Thanks for sharing! When I encourage empathy I don’t mean to suggest that anyone needs to take it on themselves to try to communicate with, understand, or persuade any MAGA supporters. I think it’s great if they do, because that’s the opposite of divisively putting up walls, but I agree with you that sort of thing can be incredibly taxing and corrosive.
I’m just not understanding why people think that antagonizing and belittling them is productive. I guess I have my perspective because I spent a lot of time trying to engage with and listen to my conservative connections (friends, relatives, acquaintances, strangers). When they understood that I was listening to them and not offering judgement, their most frequent complaint about liberals was not related to policies. Their most intensely emotional (sometimes rabidly angry) complain was about how social justice warriors (they frequently called them “libtards”) were generalizing and pigeonholing conservatives as evil, racist motherf*ers. These conservatives were frequently fearful of them, as well as extremely bent out of shape about being pigeonholed as any variant of deplorable simply because they were registered Republicans. Many of the people I spoke with specifically said they didn’t like Trump, but they were happy to vote for him anyway because obviously liberals hated him so much. They savored the chance to strike back and feel powerful, even if it meant electing a buffoon.
the problem is that if you quote their own words to them, you are being mean.
if you describe the things they support in clear language you are being mean.
if you actually name any of the things they do, or name what the things that the people they support do, or name what it is that the policies they favor cause you are being insensitive.
that it is somehow insensitive or mean to fail to take into consideration the feelings of the people wearing the “fuck your feelings” t-shirts while they shout you down.
it is remarkably hard to take any of your arguments seriously because reality is inherently antagonizing to the large percentage of trump supporters.
There is a large and growing contingent of Anti-Trump Republicans. There is an acceptable group for them to escape to if they are actually willing. But the people you describe are not willing. And they aren’t being honest with you. They aren’t deplorable because they are Republicans. It’s because they are perfectly OK with genocide/racism/bigotry/corruption and the downfall of American democracy in order to “pwn the libs.” And being OK with that IS deplorable. So it’s not the labels that other people give them that’s the problem. It is their own actions.
Many people get the most angry when their own bad actions are pointed out. They cannot accept their own banality, so they reject it and wear the mantle of victimhood instead of owning their mistakes. All the fucking time.
This is always the attitude of abusers and bullies. They feel weak and threatened so they strike out.
But it’s an internal problem. The world will never make them feel safe because their fears aren’t directly related to the real world. People will never be “nice” enough to quell this kind of fear.
There is always an excuse to lash out, they keep inventing them.
No one in this world lives free of ridicule or disagreement. But most of us don’t burn down the world in retaliation.
I don’t see a way out of this logical vortex where they hate liberals because they hate liberals because they hate liberals. As long as there are political parties, and propaganda channels spewing infotainment crying about how the other party is mean, there will be somebody sitting there soaking it up.
It’s not that they “hate” liberals. It’s that they have imagined that there is some evil force named “liberals” out to take their freedom hate on people who aren’t just like them. People who aren’t wiling to submit to a theocracy are the enemies to them. They will gladly see anyone who deviates from their world view dead.
The centuries of death and destruction is one reason why.
Supporting someone who is racist pretty much gets you pigeonholed as such.
Because we’re not people to them, but enemies to be destroyed. I just hope that many of us here are not dead bodies in pits in a few years.
Most “libtards” don’t want to be second class citizens and that’s ALL. If people think “liberals” asking for Black people not to be shot on the street, for women to be allowed to make their own medical decisions, for LBGQT+ people to be able to live freely, for religious minorities to be able to worship freely, etc, is “discrimination against conservatives” then they aren’t in favor of freedom. They want to be able to discriminate with impunity, in the most charitable terms possible.
It might not be productive but it feels good. They would just assume see me and most of us here dead, so I don’t really care if their precious feelings are hurt.
We can debate whether it was a majority or not. It was enough to make a big difference.
(No criticism or ‘tone’ intended, but if you have not read the article in full, I strongly recommend it. If you have and reject its arguments, fair enough, but it seems to me there is a compelling case being made, which informs at least one strand of political strategy as to how to get back from this madness in the longer term. It deserves to be taken seriously.)
Antagonising and belittling them is not productive in stopping the continued death and destruction. Action like voting will (might?)
And I know you know this - that was not intended as any barb. That was a precursor to me saying that there are much more drastic actions that will stop it - and may ultimately be necessary - again - but the community policy here prevents me stating them.
At the same time
… is an entirely understandable position and one I also fully support. It just isn’t enough, is all (very obviously).
I’m linking a BB article on a series of videos that I found helpful for thinking about the asymmetries between the liberals and conservatives with regard to discourse on the internet.
Innuendo Studios presents this as being about alt-right but the asymmetry has existed in John Birch or HUAC or The Paranoid Style or whatever for much longer than the internet.
The asymmetry is essentially the same as the asymmetry between two kids, one who believes in sharing and the other who does not. It means that the kid who believes in sharing ends up with fewer cookies. If one group believes in tolerance (including tolerance of intolerant people) and the other group does not, then the tolerant group will be pushed out. That is just the logic of the situation.
But the meritocracy is literally the fundamental platform of the Trump GOP. Not only does Trump say that his being rich is proof that those with merit are rewarded, but he literally campaigned in merit-based immigration policy on top of merit-based federal programs in other areas. On top of all that, he said that socialism (i.e. shorthand for giving handouts to all and treating people as equal despite not deserving it) is the only thing that the Democrats have constantly.
Like, this is the most pants on head take of why populism worked I have ever heard. Even those politicians referenced are centrist types who adopted the right-wing use of meritocracy to appeal to the middle.
These are I think the salient points here. Shifting responsibility to the people you hate is abuse 101. If your whole goal is to own the libs, to the point where you are willing to collapse a country and have thousands die, it should be no surprise you also claim it’s the libs’ own fault. Telling people look what they made you do it is instinctive to bullies, as even small children figure out.
It doesn’t actually mean they were going to do anything differently. It doesn’t mean it’s their real motivation, just that they think they can hurt you with the idea that you might deserve it, or sucker you into trying to appease them first. Bullies are not a reliable source as to why they are bullying or how to get them to stop.
There are people who claim to be moderate, but the Overton window skews so far to the right in the US that they would be considered to be solidly conservative in other countries.
