning core Democratic principles. I personally wish you would, of course, but that’s not part of what I’m trying to convey here. I’m trying to point out that open contempt for those whose votes you wish to garner is unlikely to be a winning strategy. I’m saying that there are people who believe in the broccoli and can sell the broccoli without making the fen-fen users into objects of ridicule.
I don’t believe the substance of Trump proposals carried the day for him.
Way back in 1964, a guy named Marshall McLuhan wrote a book called, “Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man.” In that book he coined a phrase that’s eclipsed the rest of the tome in popularity: The medium is the message.
His thesis was basically that overriding the content of a message is the way it’s conveyed. I’m arguing that ol’ Marshall was correct: the way the Left felt about rural voters was a message more powerful than the substance of the proposals the Left offered them. The contempt in which journalists and pundits held much of flyover country was evident. The fact that Trump could say, to applause, “I love the uneducated,” was an illustration of the problem. The fact that the “deplorables,” label was so eagerly adopted by the very people it sought to demonize illustrates my point better than anything I could say.
You’re asking what policy points could the Left change, and I’m telling you it wasn’t the policy, but the delivery, that was the true message… or at least, the one with the greater impact.
So basically, if the Democrats had treated them like the rubes they were and made vague promises they couldn’t possibly keep…
Yes, it is the same way with the Trump supporters I know. They are doing fine. I know there are people out in rural areas whose lives are devastated because manufacturing jobs are so rare now, but those aren’t the Trump supporters I know personally. But the ones I know are still motivated by fear and hate. They hate how society is now accepting homosexuality as normal. They hate that society keeps telling them that Muslims are not the enemy. They hate how society keeps telling them they should feel guilty for preventing women and African Americans from the same opportunities white men have. They don’t see it that way. If you ask them, no one gave them any special favors so why should they feel guilty? There’s plenty to feel angry about if you really identify with that mentality, and Donald has given them a grenade to throw.
This is an excellent analogy, and deserves to be quoted in full. Well done.
Does the article-writer not know how incredibly condescending this paragraph is?
If the option was to have someone tell you that you’re not competent enough to decide for yourself, and that you need someone “more decent and talented than you” to help you, I’d wager most people would tell you to fuck right off, regardless of how well meaning or good those people actually were.
It’s giving a middle finger to someone effectively saying that they’re incompetent and/or somehow lesser than others- if that’s spite voting, then fine, but expecting people to feel differently is insane and dumb.
Nope.
Liberals simply cannot reconcile that more people creates more strain on the environment much in the same way they can’t criticize Islam but want women and gay rights.
See liberals don’t really respect people of color. When people of color do things that aren’t progressive, liberals pretend the problems doesn’t exist or give them a pass thinking they are victims of backward thought rather than respecting their choices. But they hold whites to a much higher standard. Any white who doesn’t hold progressive values is simply evil no matter what their circumstances and upbringing.
What you’re saying is: the left can’t even lead a horse to water, especially when the right is handing out free moonshine.
Yeah, that much has been made abundantly clear in this election.
Very underwhelming reply that counters nothing of what the report said.
Very silly non-sequitur.
And that is nowhere close to the point of the article cited. It does deal with the issue, you are ignoring the solution to fit your bias. Your reply here only betrays your reliance on nativist or supremacist sources.
Maybe that’s how they self identify?
The point is, is that we were going to end up eating brocolli or Fen-Fen. Slightly more than half of the coutnry wanted Broccoli, but we ended up with Fen-Fen.
I do not mean “my version of reality”, I mean reality. The world, where 1+1=2.
We can disagree on how to wait things, sure. But when we don’t even agree on reality, then we are a step behind.
We can discuss the merits of the costs of preserving the enivronment vs the economy, but if my oponent doesn’t “believe” in climate change, and also thinks that the economy works the same as his personal finances, then we will get no where.
It is not a matter of personal preference or wieghting or priorites, it is a matter that they are not capable of having this discussion. They will devolve into “Lock her up”'s and other meaningless slogans while I am trying to explain mean temperature variations of the northern atlantic.
How does that conversation go? How do you think that conversation should go?
Okay, but if I am no longer claiming reality, then I reserve the right to make shit up and ignore facts that disagree with my worldview. That way, at least we are both living in fantasy land. May as well enjoy it.
I try not to have an attitude of contempt, but it is difficult. When I am dealing with anti-vaxxers, 9/11 truthers, or moon hoaxers I try to listen to them seriously, and address their concerns and issues seriously, but it’s hard. And not only is it hard, it is also completely fruitless. They have made up their mind, and nothing will change that.
It’s like the scene from idiocracy where he is trying to tell them to use water on their crops, and they are making fun of the way he speaks. There is a reality in which water is better for crops than Brawndo, but it doesn’t matter the message, the audience refuses to listen, and instead just heckles the “elite”.
Define what is likeable. I liked Clinton. Lots of others did too. I hated Trump, lots of others did too.
You are saying that Trump is more likeable than Clinton? That makes me feel even worse for the country when I thought people were voting for him because they were bigots.
Should the dems put up a celebrity next time? Maybe a reality show star? You want some Snookie? Who would you suggest from the left we should put forward that you would think would be “likeable” to your friends and allies on the right? If you can’t think of anyone, then this lesson is a waste of everyone’s time.
Being good at policy and being charismatic are not always polar opposites, but they are not exactly correlated either.
Lesson learned from Trump. Lie constantly. Lie Big. Lie Bigly. Never acknowledge your lies. Always blame others for your inconsistencies. Never take personal responsibility. Never admit you were wrong.
This lesson at least, I think we learned quite well. Trump is a very successful liar, and he managed to lie his way into the highest office in the country.
In this analogy, we are all eating either broccoli or fen-fen. I’d rather force my broccoli on them, then let them force their fen-fen on me, because broccoli may be boring, but fen-fen is dangerous.
If the proponents of Fen-fen refuse to even look at the studies, and make fun of me for bringing them up, what exactly am I supposed to do? The only reason at all that they should not be mocked and ignored and excluded from decision making is because they make up a large population.
Just because many people believe something doesn’t make it true, but good luck getting someone to believe that.
If only.
Did you ever stop to think that the intellectual divide isn’t that those who disagree with you are stupid, but rather you do not understand in any way, shape or form what those who disagree with you value and you do not understand in any way shape or form what would make their life better?
Of course not.
Slee
As moronic mouth breathers?
That’s b.s.
A good environment policy doesn’t just benefit those who happen to agree with the science of climate change.
You know that how?
Look how they voted.
Bricker 2024!