Another way to increase communication across party lines:
It focuses on emotions and understanding needs and internal conflict rather than projecting our interpretation of the other party’s policy choices onto our understanding of the other person. Recognising what triggers the other person and dealing with them at that level. For many of those who aren’t in the basket of deplorables, getting them past Maslov’s second level is one step toward eroding support for someone like Trump. And even if we think that people’s fears are unfounded (Muslims won’t take over America, illegal immigrants aren’t threatening your job, there is no war on Christianity etc.), we should recognise that those feelings are there and that ridiculing them won’t make them go away.
While I don’t have any family that voted for Trump, I do have friends (“friends”) that did, and my strategy has been to avoid them completely and pretend they don’t exist.
There’s this idea I have encountered that Trump supporters can be described as “not all bad” or “definitely all bad” or things like that. I personally can’t draw a line between “Trump supporter but maybe not that bad of a person deep down inside or whatever” and “Trump supporter and definitely a fascist”, because I don’t think the line really exists. I can’t put different Trump supporters all on the same level of fascism or racism etc, but I also can’t put them on some kind of fascist scale.
And I don’t think it would be relevant. I’m not going to sort people into redeemable and unredeemable because:
there is no intrinsic property of a person that makes them a Trump supporter or a fascist or a racist, and
it is not my job to redeem them.
But, I may still end up having a conversation with a Trump supporter at some point so I have to ask myself what I would do, and I think there’s a time for asking questions like this (the SPLC’s guide on this was good) and there’s a time for public shaming (http://boingboing.net/2016/11/19/twitterbot-experiment-suggests.html), and sometimes they go hand in hand. When we calmly ask people questions and try to encourage them to understand a different view, we are not doing it to be nice, and when we tell them that they’re doing something wrong and hurtful and try to make them feel shame for it, we are not doing it to be mean. We are doing all of those things because they are necessary.
That being said, no one is obligated to talk to their gross family members about why they voted for a fascist- you have every right to decide your own boundaries and you do what you can.
Unfortunately this supposes that the appeal of candidates to some intellectual ideas about policy and not to some gut instinct about what a leader should feel like.
I know several family members who are Trump voters. None of them like Trump; they’ve all said he’s inexperienced, scary, a buffoon, ridiculous, or a guy with terrifying ideas. But none of them could bring themselves to vote for Hillary – for various shallow and ridiculous reasons, each of them loathe her deeply, but none wanted to waste their vote on either Johnson or Stein. And none of them expected Trump to actually win, and sound shocked and regretful.
I just realized, there is a version of the Niemöller quote from Jello Biafra that might be hitting closer to home:
Call the shots from the White House
But now that we own the media too
Those stories just aren’t run
You see emergency, total war
You see emergency, total war
You see a black face, you see a crackhead
You see a black face, you see a crackhead
You see a black face, you see Willie Horton with a knife
You see Willie Horton with a knife
You see one Willie Horton you’ve seen them all
They’re everywhere, I know
You asked for it, you’ve got it
Drug suspects have no rights at all
Property seized and sold before trial
Labor camps on American soil
Neo-Nazi bootboys
That the cops never seem to arrest
Prowl neighborhoods with baseball bats
Why do they get so much press?
Mein Kampf, the mini series
Oliver North, “patriotic” hero
The leader for tomorrow is yours today
Finally gotcha psyched for a police state
As the noose of narco-militarism
Tightens around your necks
We worry about burning flags
And pee in jars at work
To keep our jobs
But if someone came for you one night
And dragged you away
Do you really think your neighbors
Would even care?
Do you really think your neighbors
Would even care?
Trump for president, he’ll get things done
(Embrace the red, white and blue Reich)
Trump for president, he’ll get things done
(Embrace the red, white and blue Reich)
Trump for president, he’ll get things done
(Embrace the red, white and blue Reich)
From: Jello Biafra and DOA: Full Metal Jackoff
I left out some verses and changed the name in the last verse but still…
Of course, to determine who really are your opponents requires talking with (and listening to) people. Simply lumping all your relatives who voted for Trump into the same group of yahoos who cheered at his horrendous portrayals of “out groups” ignores the other reasons people voted for him (or against Hillary) and is actually an effective way of further isolating communities, not finding our shared concerns.
Find out why they voted the way they did, and don’t just assume it was for all of the worst reasons.
Identify points of commonality, and start there to work towards shared goals. That will force them to take you seriously instead of just ignoring you as “the crazy liberal” that they don’t know.
If, at the end of the conversation, you find out that they really are too far gone to contend with, so be it. But your estrangement should be based on something more tangible than generalizations and assumptions.
Personally, I detest Clinton. She’s a warmongering, authoritarian, corporatist, and every other word out of her mouth is a lie so transparent as to be insulting. Her campaign’s actions during the primary make it clear that they are unfit to hold power. Her only redeeming quality is that she’s not Trump. I would never hold it against someone if their conscience wouldn’t let them hold their nose and vote for her, but none of that is any excuse whatsoever for voting for Trump.
I don’t argue against listening to people - on the contrary. But listening to people to devine motives that they might or might not have but are unwilling to express:
seems the wrong way to go about it. Take Trump voters seriously by acknowledging that they voiced their support for this right wing narcissist. If you assume they did so because they did not support him, then you are not really taking them serious.
Sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from evil. If their actions result in a racist, fascist administration, then they are racists and fascists, regardless of what they claim their intent was.
Yeah, that is a bad idea. See you are just feeding the beast. They aren’t going to agree that Trump has “proto-fascistic tendencies”, so you are just creating conflict. It would be the same as if they asked you if supporting the Democrats means you are “comfortable supporting a Communist regime that wants to destroy America”.
I keep posting this, and I will keep posting it because I think everyone needs to see it. If you wonder how someone can vote against their best interests, or how they see all the ugliness and still think it is a better choice, show them this, but also be prepared to acknowledge you do the same thing in many ways.
Certainly some people voted for Trump because they do like everything campaigned on. Many others are in the grasp of political tribalism. Those people can become potential voices of dissent if they can put principles and values over a party. The Party is not God, it doesn’t require unerring faith. Your principles and the American ideals should trump any politics. Speaking out for what is right is just that. Being against a law Trump proposed will be seen as pro-Democrat - because EVERYTHING in politics is a “us or them”. Everyone needs to stop thinking this way - realize it is all “us”, and be vocal about any laws that compromise our liberty.
The first time Trump appoints someone who isn’t a lunatic to his cabinet, or proposes a sensible policy, and it doesn’t have some racist or sexist rider attached to it, I’ll support it.
IMHO - if people like that don’t regain the political party, the Republicans are going to go the way of the Whigs. Which maybe is fine, if we got something better.
Maybe I ultimately don’t want to be reconciled with someone who voted in a fascist, either because they did so knowingly or they’re just that stupid. Not being tolerant of fascists doesn’t make me as bad as fascists. That’s some “you’re actually the racist person for pointing out racism”-level supreme bullshit, there. Being accepting of racism is the problem.
You’ve pretty much invoked every anti-Clinton shibboleth out there, I think you’re parroting the right-wing smear machine, but whatever, I guess it doesn’t matter now. And I can still disagree with you (as with Trump supporters) without hating you or them personally.
While this sounds pithy its simply not true. I voted for Obama and he kept Guantanamo open despite his campaign promises. That doesn’t make me pro Guantanamo.
Despite his best intentions, yes. He specifically ordered it closed twice, issuing executive orders after having been blocked by Congress, but they were ignored. His release of prisoners from Guantanamo was the most he could do without Congress’ backing.
They only want small government when it comes to business or guns. If it involves a woman’s body or what she wants to do with it or people other than Christians or same sex marriage or minorities, then the government has to be as big as possible.
