Yeah, I think they worry about being treated the same way they’ve treated others when the shoe is on the other foot and they’re the minority group.
Their voting rights stripped, violent cops policing them, government ignores their problems, being treated as an outsider, etc.
It is perfectly reasonable to fear those things.
So how about instead of trying to prevent the march of history you instead stop treating the downtrodden as shit and in fact work to make them un-downtrodden in the first place? The equality you wisely create will serve you well when you’re on the increasingly unstoppably short end of that stick.
It’s entirely the difference between “immediate self interest” and “enlightened self interest”. One leads to disaster, the other to success. And yet over and over vast swaths of humanity willingly choose disaster.
I don’t know if there is a psychological term for it, but its kind of like the spiral of abuse.
You mistreat someone, then you become afraid of retaliation, so you mistreat them more, which makes you fear retaliation more, which makes you more abusive, etc.
There’s a Biblical example of that, in Exodus:
"Look,” he (the king of Egypt) said to his people, “the Israelites have become far too numerous for us. Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.” So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and worked them ruthlessly. "
I think it’s that they don’t trust that treating the opposing side nicely, at this point, will make the other side be nice to them back in return.
It would be like Saddam and the Sunnis saying to the Shias around 2000, “We’ll be nice to you and let you have power for once.” The Shias could very well have seized the chance to arrest Saddam and his Ba’athists and hanged them.
If right wingers in the USA fear the gallows at the hands of fellow Americans, there’s no-one to blame but the RW media monster. That’s just a wee bit over the top.
? WTF is all this talk of being “nice” and “letting” people have power? Don’t right-wingers have any understanding of the principles of a functioning democracy, where both sides abide by the same rules and work for equality and prosperity for all, instead of the dominant side just using every trick and tyranny it can think of to keep its boot on the other side’s neck? Obeying the rule of law and the will of the majority isn’t just an optional act of “niceness” to “let” somebody else have power “for once”. That’s supposed to be the chief fucking difference between a country like Saddam’s Iraq and one like the United States of America.
Republicans have just completely lost their shit over the realization that the USA is not in fact guaranteed to be overwhelmingly run by straight white Christian men 100% of the time, haven’t they?
Sure, hanging may be an exaggeration, but the concepts stands: An oppressor can’t expect kindness from the oppressed. Add to that that most Trumpers couldn’t/wouldn’t see themselves as oppressors in the first place, and the idea is a total nonstarter.
To the extent that there’s truth to this – and I think there’s considerable truth to it – when the Great Leader and master con man himself starts to be perceived as a loser, and his own cons start catching up to him, then the thing begins to unravel very quickly. I think this is happening now. The master con man somehow managed to stay on top of his game despite losing the election, appearing like a preening superstar in front of his adoring acolytes as late as around noon on Jan 6. Then just a few hours later, it all started falling apart. Of course he enjoyed the riot as a mark of his own power, but only because he was too fucking stupid to understand the consequences that would follow.
But the whole point of a democracy with protection for the rights of individuals is that we can renounce oppression, and choose a better life for all, without having to depend on “kindness from the oppressed” to protect the rights of the former oppressors.
I remember back when it was reasonable to assume that Republicans understood that.
I’m insulting? Listen to yourself, man. Bold type, italics and all. Why don’t you just type everything in CAPS to show how superior you are?
As to your first point, Bernie Sanders is a joke of a politician. His greatest legislative success is the Cancer Registries Amendment Act from 28 years ago. Beyond that, he’s a gadfly. His only other successes have been to amend other people’s bills to try and make them more liberal. He’s not even a Democrat, except when he wants to run for President. You want me to concede that he’s a better person that Donald Trump? Sure, he’s got much better moral character. But he has terrible policy ideas, no record of getting anything major accomplished, and is divisive within his own caucus, never mind the entire US nation. Hijack over. Feel free to rebut my response, but this thread isn’t about Sanders so that’s my last comment on him.
For your second point, you’re raising a good topic that I didn’t. The Republican Party has failed Trump supporters as well. They had 17 candidates in the 2016 primary, and their voters picked Trump. Other posters have noted the rightwards movement in American conservatism, and how it was fuelled by Rush Limbaugh and Fox news. The Republican Party chose to ride that rightward movement. It’s no surprise that the Republican base moved right when the party leaders embraced the most reactionary elements within the party, and rejected many of the values of Republican moderates.
I’ll go further. The Republican Party has frankly had a terrible 21st century. They started it with the George W. Bush election, and then a nationwide surge of patriotism following 9/11. Then they squandered it with the war in Iraq and a failure to invest in areas that were being left behind by technological change and globalisation. I’m not a fan of massive government programs, or subsidies for dying industries. However, there needs to be recognition that if industries and regions are being sacrificed for the greater good, then that sacrifice needs to be repaid with jobs programs, incentives for other industries to move in, and seed investment for the creation of new businesses. Bush did very little of that despite the increase in global trade based on the treaties signed by Clinton and the rapid technological changes and opportunities occurring from the Internet. After Bush, the Republicans were also terrible in opposition. Their entire agenda was to obstruct Obama, rather than to try and legislate better alternatives. It’s no wonder that the people who became Trump supporters were fed up with government and the Republican establishment. Feel free to label this as a failure of rational conservatism. I agree. Trump picked the right time to be a Presidential candidate when the voters who became his supporters were angry at everyone. Turns out though, that as much as they disliked the Republican establishment, they disliked liberals and Democrats more.
On you third point, that the liberal actions that I’m objecting to amount to “chastising the liberals when they call out falsehood and delusion and science-rejectionism and “alternative facts” for what they are.”, you’re not reading very well. If the only opprobrium from liberals against Trump supporters was a rejection of climate change denial and similar head-in-the-sand positions, then the partisan gap would be almost entirely one-way from the conservative side. However, there’s a common theme from liberals that Trump supporters are “the hate-filled, the ignorant and the greedy.” I’m objecting to that message, and pointing out that anyone in 2016 or 2020 who was supporting Trump and received the message that that’s how the Trump opposition viewed them was going to dig in and keep right on supporting Trump because they viewed it as better than the alternative. And apparently, many still feel that way, even after this week’s events.
Why would you object to the truth?
These people are willing to overturn a democratically elected governement. They are in word and deed similar to Fascists in 20th century Europe. The fact that you seem to be unwilling to acknowledge that doesn’t make it any less factual.
Let’s call a spade a spade.
Ya, I think. I seem to recall that Hillary lost an election by referring to Trump supporters as a ‘basket of deplorables’. Funny how words work, ain’t it?
He’s a dirty-diaper Rorshach blot. He’s learned how to use a mix of ambiguous phrasing and dog-whistles so that people see what they want to see. He leans harder on whatever makes him popular.
The thing that made him most popular with everyone from rabid white supremacists to irate church organists is white grievance (partially in the fig-leaf guise of tax resentment and religious anxiety). It’s white people angry that other people are permitted to partake in national prosperity and freedom of speech, without first elevating whiteness to a safe height.
That’s all it is.
Please cite that quote for me.
I seem to remember she called racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, or Islamophobic people a basket of deplorables.
Are you claiming that all Trump supporters are racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, or Islamophobic?
Ever think that maybe the reason it happened is because they feel that nobody’s listening? Biden is about the worst actor when it’s comes to communication that we’ve seen on the political scene for years. He didn’t campaign, has said little, and when he has said something, he inevitably sticks his foot in his mouth. Conservatives want a voice in government, and Trump was the only choice they were given, this time around. Covid lockdowns and unemployment fueled the fires of discontent. Biden hasn’t offered any solutions except for more of the same. Trump actually claimed to see light at the end of the tunnel. When people are desperate, someone offering them a positive outcome may be worth fighting for.
There are many factors, but two of which come to mind are that he was already familiar to us and he was perceived as being powerful. People are subconsciously attracted to people they regard as powerful. Humans are social creatures. We’re hierarchical creatures. Somebody has to be in charge. He played the part well, even when he was in over his head.
Even if it is all lies.
You are correct that people would rather hear a comforting lie than an uncomfortable truth.
But that is not an excuse, that is actually the problem. People who will discard the truth and abandon reality should not be coddled and given more lies to cling to.
She said half of his supporters were deplorables, and then apologized for it later, saying she didn’t mean all. Regardless, it played a big part in her losing the election. Look up ‘basket of deplorables’ on Wikipedia if you want to look into it further.